Sailing Away from Winter

Cruising World review by Myron Arms

2008-05-05T14:57:00.003-04:00

Sailing Away from Winter by Silver Donald Cameron($26; 2006;McClelland and Stewart, www.mcclelland.com). Is there still adventure and white-knuckle danger in a passage from Atlantic Canada to the white-sand beaches of the Bahamas? The answer for this intrepid Canadian sailing couple and their geriatric dog, Leo, is a resounding yes. As they wander down the length of the Eastern Seaboard, celebrated Canadian author Cameron and his wife, Marjorie, travel more than 3000 miles, surviving a series of near catastrophes and meeting a cast of unforgettable characters along the way. Winter is a must-read, both for those who've already made such a journey and for those who dream of doing so.

Myron Arms Cruising World March 2008

Review by Halifax writer Rob Dunbar

2008-03-17T20:13:00.001-04:00

Sailing Away from Winter

Rob Dunbar

After reading the first page of Sailing Away From Winter I immediately realized that I had forgotten what a good writer Silver Donald Cameron is. Unlike many sailing adventure books, Cameron shies away from writing a glorified log book but rather makes the reader feel that he is in the cockpit of “Magnus” and experiences the joys of sailing in a fair wind on a sunny day to the unending frustration of a finicky and somewhat unreliable diesel engine that is maintained by a bilge dwelling scurvy crew of evil Norwegian trolls.

While slipping southwards from his homeport of D’Escousse, Silver Donald makes port in such historic Nova Scotia locales as Canso, Halifax, Lunenburg and Yarmouth and then onward to crossing the Bay of Fundy and entering our beloved neighbour, the United States of America. Here we learn that not many Americans on the New England Coast are fans of President George W. Bush as evidenced by many bumper stickers “Needed: One florist to send two Bushes to Iraq”

One common thread in Cameron’s many works is his love affair with Cape Breton. During the entire southward voyage Magnus pursues long time friend and fellow Cape Bretoner’s Jim and Carol-Anne Organ, of Port Hawkesbury, aboard Seaduction. In the Abacos the crews of the two Cape Breton vessels rendezvous after cruising more than 3000 miles away from their beloved island. If there’s one thing about Cape Bretoner’s as the song goes “ One thing I know wherever I go there’s always friends from back home”.

From a sailor’s perspective I found that Cameron’s latest work can be used as a reference book for those of us planning to navigate the Intracoastal Waterway while keeping company with the family pet, a travel guide of good marinas to stay at and those to sail by and maybe most importantly a guide for diesel engine repair. As any seasoned cruiser knows: The sailing is the easy part of the cruise, it’s knowing how to fix things that really count.

Fine review in The Working Waterfront of Rockland, Maine, March 2008

2008-03-13T08:42:00.006-04:00

REVIEW
Sailing Away From Winter: A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond
by Silver Donald Cameron
Reviewed by DAVID D. PLATT

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
Soft cover: 368 pp.
$17.95 U.S., 2007

Getting There is 99 Percent of the Fun

Cruising books are a genre, like biographies, self-help books or stories about vampires. A few cruising books (Joshua Slocum comes to mind) are so good that they become classics. Many are truly forgettable, and a small number are pretty good. Sailing Away From Winter falls into this last category. As I began reading it I told a friend, “Cameron seems to be an average writer I never heard of with a story that interests me.” So I read on, and after a while I was really hooked: Cameron’s a very good writer, as it turns out, and he has told his tale in a particularly interesting way.

He begins with the important elements of the cruise he has planned: the boat, his wife, his dog, his destination. A newspaperman and columnist for several Canadian papers with at least one earlier book under his belt, Cameron has planned his trip from the Maritimes to the Bahamas, he says, for 20 years. But until he and his crew start out in 2004, circumstances haven’t allowed him to realize his dream.

“A boat is a basket of dreams,” he states at the outset. “When you acquire a boat — or more accurately, when you are captured by a boat — dreams flower as inevitably as dandelions on the lawn.” Cameron’s dreams are of warm waters, coral reefs, a particular place in the Bahamas and the route one might take to reach such a place. He recounts various conversations with his wife, whose role in this story reminds me, at least, of Alice Trillin, the late wife of New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin. Like Alice, Marjorie Cameron is the long-suffering but game co-conspirator in the author’s venture. Both wives indulge their husbands, and in so doing allow the husbands to expose, ever so gently, their crazy inner-man selves. The tolerant but practical traveling companion can become a travel writer’s cliché, of course, but Marjorie remains interesting and individual to the end of the book.

Leo is the Camerons’ dog, an elderly whippet who seems headed for the finish line as the story opens, but who (with considerable help from skipper and wife) rises to the occasion and makes it to the Bahamas. The best tales about Leo have to do with his bladder, which requires trips ashore at regular intervals. Usually we get there, but there are adventures from time to time.

The boat the Camerons select for their adventure is called the Magnus, a Viksund MS-33 center-cockpit, ketch-rigged motor sailer. She is named Pumpkin when Cameron first visits her in Detroit, and after being shipped to Nova Scotia and rebuilt (by Cameron and friends) she’s re-named for seven Norwegian and two Swedish kings whose shared name meant “great” and who variously fostered domestic peace, law and order, cultural flowering, etc. “My kind of man,” Cameron writes.

