'WE COULD BORE OURSELVES TO DEATH, DRINK OURSELVES TO DEATH, OR HAVE A BIT OF AN ADVENTURE...' When they retired Terry and Monica Darlington decided to sail their canal narrowboat across the Channel and down to the Mediterranean, together with their whippet Jim. They took advice from experts, who said they would die, together with their whippet Jim. On the Phyllis May you dive through six-foot waves in the Channel, are swept down the terrible Rhone, and fight for your life in a storm among the flamingos of the Camargue. You meet the French nobody meets - poets, captains, historians, drunks, bargees, men with guns, scholars, madmen - they all want to know the people on the painted boat and their narrow dog. You visit the France nobody knows - the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, the heavenly Yonne, the lost Burgundy Canal, the islands of the Saone, and the forbidden ways to the Mediterranean. Aliens, dicks, trolls, vandals, gongoozlers, killer fish and the walking dead all stand between our three innocents and their goal - many-towered Carcassonne.

"From Virginia to Florida in an English canal boat.
Join the authors of "one of the most hilarious travel memoirs ever written"* on a wild odyssey aboard one of the most unlikely craft ever to sail U.S. waters.
"No one had ever sailed an English narrowboat in the U.S. before--for reasons that become clear when Terry Darlington, his wife, Monica, and their well-traveled dog, a whippet named Jim, begin a nine-month voyage down the 1,150-mile Intracoastal Waterway. But no sooner do they set out in the seven-foot-wide "Phyllis May" than they encounter an ice storm in Virginia and piranhas in North Carolina. The Georgia coast is a madman's jigsaw and in Florida the alligators wait patiently for Jim. But as they wend their way through golden marshes, incomparable cities, and lost arcadias, the intrepid trio aboard the beautiful painted boat reveals a South few of us have ever seen. And with frequent stops to dine on sweet tea, grits, and the freshest of the day's catch, they make plenty of strange companions along the way--from wayfarers stopping to give Jim a good scratch behind the ears to ex-CIA agents and the Good Ole Boys of the Deep South--and discover that everyone has a story they're only too willing to share.
Beautifully written, lovingly observed and very funny, Narrow Dog to Indian River takes you on a dangerous, surprising, and always entertaining journey through the wonderland of the South.
"*Booklist
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""We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure..." "It was absurd. It was foolhardy. And it was glorious. When they retired, Terry Darlington and his somewhat saner wife Monica--together with their dog, a whippet named Jim--chucked their earthbound life and set out in an utterly unseaworthy sixty-foot canal narrowboat across the notoriously treacherous English Channel and down to the South of France.
Aboard the "Phyllis May, " you'll dive through six-foot waves in the Channel and be swept down the terrible Rhone. You'll meet the French nobody meets--poets, captains, scholars, madmen; they all want to know the couple on the painted boat and their narrow dog. You'll visit the France nobody knows--the backwaters of Flanders, the canals beneath Paris, and the forbidden routes to the wine-dark Mediterranean Sea. Aliens, trolls, gongoozlers, killer fish, and the walking dead all stand between our two-person, one-whippet crew and their goal: the ancient, many-towered city of Carcassonne.
A tale of travel, travail, dubious wine, a balky pump, and a boat built for only a few feet of water, this exuberantly inventive and hugely entertaining odyssey of the spirit, senses, and heart will enchant lovers of France, England, and all that lies between.

At seventy-five, Terry and Monica Darlington had done everything they could think of doing, including starting a business and becoming athletes and running a literary society.Lately they had become boating adventurers and Terry a bestselling writer. But in their Midlands canal town in November, life was looking dull and short on surprises. Then their famous canal boat was destroyed by fire. Within a few days they had bought a new one and soon headed north in the Phyllis May 2 - to Liverpool, Lancaster, the Pennines and Wigan Pier. Terry recorded the journey, and alongside it the story of his life and his marriage and his dog Jim, with his broken ear like a flat cap, and Monica's dog Jess, known with heartbreaking reason as the Flying Catastrophe. Funny, affecting and beautifully told, this is a story that brims with incident and excitement, and is full of the famous and fascinating people the Darlingtons have met - a story of an adventurous life well lived.

Having survived their voyage to Carcassonne, you might expect pensioners Terry and Monica Darlington and their whippet, Jim, to retire to a comfortable corner of their favourite pub. But no, they looked to the New World for an extraordinary new adventure... No-one had ever sailed an English narrowboat in the US before, for reasons that became abundantly clear during the 9-month voyage of the Phyllis May - including 30-mile sea crossings, blasting heat, tornadoes, hurricanes and all manner of intimidating wildlife. But the real danger came from the locals: the Good Ole Boys and Girls of the Deep South. Colonels, bums, captains, planters, heroes, drunks, gongoozlers, dancing dicks and beautiful spies - they all want to meet the Brits on the narrow painted boat and their thin dog and take them home and party them to death. Beautifully written, lovingly observed, and very funny, Narrow Dog to Indian River takes you on a dangerous, surprising and always entertaining journey as a thousand miles of the little-known South-East Seaboard unfold at six miles an hour- the golden marshes of the Carolinas, the incomparable cities of Charleston and Savannah, and the lost arcadias of Georgia and Florida.