Margarita Cat treats a subject timely to today's social and economic meltdown - how to dodge them in style! The trade wind reaches of the world have gone chock-a-block with cruising sailors who have trickled down to the underdeveloped parts of the world, slipping the yokes of their failing postmodern states. Caravans of yachts follow Ayn Rand's escape route by "going Galt" in the South Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. .As Peter Swanson, contributor to Yachting, Soundings and Passagemaker magazines, puts it: "Bruce Van Sant spent 40 years navigating in that subculture. But coming so early into it he never really fit in with the American cruising crowd as it swelled to a movement. His apartness has given him a unique, often hilarious perspective of what happens when Middle-America decides to escape by sea . . . in Margarita Cat, the result is an oddball classic in a genre of one."Cruising Guide Publications says Margarita Cat is "a lovely and indulgent book of letters, logs, and memories compiled like a giant love letter to the sea and all those who dare to venture upon her . . . yet another wonderful example of his literary and epistolary sagacity, whimsy and an ongoing love affair with the written word."Also available for Kindle and Ipad at the Kindle Store.
About the Author: Orphaned by World War II, Van Sant worked his way through childhood at dozens of crazy jobs. He learned to sail early by borrowing sailing skiffs from beach lifeguards. After university he got a sailboat with a plan that, when the sailboats got big enough, he'd get out of the rat race and go sailing to simpler places for a simpler life. After a decade in aerospace IT he spent four decades of cruising, working, writing and speaking in countries of Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, picking up six languages along the way. Returning to the Americas in 1979 he settled into cruising the myriad islands between Florida and South America. Having long ago "copped out" or "gone Galt", Van Sant got used to living freely, without every step insured or hobbled by cat's cradles of regulations, government programs, monthly bills and nettling bosses. He lived without ever-present signs of "NO smoking", "NO fishinig", "No swimming, loitering, littering, entry, passing, parking in the park - NO!". If you want to escape, he can tell you how. You can read some of his and others' adventures in world cruising in MARGARITA CAT. Van Sant has, alas, sold his last boat and lives ashore with his wife Rosa in their home, Kembali ke Tanah, high over the sea in the Dominican Republic. See KEMBALI at www.ThornlessPath.com.