The style of this narrative is discursive, by which I mean that Cameron stays on topic — his voyage down the coast from point to point — only until he’s compelled to take a detour. And so we learn about Scandinavian kings, the British-French struggle for North America at Louisburg, Civil War battles, boat construction, engine issues, marinas, the 2004 U.S. presidential election, past cruises, food, small town life and dozens of other topics as we move south via the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida and eventually Hope Town, Cameron’s dreamed-of destination in the Bahamas.

OK, I admit it: I’m planning just such a cruise myself for next year, which is why a friend gave me this book for Christmas. Reading it has given me a more realistic (and detailed) picture of what I can expect. That’s the selfish reason to read the book — a pleasurable task that I have now completed. But I recommend it to any armchair traveler, even if he or she has no intention of stepping aboard for 285 days.

Appearances at the Halifax International Boat Show

2008-02-16T17:34:00.004-04:00

I'll be appearing next weekend at the Halifax International Boat Show, reading from Sniffing the Coast on Saturday at 3:30. The newly released DVD, Cape Breton's Bras D'Or Lakes: A Sailing Tour with Silver Donald Cameron will be projected (without the sound track) on a screen behind me.

I'll also be signing and selling books and the DVD at the Atlantic Boating News booth on Thursday and Friday from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and on Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.

Hope to see you there!

Fine review in the Calgary Herald

2008-02-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

Sail away with Silver

Yvonne Jeffery, Calgary Herald

Published: Saturday, February 02, 2008

If you've ever had a hankering to find a boat, hoist its sails and point the bow south, Silver Donald Cameron has some advice for you.

"Go," says the author, who's well known to folks from the Maritimes. Based in Cape Breton, Cameron -- who gained the "Silver" moniker years ago from his shock of white hair -- has written warmly and well about the sea and the coast for much of his career, notably the bestselling book Wind, Whales, and Whisky.

In Sailing Away from Winter, just released in trade paperback, he makes a journey that he's dreamed about for three decades, sailing from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas.

"It's one of those things -- there's always a reason not to go," he says on the phone from a blustery Nova Scotia. "But life is really uncertain and it's short. Here it is, the wind is howling and the snow is flying horizontally. Three years ago, I was somewhere around Florida waiting for a wind to get across to the Bahamas."

He pauses long enough to laugh. "Where did I make a wrong turn?"

Indeed, the siren calls of conch shells and tropical breezes linger long in the imagination, sending the sun's warmth through icy Prairie winds and snow-covered roads. The idea of following Cameron's lead to the south is more than tempting.

"When you get a boat, you get a licence to dream," Cameron says. "I got my first boat in 1973, and started reading voyaging books and thinking about long-distance cruising. In a sense, the dream started there."

It didn't move from a "back-of-the-mind" idea to something more urgent, however, until he realized that if he didn't make the trip a priority, time would take it from him. So he bought a 10-metre, 1973 Viksund motor sailer, fixed it up and convinced wife Marjorie Simmins that this really was a good idea.

On July 21, 2004, with Cameron in his late 60s, he and Simmins set off on the great adventure with their BFD (Brave and Faithful Dog), Leo the wonder whippet, himself an elderly 13. With Leo in mind, they opted primarily for short, close-to-shore hops between overnight ports, plotting a route down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), the coast-hugging, canal-kissing way to avoid the open Atlantic.

The result is an honest, often wry account of what goes wrong and what goes right when you depend entirely on wind, weather and a troll-plagued engine. (That's how Cameron explains problems that grumble along despite time and expertise being lavished on them -- trolls from the boat's Norwegian origins, hitchhiking to warmer climes.)

As a reader along for the ride, you find yourself sailing past the Statue of Liberty, willing the engine not to choke in the middle of one of the coast's busiest, trickiest stretches of maritime traffic. You misjudge a channel and ground the boat in Norwalk, Conn., and get way too intimate with the quirky fuel system and the cranky electrics.

But you also meet Norwegian ponies on the banks of the Sassafras River in Maryland, find friends and kindred spirits in almost every port, fall in love with Savannah, Ga., make the dodgy and exhilarating dash from Florida to the Bahamas and finally discover "champagne" cruising in the Abaco Islands where sun, sand and snorkelling wait.

As a travelling companion, Cameron offers a witty, unpretentious and particularly Canadian perspective, calling it as he sees it, whether it's weed-choked canals and wake-producing steamships or flying fish and a warm Bahamian welcome.

Would he do it again?

"I probably would do the ICW again, if the circumstance arose," he says. "We enjoyed it much more on the way back than on the way down -- it was a much more relaxed trip. On the way down, every single day you're going into new territory, and you're kind of apprehensive all the time."

Of course, the solution he's really leaning toward is simply being there again -- buying a boat down south and living on it for the winter.

"It's very pleasant . . . you're always on the waterfront, you're part of a little community that moves and changes all the time. I like the fussing around with the boat -- I'm not somebody who easily lies idle, and that doesn't change when I go on vacation," he adds.

That's definitely to the advantage of readers.

-- 30 --

Dinner presentation to the Canadian Power Squadron

2008-01-30T11:01:00.000-04:00

This Saturday, February 2, I'll be showing my slides and reading selections from Sailing Away From Winter to the Nova Scotia branch of the Canadian Power Squadron. The event takes place at the Armdale Yacht Club in Halifax, starting at 6:00. For more details, call Dave Hickey at 497-8299.

