West of Wisdom

About the Book

    Many years ago Blake Bernard married Ethyl, the daughter of a missionary couple, on a South Pacific island. On their honeymoon cruise they were captured by pirates and the pirate captain attempted to ravish the bride. In the fight, Blake was shot and the pirate's boat caught fire and sank. Ethyl and the pirate escaped, but his treasure chest was lost. Ethyl was a grandmother when she received a mysterious riddle, West of Wisdom, found in a floating bottle.
    Astarte, her granddaughter, takes an inter-island freighter to find the island where her grandmother was married. When she recites the riddle to the ship's captain, who happens to be the same now much older pirate, he decides she knows the whereabouts of his long lost treasure. She is kidnaped bound and gagged and stuffed in a sail bag.
    The story starts when a man with a glass eye puts the sack on the deck of Timothy Tyler's sailboat and threatens to take over. Tim refuses to let the man come aboard and sails out into the boundless South Pacific Ocean. When the bag falls into the sea, he looks back and sees a small white hand reaching from the sinking sack.
    And then...

About the Author

Edwin Paul Cutler grew up with a dream to sail out of sight of land and steer by the stars. After a career as a mathematician, he went sailing with his wife, Wendy, on Romarin, a wooden boat built in 1938. They spent 10 years sailing in the Caribbean Islands and several years in Bermuda teaching college math and computers.

They made ocean passages navigating with a sextant. When their wooden mast broke, they scarfed in a splice and sailed away. They rode out hurricanes in the Caribbean Islands and repaired broken thru-hull fittings at sea.

They traveled to French Polynesia to study the islands in the story. On the Aranui, similar to the Wanderlust, they traveled to all of the Marquesas, several of the Tuamotus, and on to Tahiti. They flew over Huahine and Raiatea, spent a week on Bora Bora, and took the ferry from Tahiti to Moorea to stay in a grass hut.

The islands of the South Pacific were studied in Seven Seas Cruising Association newsletters, Alan Villiers, "Captain John Cook", 1967, Sven Wahlroos, "Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas", and Commander Victor Clark, "On the Wind of a Dream", 1960 and in various chart books.

Edwin has published numerous poems and several short stories in nautical publications, including sailing adventures and experiences in Cruising World. Some are available on "epic99.tripod.com". For NASA he published scientific papers on pulsars and artificial intelligence.

Another adventure-mystery-romance novel, Caribbean Kiss, is ready for publication.