Dinner presentation to the Canadian Power Squadron

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.

Halifax Library appearance -- and Sniffing the Coast

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.

Sailing Away from Winter - the book

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.