And an early heads-up: I'll be at the Halifax International Boat Show again this year, reading from Sniffing the Coast, my newly-reissued book on cruising in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The presentation will be at 3:30 on February 23, but I'll also be selling and autographing books -- and also selling my video on Cape Breton's Bras d'Or Lakes, which has just been re-released on DVD.

A lovely blog entry

2008-01-30T10:48:00.002-04:00

Here's a lovely blog entry by Marie Chantal, a Toronto reader. Her blog is here:

http://dreamingofwildroses.blogspot.com/2008/02/sailing-away-from-winter.htm

Marie writes:

I found the perfect book for a spot of armchair travelling. Sailing Away From Winter is about the cruising adventures of a Canadian couple, Silver Donald Cameron and his wife, Marjorie Simmins. They live in Nova Scotia, in the village of D’Escousse on Cape Breton Island. In 2004, they set sail south from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas in their 33′ Norwegian motor-sailer Magnus; with their loyal and faithful dog, Leo the Wonder Whippet.

Now you may be wondering who would ever call their son Silver, so perhaps I should explain! Donald Cameron is such a common name in the Maritimes that when Don settled on Cape Breton, he came to be known as Silver Donald because of the colour of his hair!

Leo is a Wonder Whippet because at the start of this tale, he is thirteen with congestive heart failure and arthritis. Despite his health problems, he takes to the cruising life and is always eager to explore new ports and meet new people. He sounds like such a sweet dog. Over the course of his journey he finds a new exuberance and zest for life.

The book is a delightful tale of the pleasures and traumas of undertaking a voyage of more than 3,000 nautical miles on a journey that lasted 236 days; at the end of which they reached Little Harbour on Great Abaco Island and spent the evening at Pete’s Pub, which is a palm-thatched bar on the beach.

It is also about the people Don and Marjorie meet on their journey and the strong and lasting bonds of friendship that are formed. There is a special bond between those who venture into the great unknown and overcome their fears, especially amongst those who venture offshore and across the open ocean.

To quote a passage from Don’s book:

“The morning dawned bright and still, already warm. The wooded shores lay dark against the clear blue sky, the water crystal-green below the boat and turquoise in the distance. A couple of sleek dolphins browsed easily among the anchored boats, their foreheads rising as they breathed, their dorsal fins slicing the water, mammals like ourselves, symbols of elegant adaptation at the interface of sea and air. A light wind ruffled the water.”

If I close my eyes, I can smell the ocean and feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I can feel the gentle swaying of the boat at anchor and enjoy the silence of the early morning. How I wish I was there! One day, perhaps.

Reading the SAILING review

2007-09-27T09:09:00.000-04:00

The review in my last post is a scan of the page of the magazine. It presents itself as a small photo -- but if you click on the image, it will enlarge to become quite readable. I don't know how this happens, but I'm pleased it does.

Book review from SAILING magazine --

2007-09-27T09:06:00.000-04:00

Two more reviews -- on Amazon, and in Sailing Magazine

2007-09-20T09:12:00.000-04:00

I've just learned about two more reviews of the book. One, which I haven't seen, is in Sailing Magazine, published in the US Midwest. I'm in the process of tracking that one down.

The other one is on Amazon.com. Here it is:

A vividly detailed recounting of the joys and perils of navigating the ocean in an aged Norwegian-built ketch,

April 7, 2007

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

"Sailing Away From Winter: A Cruise From Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond" is the true-life memoir of Canadian columnist Silver Donald Cameron, who dared to make his dreams of a sea voyage come true. With his wife and their beloved dog, he traveled more than three thousand nautical miles in 236 days, visiting towns dotting the coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, crossing the Gulf Stream, experiencing the Bahamas, and much more. A vividly detailed recounting of the joys and perils of navigating the ocean in an aged Norwegian-built ketch, the camaraderie shared with other cruisers, and much more. Highly recommended.

A Nordic fan

2007-09-19T08:31:00.000-04:00

This is a photo of Bernt Baltzersen, a Norwegian writer and film-maker, wearing his wolf-skin cap and holding a copy of the book. Bernt is hoping to accompany Erling Viksund, the builder of Magnus who is also the new owner of the boat, on a voyage in the tracks of the Norwegian emigrants of the 19th century. They intend to cruise up the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi and across to Florida and the Bahamas, starting in May, 2008.

I hope Chicago is strong enough to withstand the arrival of the Vikings.

Halifax Library appearance -- and Sniffing the Coast

2007-09-16T19:23:00.000-04:00

I'm getting very slack about maintaining this blog, so I haven't even managed to mention that I'm doing an illustrated talk at the Halifax Public Library on Spring Garden Road on Tuesday, September 18 -- the day after tomorrow -- starting at 7:00 PM.

I also haven't mentioned that my second sailing book, Sniffing the Coast (1993), which has been out of print for a decade or more, is finally available again. It's an account of a 1992 cruise from D'Escousse, Cape Breton, up Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and then down the west coast of PEI and on to the Magdalen Islands. From the Magdalens my late wife Lulu and I sailed back to eastern PEI and thence home to Isle Madame.

