Angling for SEA TALES over A HAUNTED WRECK

About the Book

Captain Ton-Ton Da-Da, skipper of the fishing craft Bossal Snare, sets sail for the blue water banks with a crew of West Indians of different backgrounds, island origins, and age. Shortly after arriving at the bank, the vessel is disabled. In the past, the captain had provided critical guidance to safe haven to a certain party boat named Dixie Island Girl when this vessel got lost on its first trip to these waters. Adrift in the C-Kraal (Caribbean Sea), skipper and crew entertain themselves with tales (including one about a horrific incident while fishing over a haunted wreck). The main preoccupation of Skipper Ton-Ton are two vessels, namely Dixie, which on occasions has disturbed his fishing, and the Enforcers, who is known to conduct destructive searches of suspicious vessels. Many tales are told as the vessel drifts on a calm sea. Through the heavy mist, an official vessel appears and carries out a rescue.

About the Author

Gilbert Sprauve is a retired professor of foreign languages (French and Spanish) at the University of the Virgin Islands. He toyed with the prospect of story writing for many years after making a modest debut in the 1964 edition of The Literary Review of Farleigh Dickinson, with "The Queue." In recent years he has published in English, French and Spanish collections of stories that aim at capturing and projecting the voice of his Virgin Islands and West Indian compatriots. The present volume is a sequel to those efforts and is based largely on Sprauve's experiences as an artisinal local fisherman. He is an avid tennis player, has been active in politics, has played lead roles in plays written by Wole Soyinka and the late Dereck Walcott