jay-carter-brown

Free chapters of Operation Payback

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:27 +0100

Sales of my latest novel, Operation Payback, are sluggish. At $2.99 a copy I don't think that price is a factor. Sales could be stagnant because there is no advertising for my new book release other than on my website. It could also be because my new novel is an e-book that is available only on the internet. Or perhaps my web visitors have not been able to relate to my writing based on the sample chapter that I included in my web site. So I have decided to release the entire first half of Operation Payback for free on my website in the hope that readers will be interested enough at the halfway mark to invest $2.99 to read the ending. So be my guest and peruse my website (see Operation Payback-excerpt) to enjoy several hours of free entertainment. Operation Payback is an exciting ride based on real events in the international drug trade.
Yours truly,
Jay Carter Brown

Cannabis cures cancer documentary

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:22:16 +0100

Click on the "youtube" link below to reach a fascinating documentary on how cannabis oil cures cancer and other illnesses. At the end of the documentary there are several other documentaries of miraculous cures attributed to THC oil. This brief movie is a definite mind opener about the medicinal uses of hemp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_GI

You won't get wet I promise

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:11:18 +0100

In my earlier blog titled The Last Hunt I told of several incidents on the water that I found dangerous if not life threatening. The Last Hunt was a dangerous experience but the one below came much closer to drowning me before I even finished high school. I was an industrious young lad at the age of fourteen. I went to school but I also had a paper route that allowed me to obtain some of the things in life that my parents were unable or unwilling to provide me. An electric guitar. Pocket Money for dating. My very own Minimax hydroplane. For those of you unsure of what a hydroplane is imagine an eight foot long pocket-sized boat designed for nothing but speed and racing. A hydroplane watercraft is shaped like a wedge with a narrow flat snout that looks like a duck’s beak and an eight inch deep transom that is squared off at the back of the boat. Once the plywood seams were fiber-glassed she became air tight and according to the brochures she was virtually unsinkable. I built her in my basement and painted her with a white marine paint and added a couple of lightning bolt decals to the front deck at which point my Minimax racer was ready for show and go. With a six horsepower outboard the delicate little craft could reach twenty miles per hour which felt much faster due to the small size of the hydroplane and the close proximately of the driving platform to the water. With a ten horsepower outboard, the maximum size rated for this craft, the Minimax would rocket along at over thirty miles per hour. With a fifteen horsepower motor (which is fifty per cent more horsepower than the Minimax was rated for) the hydroplane would hit over forty miles per hour. Forty miles per hour was mind boggling speed in those days and was made all the more exciting with my butt sitting on a piece of three quarters inch plywood that was drumming across the water like a skipping stone. I have driven a lot of boats but in all of my years of boating I have never driven anything that was as much fun as that little hydroplane. Crank the wheel hard into a turn and the little craft would slide and skip sideways until the hull grabbed water and the boat would shoot off in the direction pointed. S curves and circles were yards of fun as the hydroplane slid sideways like a slalom ski instead of heeling over and grabbing water like a normal boat. Fast forward to my eighteenth birthday and my girlfriend, Barbara, who was one day to become my wife. I had only known Barbara for a year or so when I decided to invite her for a day of boating up at my parent’s lake front summer cottage. I brought along my father's West Bend sixteen horsepower - the same outboard motor that he told me under no circumstances to ever put on my hydroplane. It was a beautiful spring day as we set out on a drive through the Laurentians which was picturesque and beautiful. Our destination was Lac Dusfresne about two hours north of Montreal in the Province of Quebec. The sun hung large and bright over the lake that day almost reminding me of summer until I put a hand in the water. It was cold. Very cold. I was told sometime later that the ice had just broken up on the lake a week before. But on this day the water was like magic. Barbara and I spent our first few hours inside my parent’s lake side cottage enjoying our seclusion as the call of a Northern Loon resonated eerily across the water. We stared through the large picture window at snow-topped mountains surrounding a clear blue lake that sparkled with twinkling flickers of sunlight. There was no evidence of any other humans on the lake that day except for a solitary trickle of smoke that rose from a cottage across the bay where the German family lived. The solitude of the lake was blissful as Barbara and I spent some time reading and snuggling and enjoying the quiet and the scenery. After spending the good part of my day indoors with my girlfriend I thought it might be time to try my dad’s sixteen horse power outboard on my hydroplane. My dad felt the sixteen horsepower was too powerful for my hydroplane. But dad had not been around the summer before when a neighbor on the lake put his fifteen horsepower outboard on my little racing boat. The hydroplane sank low in the water from the extra weight of the large engine but once it was up and running it flew like the wind across the water. Because of that experience I could see no reason for my father’s concerns. I was looking out at a lake that was as flat as glass and crystalline in its brilliance from sun rays reflecting off the surface. I could see my hydroplane down by the shoreline. The Minimax had been stored upside down on the banks of the lake so that the cockpit would remain empty and dry in spite of a winter’s worth of rain and snow. My little racing boat had aged. The paint was fading after several seasons of neglect and the flaming red lightning bolt decals were more orange than red. I walked down to the water’s edge to examine my boat. When I lifted the hydroplane off its blocks I could hear water sloshing about inside the water tight compartments. I had little concern that the boat let some water seep in because in my experience all boats leak to some degree. To counter the problem I had drilled a couple of one inch holes on the rear deck of the hydroplane to drain the water out. The hydroplane should no doubt have been re-fibre glassed but once I discovered girls the racing boat was no longer an important item - except as an instrument to show off to my girlfriend. I drained the hydroplane and then dragged the one hundred and twenty pound racer to the shoreline, flung it into the water and saw that it floated like a top. I retrieved my father’s West Bend from the trunk of my car and then set the heavy outboard on the transom of the Minimax. The hydroplane sunk several inches into the water when the motor was cinched onto the transom mounting plate but the racing boat continued to bob like a top on the water. I manoeuvred myself into the cockpit of the boat and sat behind the steering wheel. A flotation cushion provided a warm dry seat and satisfied the rules of the day for safety equipment. The cushion was pretty heavy from soaking in the rain all winter which indicated a possible compromise in its ability to float properly but I had little concern of that because the boat itself was virtually unsinkable. The float cushion was nothing more than an instrument of comfort. I started the engine and heard it ignite with a roar. I motored slowly at first heading towards the center of the lake and when I was some distance from the shore I opened her up. The West Bend roared into life as I opened the throttle and pushed the little hydroplane up to speed. It took less than a few minutes to circle the entire lake. I saw no other boaters and no sign of life at any of the cottages in the other bays of the lake and I skirted a pond in the shallows that still had a thin layer of ice at the edges. When I returned to the bay where my parent’s cottage was I hailed Barbara who was still sitting by the picture window inside.