There's a social sub-text to this book, too. Everywhere we went, I found people deeply concerned about the future of the Maritimes and rural Canada -- and profoundly committed to finding a viable and rewarding role for their own communities in a strange new world with web sites, digital everythings, and no fish. It was a fascinating summer.

You can order Sniffing the Coast at www.capebretonbooks.com.

Peter Bonsey: An Experienced Cruiser Comments

2007-06-24T14:04:00.000-04:00

Peter and Sylvia Bonsey are experienced cruisers with a double crossing of the Atlantic behind them. Peter recently made two comments about Sailing Away from Winter which particularly pleased me. Here they are:

All the way through the book I was thinking that it was something in the nature of the medieval Peregrinatio, the pilgrimage undertaken towards the end of a career as much for its own sake as to reach some holy city..Curiously not long before your book arrived I had been reading William Wey's account of his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. Nothing ever changes. He got to Plymouth on 1st April 1456 and then had to wait till 17th May before they could set sail! No doubt they had a succession of South Westerlies, or who knows, trolls even. I believe this idea is well rooted in Hindu culture as well.

The other thing I particularly valued about the book was that you described cruising as it really is: when it's good it's very very good, and when it's bad it's horrid. People who've never done it don't understand this. People see the palm trees and the crystal waters, but they don't begin to understand the skill and effort required to stay safely on top of those crystal waters. Most sailing books woefully underplay this, and to the extent that the Great Storm Chapter is required the subtext is always what supermen the author and his crew were to be able to cope with it. I think yours is the first cruising book I've ever read where the author had the courage to admit that he wanted to turn back because this wasn't being fun any more. Yet I don't believe there is a single yachtie who hasn't felt that at one time or another.

And, of course, you prove the sense of the old adage: if you find a good crew, marry her! Or
him I suppose one has to say these days.

CBC Radio interview on BC Almanac

2007-06-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

My interview with Mark Forsythe of BC Almanac will be aired at 12:40 Pacific time today, June 15.

I assume it will also be accessible via the Internet. The BC Almanac website is here: http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/program/index.jsp?program=BC+Almanac

Vancouver promotion, May 29-June 4

2007-05-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

As I write this, we're packing for a trip to Vancouver which combines book promotion and family visits. On the book promotion front, there are three events:

May 29, 9:00-10:00 AM: live appearance on Studio 4, with Fanny Kiefer, on Shaw TV.

June 1, 8:15: Illustrated presentation at the False Creek Yacht Club in Vancouver.

June 4, 10:30 AM: Interview with Mark Forsythe of Almanac, the CBC Radio noon show. I don't know when it will be broadcst.

In addition, I may be signing some books in Kelowna at Mosaic Books on June 5, though nothing has formally been arranged.

And a news bulletin: Magnus has been sold to Erling Viksund, the Norwegian boatbuilder who built her 35 years ago. Erling intends to do a long cruise in North America beginning in 2008.

CARP Magazine one-liner

2007-04-05T14:21:00.000-04:00

CARP Magazine -- the voice of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons -- included Sailing Away from Winter in its "Books in Brief" column. Accompanied by a photo of the cover, the one-line review said, "The beloved 67-year-old author tells his story of sailing from Cape Breton Island to Florida and on to the Bahamas during an eight-month cruise with his wife and dog as crew."

"Beloved?" What a very nice thing to say.

Interviews now posted on my web site

2007-03-31T10:10:00.000-04:00

My interview on CBC-TV's The Living East is now posted on my web-site, along with the podcast from Furled Sails. To see or hear them, go to www.silverdonaldcameron.ca/interviews.html

Thumbs-up review from TREK, the UBC alumni magazine

2007-03-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

Sailing Away From Winter

Silver Donald Cameron ba’60
Random House, $25.95

As a life long sailor, I am keenly aware of the lure of the sea, and as the years pass by, the narrowing of the window for adventure. Although, knowing what can go wrong on a mere weekend voyage, I am oftensceptical of the yarns spun by sailors; and their common tales of bliss at sea raise doubts in my mind.

Cameron’s book pulls the reader along on a well-written voyage
of discovery, self examination, trial (and a little error) and believable highlights. Thus, like a true sea voyage you share the good and the bad which combine to magnify the good, making it all the more valuable.

The reader can share in the exuberance of the author while he recounts their days in the sun during an often harrowing trip down the intercoastal water way from Cape Breton Island to the Bahamas. It is a great read for anyone who loves boats, cruises with theirspouse, understands dogs and is thinking of “one day” slipping the lines for warmer climes. Reviewed by Barney Ellis-Perry, ba’87.

Thumbs-down review from Canadian Geographic

2007-03-30T03:56:00.000-04:00

Sailing Away from Winter is reviewed in the current issue of Canadian Geographic. Into every life a little rain must fall, and this review is a cold shower. Ah, well. You can't win 'em all. Here's the review:

Sailing Away from Winter: Canadian Geographic review by Allan Casey

Silver Donald Cameron is one of Nova Scotia's more prolific contemporary scribes, running the gamut from playwright to novelist and newspaper columnist. Even if you are not native to his beloved Cape Breton, you probably know his salty byline. "Silver," he explains, because there were too many Donald Camerons in Canada. But his hustle to survive as a freelance writer never left the lifelong sailor time to make the kind of epic voyage worthy of his dreams.

