Rime of the Ancient Underwriter
How I Stowed the Day Job and Went To Sea / by Jim Salmon
Illustrated by Jan Mercuri Grossman
We all have those days, the days when we think to ourselves: "I wish I could just get away from it all."
Jim Salmon did much more than think these words in 2000 when he left his job as an insurance underwriter and embarked on a nineteen-month trip around the world. Rime of the Ancient Underwriter is his humorous and engaging personal account of the journey on board the Picton Castle, out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The world voyage was the subject of a popular, sixteen-part series on Canadian cable television called Tall Ship Chronicles.
The author weathered storms at sea and stormy relations aboard ship, tramped through a steamy Panamanian jungle, climbed the rarified summit of Kilimanjaro, and tracked wildlife on the high plains of East Africa and the Australian Outback. There are pirates and a mutiny, but mostly this account is about people, places, and the human condition as seen through the eyes of a corporate exec turned seafarer.
About the Author
For Jim Salmon, sailing around the world was a lifelong dream. His father crewed on the arctic schooner Bowdoin with Captain Donald MacMillan in the 1920s. His ancestors commanded Navy ships in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and many a Nantucket whaler in between, including the ill-fated whaleship Essex, the inspiration for Melville's Moby Dick.
Jim lives with his wife in Conway, New Hampshire where he serves on various non-profit boards, and has worked as a part-time high school teacher and part-time schooner captain. His Friendship Sloop Kumatage is moored in Falmouth Harbor, Maine.
288 pp, Paperback
ISBN 978-0-9845921-4-2
Publication Date: June 30, 2012
Price: $18.95
FEBRUARY DREAMING OF WARMER CLIMES SPECIAL: $15.00!