“Come on out and give it a try!”

Barbara opened the front door and stuck her head out.

“No thanks I don’t want to get wet.”

“You won’t get wet.”

“No.”

“I have a cushion you can sit on.”

“Not right now.”

“Come on. You’ll like it.”

“I don’t want to get wet.”

“You won’t get wet I promise.”

The sun was beginning to recede and sat lower in the blue sky as I called to my girlfriend.

“I’m bringing the boat in now are you sure you don’t want to come for one last ride.”

“I don’t want to get wet.”

“The cockpit is as dry as a bone. I’ll even give you my life cushion to sit on as well as your own.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on one quick tour of the lake and then we’ll come back in. You’ve got to try this out. It’s a blast.”

“I won’t get wet?”

“Absolutely not. Just step over to the rock landing over there and I’ll bring the boat in. When I touch the rock you just step in and I will take you for a ride.”

“Are you sure it can hold the two of us.”

“It’s unsinkable.”

With that final assurance Barbara walked out on to the rock ledge to meet me. She stepped into the hydroplane as I drove it alongside the smooth rock face and she quickly sunk to her knees on the flotation cushion.

“This cushion is wet.”

“It’s a little damp from being outside all winter.”

“I told you I didn’t want to get wet.”

“You won’t get wet. The cushion is damp. It just feels wet. Don’t worry. I’ll drive carefully. No cowboy stuff.”

And with that I opened the throttle and listened to Barbara’s excited squeal of laughter as we raced across the butter smooth water. I made a few wide sweeping turns so she could feel the centrifugal forces of the hull sliding sideways like an aircraft banking on the water. I stayed within the bay that was in front of my cottage and after fifteen minutes Barbara wanted to go back to shore. To give her one final rush I opened up the outboard and felt the hydroplane glide effortlessly across the water at nearly full speed heading towards my rock-faced berth by the cottage. I was just about to congratulate myself on a job well done in keeping Barbara relatively dry when the motor quit abruptly. There was no warning. It just stopped cold turkey right there in the middle of the lake. There was no reason for it to stop. There was still plenty of gas in the tank because I checked it before we left shore. I tried to diagnose the problem as I heard Barbara cry out.

“Water is coming in.”

“Don’t panic.”