He proposes to sail down the Eastern Seaboard and out to the Bahamas — epic enough. But there are complications. His wife Marjorie wants to come along but worries the trip will be the death of the aging family dog, Leo. If Leo does keel over en route, will recrimination bloom in the tight quarters of the 31-foot Magnus? Above all, Cameron is getting to be an old dog himself — now pushing 70 — and unsure he's still up to the rigours of life aboard.

I've gone to literary sea with everyone from Joshua Slocum to Dame Naomi James, and I was eager to ship out under this seasoned raconteur-captain, to see where his "old-manand- the-sea" plot might take him. Unfortunately, Sailing Away from Winter is a tedious blur that never arrives at the thematic destination it promises.

Despite the title, Cameron seldom sails at all but, instead, motors south via the Intracoastal Waterway, a.k.a. "The Big Ditch," the most well-beaten path for yacht cruisers on Earth.

Moreover, as the author himself complains, cruising leaves little time for discovery. Cameron seems trapped in an endless quest for groceries, boat parts and a place to let an old dog pee.

The story ends up being about crowded marinas too much like one another and cruisers too much like the protagonists. "The truly disquieting thought," writes Cameron, "was that I was just another aging bourgeois, diligently pursuing a fake adventure with the odds stacked heavily in my favour."

We never do learn mate Marjorie's views on the voyage or even the fate of poor Leo the dog. The tale ends abruptly in the Caribbean, the trip home unexplained. One wonders whether the real story begins there. Perhaps a sequel will reveal all.

—Allan Casey
Allan Casey is a boatbuilder and a freelance writer in Saskatoon.

Good Old Boat review

2007-03-30T03:44:00.000-04:00

Sailing Away from Winter has just been reviewed by Karen Larson, editor of Good Old Boat magazine. Good Old Boat ("the sailing magazine for the rest of us") is my favourite boating magazine by far -- a delightful mix of how-tos, history and yarns -- and I'm happy to say that I contribute to it from time to time. My next piece there, to be published early next year, is an illustrated article on various ways to carry a dinghy.

The magazine's web site is http://www.goodoldboat.com/ Check it out, and you can order a free trial issue. Karen's review was published in the Good Old Boat newsletter, here: <http://www.goodoldboat.com/newsletter/aprnewslett53.html>

But to save you the trouble, here's Karen's review.

Sailing Away from Winter, by Silver Donald Cameron (Douglas Gibson books, 2006; 376 pages; $25.95)
Review by Karen Larson
Minneapolis, Minn.

It’s great fun to go cruising with Silver Donald Cameron. Through his books we’ve traveled with him several times, and each time has been a pleasure. Don’s tales of his voyages introduce his readers to people he meets, places he visits, and events along the way. He tells us about their background and, through these historical glimpses, what they’ve become today. Don makes strangers and strange places meaningful to us. With the latest book, Sailing Away from Winter, readers will also develop a fondness for Don; his wife, Marjorie; and Leo, their aging wonder whippet and boat dog, also known as the BFD (brave and faithful dog).

This trio buys a motorsailer specifically for a 1,500-mile trip from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas, sailing away from a Canadian winter season via the Intracoastal Waterway. They are richly rewarded with an entire range of cruising experiences along the way. Pack your sea bag and enter their world; your own horizons will be broadened as a result.

Don acquired the “Silver” moniker in Nova Scotia, where the name Cameron is common enough for the need to distinguish between several Donald Camerons. Don, the author and sailor, is the one with the white hair. In this book he could have been called “Dandelion Don,” because he had a terrible time finding a barber along the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., and that thatch of white hair became a halo before a hairdresser was finally located.

I have always admired Don as a master with words, and he’s done it again. His description of an evening in Halifax is a good example. “Catherine MacKinnon picked up her fiddle and began another haunting slow air, plangent and sweet and melancholy. It felt like an ethereal exhalation from the most ancient parts of the soul. And the past was all around us — the Acadians, the forts, the salty old seaport, the historic ships both above the water and below it. Sitting on the deck of a schooner, surrounded by my country’s past and bathed in its music, poised to sail into an unknown future, I suddenly realized that I knew exactly who I was, and exactly where I was. And I liked it.”

Don is honest about their trip down the Intracoastal Waterway. Equipment failed, the weather was sometimes unpleasant, clearing U.S. customs was a hassle, and grocery shopping and laundry became major events. Because they were making a late-season delivery, they pushed too hard and moved too fast. Sometimes lonely, at other times they had more social interaction than needed. But they had a good time, learned much about themselves and others, and found that they were fitter and younger-feeling than when they left. Once in the Bahamas, the pace slowed, and the madcap race to arrive was forgotten.

Reading this book will whet your appetite for more by Silver Donald Cameron. I can wholeheartedly recommend that path. You won’t regret any of the journeys you make with this man whose words are silver. Perhaps that’s a better reason for the additional name he has worn so well for so long.

CBC-TV interview on the Internet

2007-03-11T08:36:00.000-04:00

My interview on CBC-TV's The Living East, broadcast March 10, can be viewed on the Internet. Go to http://www.cbc.ca/livingeast/ and look for Episode 40. As of today (March 11) that's the episode you get when you arrive at the Living East site, but I presume it will be archived as newer episodes go online.

