Woman in The Wheelhouse

· Nancy Taylor Robson
5.0
1 review
Ebook
369
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About this ebook

" If ever there was a woman in a man's job, this is it! The author spent six years -- until shore-bound by the birth of her first child -- in the world of commercial mariners, first as cook and deckhand, then as licensed mate -- one of the first women in the country to hold a USCG license to operate coastal tugs. Two weeks before their marriage, her husband became captain of an old DPC tug built in 1943. A month later, she joined him on a short run on the upper Chesapeake Bay. Although she had been aboard tugs before, this was different, "like the first taste of a drug -- intoxicating, seemingly harmless, but the beginning of a slowly growing addiction."The book initiates the reader into the beauty and romance of life on the water combined with the exhausting, dangerous work. Robson relishes the incredible closeness to Nature: whales, porpoise so close she could nearly touch them and birds that come into the galley to watch her making bread, as well as the magnificent spectacle of a sunset on a clear winter's day as it glows behind a black network of bare-branched trees along the shore. She also endures the fear of being maimed or lost overboard, the male opposition, and the drudgery, collapsing more than once in icy, sodden clothes into an unmade bunk. On seagoing trips that ranged from the Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod, from Maine to Florida, to Bermuda, New Orleans and Mexico, she felt the frustrations of failure but also the tremendous exhilaration of success. It's a world that many imagine what it would be like to share in all its adventurous, terrifying glory, though few actually experience it. Robson brings that world alive and takes you along for every hard-won but glorious nautical mile. This book is for anyone who every imagined running away to sea, for every woman who wonders what it would be like to live a real-life adventure romance, for every man who relishes the outdoors, and for everyone who loves a good yarn.

Author of numerous articles and essays, Nancy Taylor Robson is also the author of two novels: The award-winning coming-of age story, Course of the Waterman, and A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story. A freelance writer for many years, she has published personal essays, features, maritime reporting and analysis, travel, garden and more for such places as The Washington Post, Yachting, House Beautiful, The Baltimore Sun, the Christian Science Monitor, Southern Living, Sailing, and more. She is also a University of Maryland Master Gardener and Bay-Wise certifier, who grows and cans the family's fruits and vegetables. She writes, sails, races sailboats (occasionally), walks the dogs, and cooks for friends and family. "

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5.0
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About the author

Nancy Taylor Robson grew up sailing and building boats with her father on the Chesapeake Bay. After graduating from the University of Maryland, she worked as cook-deckhand on the coastal tug on which her husband, Gary Robson, was captain and became one of the first women in the country to earn a USCG license to run coastal tugs. After her children were born, she turned to freelance writing and has been published by The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, House Beautiful, Yachting, WorkBoat magazine, Woodenboat, Sailing, Coastal Living, Southern Living, and more. She has been a contributing writer for Chesapeake Bay Magazine for 20 years, and a writer for The International Garden Writers Association (GardenComm), and the Sustainability Committee.She's the author of three other books: A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, A Modern Love Story, a novel, OK Now What? A Caregiver's Guide to What Matters, nonfiction, and the coming of age novel, Course of The Waterman, which won the 2003 Fred Bonnie Award for best first novel. While she has a degree in history, she is a University of Maryland Master Gardener, a Bay-Wise certifier, and gardens organically on 2 acres. She has two children.

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