Water would do that sometimes when the boat stopped quickly. The transom was only eight inches deep and a wave of water could swamp over the back of the boat if it stopped too fast. If I could just get the motor started the incoming water would drain from the cockpit after a few seconds of motoring forward. But the motor refused to start. It had been running flawlessly all day but on the way home it died like a race horse with a heart attack in the final stretch.

“I’m soaked.”

Barbara’s comment was more of a wail than a cry. The water was ice cold and it was rising fast. The weight of the heavy outboard and two people were over the limit of the hydroplane and water seeped into the boat’s cockpit and began to overcome the vessel’s buoyancy. The stern of the hydroplane sank lower until it dropped below the water line. At that point Lac Dusfresne began entering the cockpit like a river.

“Oh my God the water is freezing.”

I made no effort to respond. I knew the hydroplane took on some water but I was shocked that it was taking it on so fast. The transom was sinking under the weight of two passengers and an oversize motor and the more the cockpit filled with water the more the boat lost buoyancy and was dragged down deeper into the lake. The only thing that prevented the boat from completely sinking was an air compartment in the nose of the hydroplane that still had buoyancy. I looked to the shore which was about four hundred yards away and thought about swimming to safety. The water was so cold that I am sure I would not have made it to shore. Certainly not if I was towing Barbara with me. The cold water affected me in a way that I had never experienced before. My chest muscles became constricted and paralyzed in hypothermic water that had been solid ice only a week before. My arms and legs seized up like a chain saw without oil and refused to budge. I knew then that even though I was on my high school swim team if I tried to swim to shore I would sink like a stone. I pushed Barbara up on the deck of the boat as it sank deeper into the icy lake. The boat listed and began to roll and I felt my feet become caught up in the steering cables. As the boat rolled I was pulled under water and the only way to escape drowning was to plunge my head under the freezing cold lake water and free myself from the cables. As I did so I felt my chest constrict like it was being crushed by a Boa snake. It was like I was paralyzed. When I came up for air I realized there was only one thing left to do.

“Help!”

My first cries were hesitant and filled with embarrassment.

Barbara added to my calls for help in a voice that put mine to shame.

“Help!”

I yelled louder.

“Help!”

Each time we called out for help it seemed that the hydroplane sunk a little lower in the water. As the water rose higher and higher on our bodies we called out in earnest.

“Help, our boat is sinking!”

There was no longer any modesty in our calls and no more refuge on the deck for Barbara who was up to her waist in water while I was treading in water up to my neck.

“Help!”

Our voices echoed off the surrounding mountains and were amplified by the basin of surrounding water. The German family across the lake was the first to respond. I heard their outboard motor start up from across the lake and begin heading towards us. I did not know my uncle Walt was also at his cottage until I spied his rowboat rowing out toward us. I was filled with elation that rescue was in sight while fearful that the hydroplane would sink completely from beneath us and leave us nothing to hold onto. Don’t even ask about the flotation cushions. They either sunk or floated away. We never saw them again. When the first boat pulled alongside ten or fifteen minutes later, Brenda was still sitting on the overturned hull of the hydroplane with my promise of not getting her wet still ringing in her ears. My uncle Walt who is not a real uncle but enjoys the same status as a family relative was first to reach us that day having out paced the German family’s nine horsepower outboard motor with only a set of oars and a fourteen foot plywood row boat. The German man towed my boat back to shore while Barbara and I scrambled to safety in Uncle Walt’s rowboat whereupon we were treated to a lecture on boating safety that lasted for several hours. Barbara and I were shaken and scared following our rescue. It often happens that way. You are too busy coping with the problem to be afraid at first. Then the fear comes later when you have time to reflect on what might have been. When my teeth finally stopped chattering and I collected myself together I put on dry clothes borrowed from Uncle Walt while Barbara’s clothes dried by the fire. I pulled my hydroplane up onto shore and removed the outboard motor from the transom. My Uncle Walt had to help me pull the boat out of the water because I was weak and shaky from the whole near drowning experience. The lessons I learned that day were many. I should not have taken my dad’s motor without his permission. I should not have put his motor on the hydroplane. I should not have overloaded the hydroplane with two people and an over sized motor. I should not have gone boating without proper safety gear such as VHF radio and approved positive flotation life jackets. I should not have neglected to maintain my boat so that it did not leak. And there is one lesson that Barbra reminds me of to this very day. I should not have promised her that I would not get her wet and then sunk her in the frigid waters of Lac Dusfresne.

Stay tuned for my next blog about my adventures on the water as I swim for my life in an ocean undertow.