Globe and Mail review by Derek Lundy

2007-03-11T08:29:00.000-04:00

Here is Derek Lundy's Globe and Mail review, published March 11, 2007. Lundy is a fine nautical writer, and I'm pleased he enjoyed the book. -- SDC

Over and around the bounding main

DEREK LUNDY

Sailing Away From Winter: A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond

By Silver Donald Cameron

McClelland & Stewart/Douglas Gibson, 367 pages, $34.99

Once upon a time, not long ago, the sea held profound meaning for us. It was a pre-eminently masculine realm, and men dreamed of the sea as a place of adventure, heroic struggle and redemption; like the battlefield, it was a proving ground of manhood. For women, the sea was something to cross to get somewhere else, or it was a malign and terrible power that snatched their men away from them. The sea was a common source of metaphor, and of vocabulary. Covering three-quarters of the Earth's surface -- planet ocean -- the sea made the world seem large, unpredictable, wild and dangerous.

That's all gone now. For most of us, the sea is a mere thing: We fly over it, dump in it, strip-mine it for protein or cruise its picturesque fringes in floating hotels with pointy ends. There are exceptions. Expendable men still work at sea -- fishermen and freighter crews -- mostly from countries of the "developing world." They still struggle and die there, although far fewer of them than in the past; they are not prone to romanticize their workplace.

And some inhabitants of the rich "developed world," who have time and money, and therefore choices, go to sea because it pleases them to do so. For those people, the sea retains some of its ancient meaning. They are bound to find there many of the things absent on land: simplicity, honour, adventure and the chance for ordinary men and women to find out who they are and what they're made of.

This seagoing impulse may be extreme: a non-stop circumnavigation through the great Southern Ocean, for example, or a round-the-world or single-handed transoceanic race. But there are many gentler, more homely versions of hunger for the sea. In Sailing Away From Winter, Nova Scotia writer Silver Donald Cameron describes one of them: a cruise from home on Cape Breton, down the east coast of the United States to Florida, and "beyond" -- as the subtitle has it -- to the nearby Bahamas, and to the revelations they disclose.

Cameron, his wife Marjorie and their dog, Leo the Wonder Whippet, a.k.a. the BFD ("brave and faithful dog"), buy an old, tubby Norwegian motor sailer, which they rename Magnus. They do what always has to be done with an older boat: fix or replace just about every damn thing aboard, usually more than once. In mid-summer, 2004, they head south, harbour-hopping along the coasts of Nova Scotia, New England, New York and New Jersey.

They can't stay out for more than 12 hours at a time because that marks the limit of the elderly Leo's bladder control -- he, like many dogs, refuses to pee while aboard, in spite of his owners' sweet inducements. The multi-species crew makes a hard right into Delaware Bay and on into the eight-river estuary of the Chesapeake. At Norfolk, Va., they enter the Intra Coastal Waterway.

Known as "the Ditch," the waterway is a labyrinthine network of sounds, rivers, creeks, cuts, swamps and canals that stretches all the way to the tip of Florida. The route is sheltered from the rowdy North Atlantic by the barrier islands of the coast. Boats can make their way south in safety and relative comfort, dodging late-season hurricanes and avoiding autumn gales. The crew can never relax, though. There are tides, currents, many lift bridges and, most daunting, shoals and shallow water everywhere. A good day is when a boat runs aground only a couple of times.

The helmsman must concentrate without let-up as long as the boat's in motion. Cameron learns the hard way, as do all sailors, how not to bash into docks or hit bottom, and how to follow narrow dredged channels in cross-winds, or cozy up to snarky or sullen lift-bridge operators. In many ways, it's easier on the open ocean, even in bad weather: You just point the boat in the right direction and try not to be too afraid.

Magnus and his human-doggy crew make it all the way to Fort Lauderdale. From there, they must cross the 50-mile-wide Strait of Florida to get to the idyllic Abacos, in the northern Bahamas. The strait can be a bad stretch of water if strong winds blow against the fast, north-setting Gulf Stream, but the voyagers wait for a good weather window, and they make the dash across. The islands fulfill their promise of slow peace and gentle weather.

Cameron, a sailor in his local waters for 30 years, has always dreamed of making such a voyage. In his late sixties, he thinks: Better do it now. It's seductive and stirring for weekend sailors when, finally, they have the chance to just keep going, and not turn back and head home after a few hours or a couple of weeks. The sense of freedom, of possibility, rejuvenates all three souls aboard Magnus. "South, south, south" is Cameron's mantra as winter fills in behind them.

This is a well-written, plain-told, day-by-day account of getting a small boat from one place to another. Cameron is a veteran writer and knows how to lace his story with a little history, interesting characters, with whimsy and a dose of good old self-deprecating Canadian humour. A reader might wish for more drama, or for some sea-going crises surmounted or trials endured. But for a sailor, to make a voyage without mishap or trauma is the whole idea. Cameron's book about the mellow completion of his long-delayed dream of the sea is a quiet pleasure to read.

Derek Lundy is the author of Godforsaken Sea. His latest book, The Bloody Red Hand: A Journey Through Truth, Myth, and Terror in Northern Ireland, has just been published in paperback.

CBC-TV, Globe and Mail, Podcast

2007-03-09T08:25:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, Saturday March 10, Sailing Away from Winter will be reviewed in The Globe and Mail.

