As his first book, Norm has written a light-hearted memoir. It was inspired by a bold, yet scary opportunity presented to Norm by his friend”Captain Rob” who Norm has known since school days. The opportunity is to travel, along with John, another old school chum, as they pilot their way across the South China Sea. Norm has nothing to compare this offer to as he has scarcely ever even been in any boats before. He is rather pleased to be asked, but has quite a lot of insecurity about the offer.
His friend, “Captain Rob”is planning to sail across the S.China Sea in his newly acquired yaght called “Bob the Boat”which has a dinghy/lifeboat called “Doug the Dinghy”This is not a typical plan for Norm who has recently retired. Apparently, Rob and his newly estranged wife have done similar trips before, though nothing quite so lengthy. Norm is almost panicky as he considers all the potential dangers-pirates, jellyfish,3 foot Bats,typhoons, hurricanes, loneliness, illness, to name a few.
Finally, Norm decides to take this opportunity and “hears the call of the sea”. The three friends since childhood set off to navigate the turbulent waters of life literally to explore new adventures, cultures, and places never experienced before. They go off to cross from Thailand to Singapore. It is a journey of self-discovery and real life adventure. Things really get challenging when John decides that he will exit from the piloting and his buddies half way.
Norm write this tale using many colourful adjectives and a lot of “run-on” sentences, so it takes a little determination on the reader’s part to get into the real adventure. It helps that Norm uses “sub -titles” at the beginning of each chapter and a reasonable number of pages for each chapter. Therefore, you can plan your daily reading of this lengthy tale. Also, it is printed in a good-sized print for those of us with some visual challenges as aging Seniors. I was broadening my horizons as I generally do not choose to read more than Fiction, especially historical, and current.