Pot Smokers-The Last Oppressed Minority

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:42:05 +0100

In Canada this title might have read “the last oppressed majority” since 53 per cent of Canadians are in favor of decriminalizing simple possession of cannabis. Prime Minister Jean Chretien while still in office a few years ago promised to completely remove criminal penalties against possession of personal amounts of marijuana and hashish. “But don’t light up yet,” he laughed in a moment of caution and perhaps psychic awareness. Even a psychic would have had difficulty predicting that only a few years later Jean Chretien’s successor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would be building a vast number of new jails to house pot criminals at the same time as changing Canada’s marijuana laws to require mandatory minimum sentences for cultivating as few as 6 marijuana plants. This is the same Canada whose famous LeDain Commission inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs in 1972 decided that marijuana is much less dangerous than wine or cigarettes and recommended its legalization.

Our former Prime Minister wants pot decriminalized. Our LeDain Commission wants marijuana and hashish decriminalized. Canadians want pot decriminalized. And yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper is using his new found power in parliament to put pot growers in jail. Pot growers and users are a soft target for right wing reformers like Harper. They are not violent. They are often uneducated and largely unorganized. They are poorly supported by the mainstream and they have been targeted, victimized and marginalized by our political system. Only under the cloak of medical marijuana use has there been any advancement of the marijuana movement and even that is under attack by this current Harper government. The advancement of the gay, lesbian and transgender group has been a positive example of what can be done for the marijuana movement-if there was a marijuana movement. The problem is that most tokers are closet tokers. Judges, teachers, law enforcement personnel and business leaders are loath to admit their crime of cannabis smoking in public. Even when they do they make jokes about not having inhaled it when they tried it. The entire matter is one of victimless crimes and yet under the guise of protecting the nation from dangerous criminals Stephen Harper’s government is attacking the least violent and least dangerous of its citizens. Crime in Canada is down and yet Stephen Harper is building more jails and advocating mandatory jail sentences for pot growers. We are not talking about large criminal grow operations here. Anyone convicted of growing as few as three mature pot plants and three young cannabis starts (for the next cycle of cannabis growing) will be sent to jail for 6 months minimum. Judges have no power to decide who should go to jail and who should stay free under Harper’s proposed law changes. Anyone growing six or more marijuana plants faces 6 months in jail. That means anyone. Without exception. It is time for marijuana supporters to stand up and unite in opposition to the brutality of Harper’s new laws and his unnecessary new jails. If it was anyone else but pot users there would be an outcry at the unfairness of this new legislation. Pick on the gays, Jews, Muslims, Irish or Italians and look out. But pick on the humble pot smoker and no one defends their right to exist or their right to be what they want to be. Let us remember this anecdote from Second World War era Germany.

First they came for the homosexuals and no one spoke out. Then they came for the Jews and no one spoke out. When they finally came for me there was no one left to speak out. If you do not speak against Harper’s repressive regime it may be your turn next.

Don't quit your day job

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:19:21 +0100

It is the first week in September and summer holidays are over. I feel a kind of excitement as I wave my wife off to work. She still has a job. I don’t. Unless you call writing a job. Someone once said that opinions are like assholes-everybody has one. That is probably the reason why it is so hard to make a living by writing-everybody wants to do it. Everybody wants an audience. Everybody wants to be heard. Everybody would like to leave behind some mark of their existence such as a monument, a dynasty or a book.

Of those three possibilities a book is easiest.

My first hard copy book, Smuggler’s Blues, is selling reasonably well. In Canada that means about 8,000 books over several years. My take is about a buck and a half a book. No one’s getting rich here. My second novel, Operation Payback, has been released as an e-book. It’s a bit soon to judge but I think I have reeled in about ten dollars so far. So much for all the get rich stories about e-publishing. If you want to make real money forget writing and become a plumber. Cynical? Perhaps so but then many famous authors are cynical. I am of mixed feelings about continuing as a writer. It is nice to be able to boast about being a published author but the reality is most of us can earn substantially more money in any other field of business. Perhaps I will continue to write on a part time basis while I work at a money-paying job elsewhere. I might even give a try at a third book. Meanwhile my advice to aspiring authors is this. Keep writing-but don’t give up your day jobs.

