title: The Nature of Boats: Insights and Esoterica for the Nautically Obsessed
author:  Dave Gerr 
description: It's quite obvious Gerr understands the weaknesses of those of us afflicted with a passion for boats. Furthermore, he trades on our insatiable appetite for nautical tidbits. And he does it well. There's hardly an aspect of yacht design, construction, and operation that he doesn't touch on in his cheerful, chatty manner.''<br /><br />If you are not not nautically obsessed prior to reading this book, you will most certainly be afterword.''<br /><br />It's sort of a cross between David Macaulay's The Way Things Work and a volume of Andy Rooney essays. Which means it's fun and educational at the same time.''
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  ##### www.blackmask.com
  
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  A Strange Island
  
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  # A Strange Island
  
  
  ### Louisa May Alcott
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
  ONE day I lay rocking in my boat, reading a very famous book, which
  
  
  all children know and love; and the name of which I'll tell you by and
  
  
  by. So busily was I reading, that I never minded the tide; and
  
  
  presently discovered that I was floating out to sea, with neither sail
  
  
  nor oar. At first I was very much frightened; for there was no one in
  
  
  sight on land or sea, and I didn't know where I might drift to. But the
  
  
  water was calm, the sky clear, and the wind blew balmily; so I waited
  
  
  for what should happen.
  
  
  Presently I saw a speck on the sea, and eagerly watched it; for it
  
  
  drew rapidly near, and seemed to be going my way. When it came closer,
  
  
  I was much amazed; for, of all the queer boats I ever saw, this was the
  
  
  queerest. It was a great wooden bowl, very cracked and 