Allan Horton recommends:
An Island Out of Time
"An Island Out of Time" by Tom Horton (no relation) is about the vanishing lifestyle of the residents of Smith Island, the only inhabited island in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay, and stronghold of people totally dependent upon the bay for their livelihoods - essentially crabbing and oystering. I read it as homework for my current endeavor - delivering my 34-foot Chesapeake deadrise power cruiser home to Sarasota, and I visited Smith Island with the boat a month ago. Horton writes poetically about his three-year sojourn in residence in Tylerton, the most remote of three communities on Smith, but nothing is more gripping than his accounts of ferrying his asthmatic son to the nearest mainland hospital at night across uncharted, shallow waters. Horton ventures into the history of Smith Island, delving into the infamous "oyster wars" waged between Virginia and Maryland fishermen. Bitter feelings have survived generations since the conflict's greatest heat, which resulted in an active "oyster police" presence in each state's waters.
And while perhaps less poetic, the chapters he turns over to Smith Islanders to relate, in their own Loyalist British vernacular, why they hang onto a vanishing way of life are no less gripping. As they watch more and more of their youngsters leave for the mainland, Smith Islanders continue to live elemental lives linked irretrievably to the bay in an industry threatened by encroaching growth and development. It's a good summer read.
Allan Horton, who retired in March as an editorial writer for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, is delivering his new boat from St. Michaels, Md. to his home near Sarasota. The boat is named Juniper, for the Atlantic red cedar from which it's planked. It's 34 LOA, 9 feet 6 inches in beam and draws 2 feet - dimensions Horton hopes will prove as capable of coping with the Florida West Coast's shallow choppy bay as it does with Chesapeake conditions.
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Nanette Holland recommends:
Walk on Water
Like her famous grandfather, Lorian Hemingway is a gifted writer with a passion for fishing and a weakness for drink. Using fishing as a metaphor for life, "Walk on Water" is a bittersweet, wry and brutally honest self-portrait of ruin and redemption. From a childhood spent tempting catfish in the muddy ponds of Mississippi, to years of alcohol-fueled machismo battling billfish in the Caribbean, to eventual sobriety and serenity fly fishing for trout in the fast-moving streams of the Rockies, "Walk on Water" is an unforgettable journey of courage and discovery. The next time someone asks me why I love fly fishing so much, I'm going to tell them to read this book!
Nanette Holland is the public outreach coordinator for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. A former Tampa Tribune reporter, she loves to write about her fishing experiences and is among the contributors to the upcoming hardcover book, "Chicken Soup for the Fisherman's Soul." Holland is unashamedly obsessed with fly fishing and currently serves as president of the Tampa Bay Fly Fishing Club.
Jeff Klinkenberg recommends:
The Sea and the Jungle
This summer I'm rereading "The Sea and the Jungle" by H.M. Tomlinson, a classic first published in 1912. Tomlinson was an English newspaper guy who got fed up with the business and opted for a little adventure. He signed up for a voyage on a tramp steamer bound for the Amazon. Oh, what a voyage. As someone who becomes seasick glancing at a glass of water, I shake with admiration and fear as I turn the pages. Tomlinson was no sailor, but fortunately he had a sense of humor. He writes with clarity and beauty. He can describe the sea and the jungle: My stomach pitches and my skin crawls as I read about the skeeters waiting for him back in the South American bush. His tale is something out of Joseph Conrad. Maybe better.
Jeff Klinkenberg writes the "Real Florida" column for the St. Petersburg Times. He is the author of "Dispatches from the Land of Flowers,'' published by Down Home Press of Asheboro, North Carolina and the upcoming "Seasons of Real Florida,'' an essay collection which will be published by University Press of Florida next spring.
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