Operation Payback hits the e-pub stands

Tue, 10 May 2011 16:24:25 +0100

Operation Payback is an escapist adventure that takes place in Canada the USA and Jamaica. The story is told by an unknown voice who only reveals his true identity at the end of the book. The author, Jay Carter Brown, reveals the action while the voice adds comments and opinions in the form of postscripts at the end of each chapter. The effect provides a realism that blurs the line between fiction and reality and draws the reader into a story. Operation Payback offers several hours of entertainment as the reader is carried to strange lands and customs with larger than life characters.

The saga begins when the RCMP are advised by their counterparts in the CIA that Cuban drug smugglers are intending to sabotage the upcoming Jamaican elections. The two police agencies team up to stop this threat to democracy and RCMP Corporal Brian Fox is assigned to the case. Corporal Fox’s “apple pie” attitude initially clashes with a more experienced and jaded CIA agent named Davin McCready as their investigation carries the two undercover officers from the deepest jungles of Jamaica to the dirtiest back streets of North America. At first the police are on top of events but when an intercepted shipment of drugs goes missing the trust between the two international law enforcement agencies breaks down. Montreal mobsters add to the mix as they try to protect their turf from a drug-dealing Cuban terrorist named Marcos without realizing just what they have taken on. A pair of bickering hit men contemplate their future while dispatching their opponents in a most gruesome fashion. A Jewish gangster defies stereotypes as he ruthlessly plots to keep control of his city. From the riveting first chapter to the explosive finale, Operation Payback is brimming with adventure as Canadian mobsters, undercover police and Cuban terrorists fight it out in Canada, the USA and Jamaica. The tables spin frequently in this fast paced action novel with a surprise ending that keeps the readers hanging until the last page is turned.

To order your copy visit www.jaycarter brown.com or visit Amazon for Kindle

Operation Payback soon to be released

Fri, 06 May 2011 19:36:45 +0100

I am pleased to announce the e-publishing of my new book Operation Payback, Drugs, Guns and Poli-tricks. Rather than go the conventional route of hard copy publishing as I did with Smuggler’s Blues I have decided to go with the electronic medium this time. It will be an interesting experiment however it turns out. I designed the cover myself with the help of a professional artist. I edited the book myself with the help of my wife who is a professional teacher. I wrote the book over several years having had to put it aside from time to time while I earned a real living. (Except for a few lucky and talented authors most do not make enough royalties from their writing to pay the rent on a dog house.) I foresee a possible problem in e-publishing as the market is opened up to more and more authors. The problem lies in the lack of professional support for these new authors - such as editing. It is almost impossible for an author to perfectly edit and correct his own works. A second set of eyes is needed to see every flaw. After writing two hundred and fifty thousand words and repeating the process over and over again an author’s mind tends to fill in the gaps when words are missing or misspelled. This interesting phenomenon is explained by deliberately removing certain letters from a sentence. The readers mind merely fills them in. Try reading this line for example.

“I wsh I ws abl to fnd my slppers.”

Even though most of the vowels are missing in that sentence the average mind will be able to read it quite easily. The internet and I-phones are creating new grammar rules with acronyms and deliberately misspelled words that shorten the exercise of communicating electronically. Most young people accept the new word spellings on their I-phones although I am certain that a great many readers will be put off by spelling and grammar errors in their e-published books and novels. Apart from that one negative most other comparisons between conventional and e-publishing are very positive for the electronic format. Many fresh stories will be available to the public through e-publishing. A vast number of those stories would never see the light of day if trusted to the opinion on a conventional book publisher. I encourage you to download and read Operation Payback which provides an escapist portal to several hours of excitement and adventure. When you have finished the book add your comments to the editor’s columns so that other people might benefit from your experience.

