Tag Archives: #disaster preparedness

A Speck in the Sea

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I’ve been reading some good books lately. A Speck in the Sea by lobstermen John Aldridge and Anthony Sosinski is one of them.

Subtitled “A story of survival and rescue”, it tells the story of how John fell overboard late one night and the subsequent search and rescue efforts.

I’ve always loved reading stories of disasters and survival. I like to see how people react to unusual circumstances and imagine what I might do if something happened to me. I read about nuclear wars and EMP attacks, alien invasions, the zombie apocalypse, global pandemics, environmental destruction and the more likely (for me personally) disaster at sea stories.

A Speck in the Sea is one of those.

As the Anna Mary motored out from Montauk late one night, John stood watch while his parters slept below. Instead of waking them up as planned, he decided to let them sleep a little longer and started to prepare for the fishing grounds instead.

One small ‘oops’ and he was over the side. In the middle of the night. In the North Atlantic. With nothing but the clothes on his back. With no one aware of his situation.

The book does a great job of telling the story from both sides: John tells what he’s thinking and doing while he’s bobbing around in the cold dark ocean. Anthony and the Coast Guard tell us what’s going on as they discover John’s missing and their reaction. The entire community gets involved. Yes, they would. The seafaring communities are still like that.

As a fisherman myself, with a brother who’s still trying to make a living out there, I could immediately relate. I admire John’s resourcefulness and will to survive. I’m not so sure I would react like he did. I have a much more pessimistic outlook on life. Still, it’s nice to know that it IS possible to survive.

If you’re into sea stories, or in how to survive the unexpected, you might like this book. I recommend it. 🙂

Guest Post – Would you survive?

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I thought this was a pretty interesting question and the comments really caught my eye. I think if the SHTF I would probably NOT survive. Not for long anyway. Yeah, I always keep plenty of stuff around the house in case of a hurricane. I have enough food, water and other supplies to last me for a while. But if the shit REALLY hits the fan, I don’t think I would last for long. I mean really, how would I be able to hold off an armed mob?
It’s still on my mind since I just got done watching the new show “The Last Ship”. I read the book years ago. I liked it then. I have a feeling it’s going to have a different ending, but I won’t spoil it for you. I thought they did a pretty good job of putting it on TV tonight. I’d like to watch the rest of the series, but I already know I won’t be around to watch TV for a few weeks.
It’s interesting because I’ve been going to meetings of the Campaign for Liberty on Tuesday nights for quite a while. Most people there are also very concerned about the way things are going. We’ve been talking about this kind of thing for a while. So, we started a garden. We’re looking into water supplies. We’re looking into how to keep a line of communication going. We’re looking into alternative power sources. All kinds of things like that.
I do love to read disaster stories (including zombie stories). I like to see how the people in them react to the situation. In most of them, most people die, pretty much right off the bat. The story is about how the survivors manage to survive. THAT is the really interesting part to me. Physical, emotional, sociological, spiritual survival. All of that. How do you think you would do? What do you think would happen to society in general if a disaster happened? I’m just wondering if many people even think about this kind of stuff.