Sailing with the Admiral: a conversation with the past, Martin O’Scannall
I’m a great admirer of Lodestar’s lovely books, but struggle to find time to read, thanks to work and the assorted complications, worries and distractions of modern life, music, Covid-19 and the rest. But I’m keen to support them even though they’re currently unable to deliver orders.
So when all this trouble is over, here’s something to look forward to, as outlined by the Lodestar website:
Martin O’Scannall loves the old, the eccentric, the offbeat — the quirky if you like; the wandering off into byways, the exploration of half-forgotten snippets of history. And Galicia, his home for the past decade or more, is ideal territory for indulging that taste.
Galicia is a time warp: rain-swept, isolated, savage and gentle by turns, as far a cry from the blazing Costas as it is possible to imagine. This book is a conversation with the past, conducted in a very old, engineless gaff cutter, armed with the Admiralty Pilot, a gallant crew, and a sense of the ridiculous.
We encounter, but in unexpected ways, the likes of Drake, Nelson, the ill-fated HMS Serpent, Celtic myth and legend, and the reminiscences of those who have gone before, all interspersed with the business of managing an old yacht in the old way: Walker log, paper charts and all. Beginning, as he says it has to be, with the dreaded storm at sea. £12.00 from the Lodestar website.