Jay Carter Brown

Jamaica runnin's

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:24:19 +0100

My wife and I went back to Jamaica last week. We took a direct non stop flight from Vancouver that had us in Montego Bay only six hours after our seven AM departure. The photo at the head of this story is the scene behind my pot dealer’s shack proving that even the poor in Jamaica have beautiful views. The stop at the road side shack was the first one that we made after picking up our rental car from the Montego Bay airport. The car had four bald tires, torn upholstery, missing hub caps and a smashed dashboard. The steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car and due to a defective neutral switch the car only started after several tries. That will teach me to use a cut rate rent a car outfit in order to save a hundred bucks. Nevertheless we arrived at our hotel without problem two hours later in time for a walk along Negril’s seven mile stretch of beach before dinner. The next day we treated ourselves to a beach side massage under some palm trees. A few hours later we drove from our hotel on the beach to the small town of Negril and then to Rick’s Café at the west end of the island. Rick’s Café has been a landmark in Negril since the early seventies when it was started by some expatriated American hippies who were rumoured to be involved in the ganga trade. Everyone who is successful in Jamaica is rumoured to be involved in the ganga trade. When Rick’s thatched roof bar first popped up like a magic mushroom from the ground it was a paragon of laid back hedonism with nude swimming in the ocean-side grotto and weed smoking everywhere. High Diving from the cliffs was allowed at your own risk and there were no lifeguards. The owners of Rick’s Café accessed their private living quarters to the side of the business by walking along a plank laid across an opening at the top of the grotto thus showing a disregard for their own safety that exceeded any disregard for the safety of their patrons who regularly flung themselves from the grotto’s highest perches into the ocean. Today all that has changed. Compared to what it once was Rick’s Café is downright elegant with a beautiful bar and restaurant rebuilt after the last hurricane. A new swimming pool has been added to the property with decadent in-pool dining and luxurious lounging chairs and gazebos. No one is swimming nude or smoking weed at Rick’s anymore probably because ninety per cent of the patrons are well heeled tourists from tour buses whisking in for brunch or sunset on the cliffs. The tourists are chasing a dream of unfettered hedonism that Rick’s once offered but that freedom is gone now replaced by material opulence. The view is still the same. The sun still sets like an orange ball on the ocean creating splendid sunsets. The sound system still pumps out a reggae beat that obliterates the sound of the waves crashing against rock cliffs. But I miss the old Rick’s that was run by hippies who have no doubt grown into accomplished business men and who have since honed their hippy retreat into a posh country club for the rich. We had a great time at pool side with a warm lunch and bar drinks while realizing that we are the very fat cats that Rick’s Café has evolved into attracting. Rick’s has changed the same way that the rest of Jamaica shows change. The highway from Montego Bay has been modernized and straightened by-passing many of the road side stands and businesses along the way. Cell phones are everywhere and even the poorest of Jamaicans seems to own one. Banks and banking machines are easily accessible and black market money changers are surprisingly absent. Jamaican weed is still excellent but good weed is no longer a rarity in the modern world. There are still some things that are still the same in Jamaica. The warm sun. The white sand. The tepid water. The slow pace of life and the friendly people. When only a week or two of vacation time is available it is comforting to know that I can always count on Jamaica as a one or two week prescription to overwork and fatigue.

Jay Carter Brown

The Last Hunt

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:16:18 +0100

My last blog entry was about a tour boat sinking from beneath me in Jamaica but I have had several other dangerous and even life altering experiences on the water. My first encounter of the wet kind occurred when I was just a boy in my teens living in Montreal. I had learned how to swim in my new high school’s forty foot pool only a few weeks earlier. I was a late bloomer in that sense. Most kids knew how to swim by grade eight. I did not. Joining the high school swim team taught me the proper fundamentals of swimming so that I developed speed and long range endurance. Joining the swim team also deprived my father of his favorite excuse for not taking me duck hunting.

“Not until you learn how to swim,” he would answer to my incessant nagging - until I joined the swim team and he finally gave into my persistence and took me on a duck hunting trip. I remember that in spite of my victory I did not enjoy getting up at four in the morning to prepare for the hunting trip and that it was hard to shake off sleep at such an early hour. It was still dark when we met up with Dad’s buddy and his Labrador retriever hunting dog before setting off on a long drive that ended on the opposite shore from a duck hunting blind on the Saint Lawrence River. To get to the blind we had to traverse the Saint Lawrence Seaway and navigate across the deep shipping lanes to reach the opposite shore where marsh reeds and swamps drew in flocks of migrating ducks and geese. It was dark and the water was calm as we prepared to set off in a fourteen foot row boat at five-thirty in the morning. The plywood row boat we were using was an old piece of junk that had been stored upside down on the shore of the river and left there open to theft or vandalism. There were other boats like it but like ours none had oars and none were worth stealing. After attaching an outboard motor to the transom of our tired old row boat and cranking it up we set off on our adventure and motored along at about six knots towards the center of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The river’s current was swift but the wind remained quiet for the first hour. As we neared the center of the river the wind picked up a little and the water became somewhat rougher but nothing to worry about. The Labrador retriever hunting dog laid calmly at my feet as his master steered the boat and my father bailed out water that seeped through the seams and slopped over the shallow gunnels of the row boat.

“Don’t lose the bailing can,” my father shouted over the roar of the six horsepower outboard when it was my turn to bail. “It’s the only thing that’s keeping this leaky old tub floating.”