The TV interview for CBC Nova Scotia's "The Living East" will be broadcast today, sometime after 1:00 PM.

And here are the details of a long interview I did for "the world's first sailing podcast" at www.furledsails.com It's online now.

Weekly sailing podcast focusing on cruising and recreational sailing.

FurledSails.com Podcast #79 Silver Donald Cameron

Silver Donald Cameron is the author of several sailing books including "Sailing Away From Winter", "Sniffing the Coast", "The Living Beach" and "Wind, Whales and Whisky" just to name a few. He has a very entertaining way about him and regals us with several stories from his trips. See you on the water!

Call and leave your comments or stories toll free at 1-866-235-2786.

Email us at podcast@furledsails.com

Download: FurledSails Podcast #79 Silver Donald Cameron in MP3 format
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Living East TV appearance

2007-02-18T10:48:00.000-04:00

I was interviewed at the Halifax Boat Show by the CBC-TV program "The Living East." The show is broadcast weekdays at 1:00, and the interview will be broadcast Friday, March 9.

Thanks to Bijan for linking the earlier post to Haliditto, a website I hadn't seen before.

Appearances at the Halifax International Boat Show

2007-02-16T09:15:00.001-04:00

Just a reminder that I'm doing three presentations at the Halifax International Boat Show (today, Feb 16 at 5:30; tomorrow, Feb 17 at 1:30; and Sunday, Feb 18 at 1:00) and a brief talk at the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Association dinner, also on Feb 18.

Atlantic Boating News

2007-02-16T09:07:00.000-04:00

The current issue of Atlantic Boating News is bound together with the program for the Halifax International Boat Show, and the publication is saturated with Sailing Away from Winter and Silver Donald Cameron.

The Boat Show program includes several references (with photos) to the seminars I'm giving at the Show, plus a fine interview by Tom Mason, with several illustrations.

Flip it over and you're looking at Atlantic Boating News, with a reference to the book on its cover, and an enthusiastic review by Lloyd Corkum inside. (The book is "the next best thing to doing it yourself, with Silver Donald's wit and charm only enhancing the experience.")

When I thanked the editor, Joanne Elliott, for this terrific coverage, she said, "Atlantic Boating News -- the Silver Donald Cameron edition!" And that's what it looks like.

Toronto Star mini-review

2007-02-08T14:29:00.000-04:00

Back in November, before the book was officially out, The Toronto Star briefly noticed it. Here's the note, published on November 26:

For those less inclined to welcome the chill, we suggest Silver Donald Cameron's Sailing Away from Winter: A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond. It's the armchair-friendly yarn of how Cameron, who turns 70 next year, set sail in 2004 with wife Marjorie Simmins and Leo the Wonder Whippet in a 33-year-old Norwegian-built ketch named Magnus, bound for Pete's Pub in Little Harbour, the Bahamas. Some 236 days and 3000-plus nautical miles later, the "distinctly trepid crew" rowed ashore and headed up to the palm-thatched tiki bar for a well-deserved splash or two. This is familiar stuff for the B.C.-raised Cameron, author of 13 previous books, a bunch of them ocean-themed, including "the Nova Scotia cruising classic Wind, Whales and Whisky."

For those with the smell of salt air twitching their own nostrils, perhaps Cameron should be paired with Farley Mowat's memoir of marital cruising, albeit around Newfoundland in the '50s, Bay of Spirits: A Love Story.

To which I say a hearty Amen. Farley's new book is poignant and delightful, and the two books will probably appeal to a very similar readership.

BC trip cancelled; new schedule

2007-02-08T14:08:00.000-04:00

On January 31, Marjorie and I flew to Calgary, accompanied by MacTavish the Super-Sheltie. We were going to visit family in Alberta before flying on to BC on February 5.

Alas, while in Calgary we were both felled by head colds -- and mine in particular was an industrial-strength stinker which took away my voice. We postponed our BC flight to February 7, but when the situation hadn't much improved by then, we flew back to Halifax instead. I was bitterly disappointed, but there isn't much point in continuing a speaking tour when you can't speak.

So we're back in Halifax, and the next public appearances are three presentations at the Halifax International Boat Show (Feb 16 at 5:30; Feb 17 at 1:30; Feb 18 at 1:00) and a brief talk at the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Association dinner, also on Feb 18.

Interviews coming up on CBC Television's The Living East (to be recorded at the Boat Show on Feb 16, but I'm not sure when it will be broadcast) and on Furled Sails (www.furledsails.com), the world's first sailing podcast, out of Florida.

Review from the Winnipeg Free Press, Jan 28/07

2007-01-29T17:14:00.000-04:00

Winnipeg Free Press

Sunday, January 28th, 2007

Dream trip Interesting

4,800-km journey also a tough, tiring voyage

Sailing Away from Winter: A Cruise from Nova Scotia to Florida and Beyond

By Silver Donald Cameron

Douglas Gibson/M&S, 320 pages, $35

Reviewed by Margo Goodhand

CAN there be anything more appealing than a title like this in the middle of the Prairies in the middle of a dark cold spell in January? Shiver our timbers, indeed.

