Customer Reviews

The Boy, Me, and the Cat

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought my copy of this book in the early 70's. It is still on my book shelf along with the more important books in my life such as Bill Atkin's "Of Yachts and Men", Herreshoff's "The Compleat Cruiser" and Maurice Griffiths' "The Magic of the Sands".

This is a book about a trip that a man took with his son. It is a report mostly from a thoughtful log and bears enough interest that there it sits in its plain brown book cover on my shelf asking to be read yet again.

What more could you say about a book than it share space with those others?

I love tails of journeys by water or land and this one shows as much courage as Joshua Slocum's voyage around the world or Earl Shaffer's " Walking With Spring"(the first to hike the Appalachian Trail)It took guts to tackle the east coast Intercoastal Waterway as ill marked as it was back then .You will find this book hard to put down.He sails (mostly) from New England to south Florida and back and his observations along the way are very interesting.This one has to go into your adventure library.

Charming has become perhaps a devalued word and is a little old-fashioned. So is this book, and the charm is in its period and its attitudes. It is eminently readable, straight-forward in its style and very interesting from a variety of viewpoints. Be assured it is not just for sailors. An account of a vacation cruise in a small 19th century cat-boat (a sailing craft with one tall mast set well forward) down from the author's home in Massachusetts along the coast down into Florida.

Henry Plummer is a remarkably capable man and a fond father - who treats problems with wit and tempers the challenge of small-boat cruising with fine meals (recipes sometimes included!). Written originally solely for family and friends - painfully "pricked-out" in the old duplicating process and then published on the insistence of his readers - for us too to enjoy this charming story.