When I think back on it now we were ill prepared to be on the water that early morning. It was bitterly cold and dark. We had no communication devices. No navigation lights. No compass. No cell phones. No CB radio. No VHF. No flares. No Stormtech type floater suits. In fact we had no emergency flotation equipment of any kind other than three floating seat cushions that were so old and saturated with water that they probably would have sunk like a stone. To add to this ill preparedness we were two adults and a near grown boy and a large dog crossing a potentially dangerous body of water in a row boat that had barely ten inches of freeboard after we all piled into it - a rowboat driven by an outboard motor at least twenty years old. Add to this recklessness the hypocrisy of a father and his buddy who could neither one of them swim a stroke and the potential for disaster loomed large. Nevertheless we made the river crossing without mishap and in due time our little row boat reached calmer waters where we pulled in front of a hunting blind made of reeds and two by twos strapped together. As we began setting out our decoys on the water we were thankful for a beautiful morning sunset which set the sky on fire

Red sky at night sailor’s delight-red sky a’ morn sailor be warned.

It is a common expression on the west coast where boating is a way of life but we were east coast land-lubbers and none of us had heard that little ditty before as we retreated to our blind and waited quietly for the ducks to arrive. It was late November and almost the end of duck hunting season for that year. In a few weeks time the winter storms would freeze the Saint Lawrence solid making any form of boating impossible. As with most things that come to an end we were all anxious to maximize our last hunting trip of the year and no one was willing to give up and return home before it was time in spite of the bitter cold. The duck blind gave us some protection from the wind and kept us out of view of the flocks of incoming ducks so that we could pop up and bushwhack the poor critters with number six bird shot when they dropped in to join our decoys. But there were very few ducks dropping in that morning. A couple of stragglers winged in close enough for us to get off a few shots but none fell out of the sky. I think we might have blasted maybe a dozen rounds all morning. Dad’s pal said the shortage of ducks was because of the wind which seemed to be picking up. My dad responded that maybe the ducks had already flown south for the winter. I said nothing as I held tightly onto my 16 gauge shotgun that dad had given to me for my last birthday and which I had never before used on a live target. The predawn temperature was close to the freezing mark and the rising sun was not helping to warm me up one bit. My hands were so cold inside my insulated gloves that I could barely feel my fingers. I scanned the gray skies for incoming targets and looked forward to an adrenalin flow that would warm me up when the shooting started. My dad made a cryptic remark about leaving before the wind got too much worse but no one wanted to return from this last hunting trip of the season too soon. And no one wanted to return skunked. Dad’s friend continued to be optimistic that the weather would improve while his hunting dog whined anxiously and our small boat continued rocking in the ever increasing swells. As the sky brightened and then became darker I saw that there was no land to fall back on as larger and larger waves began rolling in on us. The hunting blind was located at the edge of the Saint Lawrence River bordering an impenetrable swamp that stretched for several kilometers behind us to the east. There was no way a man could walk through that swamp in neck deep water and a boat could certainly not pass through due to all of the little islands of grass and reeds. The only way out of there was to travel back across the mighty Saint Lawrence River that was beginning to kick her heels up like a bucking bronco in a rodeo. The wind howled as it swept down the river ahead of a bitter cold front that was moving in from the coast. The wind brought rain. Just a sprinkling at first but soon the ice cold droplets began to run down the inside our parkas chilling us to the bone. The weather continued to worsen and by the time we realized we had better leave it was too rough to even collect the decoys. We left the decoys behind as we hastily started the outboard and beat a retreat from the duck blind heading directly into what was to become a full force gale. Waves of three feet and more began to intrude on the duck blind as we motored away and those swells became even larger as we motored towards the center of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The rowboat began riding up one side and down the other side of larger and larger waves. When the waves reached six feet in height it was obvious that we were well outside of our margin of safety. At first this was exciting to me and I was not afraid. But I began to understand the seriousness of our situation when my dad called out to me in a shaky voice.

“Hold onto your life cushion,” he yelled as our little row boat rode up and down ever increasing waves. “If anything happens hold onto your cushion and stay with the boat.”

If anything happens? What could happen? That’s when I noticed the fear in my Dad’s eyes. That’s when I became a little scared myself. We only had a few miles to go to reach land on the opposite shore but it looked almost unreachable as the darkening sky and the increasing waves obscured the coastline. The waves rolled higher and higher until they towered over our open boat. Under different circumstances it might have been fun to slide down waves like a surfboard leaving a froth of dirty water in our wake but fun was tempered with concern as I noticed my father’s hands clutching on the gunnels of the boat. When I finally understood the seriousness of our situation I began to worry about my father more than myself. Dad could not swim and I worried about what might happen to him if the boat capsized or swamped with water. At least I could swim if the boat went down. But swim where – and swim for how long. A person would not last twenty minutes in that hypothermic water.