Maritime author Silver Donald Cameron dreamed of making this year-long, 4,800-km cruise to the Bahamas and back for 30 years before he finally realized, at the age of 67, he'd be foolish to put it off any longer. When he finally set sail July 21, 2004, he discovered he was charting a pretty familiar course. Hundreds of Canadians make the pilgrimage every year in search of summer. He sailed with his wife Marjorie Simmins and their trusty dog Leo the Wonder Whippet. The further south they got, however, the more they found themselves in a veritable flotilla of winter-weary Canucks.

Theirs is a particularly interesting journey because they take the Intracoastal Waterway, a winding, interconnected system of canals, inlets, bays, sounds and rivers that provide a sheltered route from Norfolk, Va., down the U.S. coast to the Florida Keys. You can travel 1,800 km through "The Big Ditch" and never enter the open sea, Cameron says, and you also pass through some of the most beautiful and historic cities in the U.S. -- Beaufort, Charleston, Savannah.

The only catch is the couple kicks off their voyage in Nova Scotia -- north of Canso, in fact. And they have about 1,600 km of open sea to cover before they get to Virginia. And they're travelling with the aforesaid 13-year-old wonder dog, which takes up a considerable amount of ink in this book because it is on its last legs, apparently, and one of their biggest concerns on board.

"Cruising books lead you to imagine idyllic sailing, exotic foods, snorkelling, snoozing, and sun-downers in the cockpit," writes Cameron, who has penned numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, on Maritime subjects. "But few writers admit that such days are sandwiched between intense attention to the forecasts, the navigation and the diesel engine, and long trudges through small-town streets, carrying heavy burdens of food, dirty clothes, and motor oil."

Cameron can't be accused of glossing over the mundane realities of the trip. We read a lot about how hard it is to find a barber shop, Leo's early-morning pees (he has to disembark, for some reason, before he can go, which makes for some anxious times for dog and crew), their good meals, their bad pizzas, their search for an O-ring and other sundry boat parts. In fact, the detail sometimes bogs down the narrative.

But overall, this is interesting reading for any armchair traveller who is even remotely interested in the East Coast. Cameron meticulously chronicles each step of the way, vividly bringing to life, for example, the couple's exhilaration as they putt past the Statue of Liberty in New York's famous harbour. And you learn interesting tidbits about Chesapeake Bay (18,700 contorted kilometres of gorgeous and historic shoreline); about the "treacherous" New Jersey coastline (who knew?); about the balmy Bahamas and the enduring legacy of the American Civil War.

Cameron's adventures also underscore the danger attached to a trip like this. He runs into a wharf, dodges lobster traps, survives a hellish 24-hour storm, and suffers through a whole gamut of mechanical breakdowns. And he is an experienced sailor with a good vessel.

He's honest enough to admit at one point that he just wants to go home. "This was supposed to be fun," he tells his wife. "But it's just bloody hard work, frightening and miserable. Fuel problems. Electronic problems. Diabolical tides and contrary winds... The hell with it."

Luckily for us and him, she talks him out of it. And at the end, their friends remark on how much younger the couple looks -- tanned, fit, and trim. Even the dog is perkier.

"The voyage had changed us," Cameron writes. "Only now did I realize that I had, in a sense, sailed away from old age and gained a new sense of freedom."

Free Press deputy editor Margo Goodhand is still decades too young to contemplate such an arduous adventure.

Stephen Patrick Clare's review

2007-01-28T09:56:00.000-04:00

The first real review I've seen was written by Halifax writer Stephen Patrick Clare. It appeared in the January 27 inaugural issue of Salon, the pull-out arts section of the Saint John (NB) Telegraph-Journal. Here's an excerpt:

Fluid, informative and entertaining, Sailing Away From Winter might be the perfect tonic for this time of the year. Cameron’s natural flair for storytelling makes for a great yarn, taking the reader along for a ride that is often good-humoured and always an adventure. And, as a journalist, he is careful to ensure that everything is anchored in fact.

... this is perhaps Cameron’s finest work to date, and a good book for all to enjoy curled up on the couch, in front of the fireplace, dreaming of lands far-far away.

To see the full review on Stephen's blog, click here.

Audio interview on YouTube

2007-01-28T05:02:00.000-04:00

When I was in Toronto, I was interviewed for Book Bits, a syndicated radio show. To my surprise I've found the interview posted on YouTube. You can hear it here.

Sailing Away from Winter - the book

2007-01-28T03:57:00.000-04:00

In later posts, I'll list what's already been done since the book first appeared in the stores on December 12. Right now I just want to record what's coming up.

Today, January 28, I'm doing a reading and autographing session from 2:00 to 4:00 at Frog Hollow Books in Halifax. (I've already done similar sessions at Volume One Books in Port Hawkesbury, and at Village Florist in Tatamagouche.)

I've developed a pretty funny one-hour presentation, combining excerpts from the book with a short comic piece which is referred to in the book, but not printed there. Last week I delivered it at the Toronto International Boat Show, the second-largest show in North America.

I'll be doing the presentation at the Vancouver International Boat Show on February 7 and 8 at 6:00 PM and on February 9 at 2:00.

I'll be speaking at the Kelowna Yacht Club at 7:00 on February 10, and signing books at Mosaic Books in downtown Kelowna at 2:00 the following afternoon.

And I'll be at the Halifax International Boat Show February 16 at 5:30, February 17 at1:30, and February 18 at 1:00.