At a certain point I noticed something gliding past in the water to my left.

“Look,” I said as I pointed out the object to my father. It was an inboard/outboard speedboat and the only other boat we were to see that day. The speedboat was a twenty-four foot fiberglass cruiser with a steering wheel, a canvas top, a windshield and Plexiglas side windows. The boat had a modified V Hull that was designed for performance and was painted black. It was a boat that I would have envied in different circumstances- but there it was floating in the water - upside down.

“Shouldn’t we check and see if anyone is in there,” I said as we slid down a wave and motored past the overturned hull.

“There’s no one in there,” answered my father in that same strange shaky voice that I had heard earlier. “Get down off your seat and sit in the bottom of the boat.”

“But it’s wet down there.”

“Just do it.”

I did.

It would take another half hour of motoring to reach calmer waters and we were extremely lucky that our row boat did not swamp or sink on the way. We should not have been on the water. A small craft warning had been issued earlier but having no marine band radios we did not hear it. Looking back on the situation is perhaps even scarier than the actual event as I contemplate now what I was too young to understand back then. My father and I never spoke of this incident again. I suspect he was embarrassed at his lack of good judgment on that duck hunting trip. I did not grill him on the many mistakes that were made that day. I never asked him if he was scared like I was but I can tell you this. Neither Dad nor I ever went duck hunting again.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in my adventures on the water where my girlfriend and I had to be rescued from a hydroplane that went down in the frigid waters of an almost deserted lake.

COMING IN MY NEXT BOOK TITLED “You Won’t get Wet I Promise!

A collection of dangerous and even life altering experiences on the water

Jay Carter Brown

Jamaica cool mon

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:16:36 +0100

I think I have spent enough time in Jamaica to qualify as a tour guide. I love the place and try to get there every other year or so. Because I know the island so well and because the island is so small I like to rent a car when I visit. A car affords me the freedom to go where I want,when I want and with who I want. Not long ago I traveled to Jamaica with two guy friends and it was fun to show them the sights. All the time we were sightseeing they both kept asking me to set up a helicopter ride to see the island. No way I answered. I'm not riding around in a Jamaican helicopter. My two friends argued with me about this for days until we eventually ended up on Negril's seven mile strand of beach where we chartered a boat to ferry us out to the reefs for a little snorkeling. One of my friends was a big man and to keep the boat on plane the operator of the reef boat ordered my big friend up front. Big mistake. The boat was an unsinkable Boston Whaler design with an open cockpit and room for fishermen to move around the perimeter of the 24 foot boat. There were about eight of us on board the boat which was probably a little overloaded considering the three foot ocean swell we hammered through to get out to the reefs. The reefs were two miles offshore in about twenty feet of water and on a clear day the water would be pristine for snorkeling. On this day however a storm was approaching and the closer we came to our destination the rougher the water became. As my two hundred and forty pound buddy moved forward in the boat it began to plane like a speedboat up and down the waves. A few moments later a wave came over the bow and swamped the boat sinking it from under us. The entire compliment of eight snorkelers and the crew of three Jamaicans ended up swimming for our lives as our unsinkable boat drifted out to sea with only its nose above the water line. It quickly disappeared from sight on a receding tide. There were a few moments of panic as we all swam for our lives towards a shoreline that was too far away for most of us to reach. Because of the bad weather all of the other reef destination boats had returned to shore and but for the grace of God and one remaining glass bottom reef boat returning to shore with a load of passengers some of our snorkeling party would certainly have drowned. We were rescued by the glass bottom boat whose Jamaican captain heard our cries for help and motored over to save us. I still get a chuckle out of my big friend from Canada who asked the skipper of the glass bottom boat what was to become of his sunglasses that he left on the sinking Boston Whaler design boat.
"Forget your glasses mon," the skipper replied, "you have your life."
I got another chuckle as we reached the safety of shore and I watched one of the other passengers from our sunken boat demanding compensation from the owners of the reef boat for his camera that was lost on board.
Fat chance of that I thought as I took note that the tourist's missing camera was worth twice the cost of the rental shack that chartered out our boat ride. When the dust finally settled and we returned to our room to smoke a joint and calm down I had my final chuckle of the day as I looked over at my two friends and challenged them with this question.
"Still want to take a Jamaican helicopter ride?"

Jay Carter Brown