The Outer Banks Sea Gypsies

by Capt. Gardner Martin Kelley


Formats

Hardcover
£20.41
£14.03
Softcover
£14.03
£10.84
Hardcover
£14.03

Book Details

Language : English
Publication Date : 01/08/2011

Format : Hardcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 396
ISBN : 9781463430139
Format : Softcover
Dimensions : 6x9
Page Count : 396
ISBN : 9781463430122

About the Book

This story of adventure is of the last days of the cargo sailing schooners that carried freight to all ports of the world. Captain Fickett’s son, Ron is swept overboard, to drift ashore on the desolate Outer Banks of North Carolina. The ship is wrecked, later several miles below Cape Hatteras (The Graveyard of the Atlantic). The captain is murdered as he tries to get ashore. Johnny Mapp, one of the many squatters, remnants of Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony, sees the murder. He was worried of being implicated should an investigation begin. He uses the ship tool chest loot and his share of the lumber cargo to build a raft houseboat. He liked the simple way of life here on this barrier of ocean side sand with oak trees and myrtle bushes. Johnny, with his family leaves it all behind; they have adventure and learning to do as the raft moves south. The young daughter is kidnapped by hard case rum runners from Cuba; to sell to the White Slave Market. She escapes her abusers, and adapts to the roll of a mute, “Tiar of the Street Kids”. She does what is necessary to stay alive, hoping to get back to her family, somewhere along the waterway. Now the young girl is with child; she wants to go home and see her mother. She has acquired the carnal knowledge of a Havana Whore. Some good luck comes her way. She hears of a plot to kill an old sea dog for his small sailing yacht. She saves the old captain’s life and he rewards her by sailing her home to her mother, to care for and raise the boy child. Cissy becomes “Queen Tiar” of the Rum Runners. She returns to her mother at the “Pink Plantation” that she bought with her captor’s money to live with her family. This is her story too. Ron hears the truth of his father’s murder from Johnny Mapp, he gets revenge and justice. The waves roll up and down the sand at the Outer Banks as it has done, and will do, forever more.


About the Author

I was born near a lighthouse far out at sea on January 20, 1913. I must have heard the ocean roar and heard it pounding on the shore. Eight summer’s came and with it a big three-mast schooner. Prohibition was the name of the game. I was at the tiller, far at sea and my father was out from sampling the tea; I was the youngest rum runner of them all. I needed all that I could earn to support a pretty nineteen year old wife and home; 10-27-1931 we married and bought property in Milbridge, Maine. Vera Alley Kelley and I were married for 65 memorable years. I was a rigger at the Boston Navy Yard during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 12-7-1941; I also worked on “OLD IRONSIDES”. South Portland’s West yard in Maine, where I worked as a “pusher rigger”, I helped build and steered Liberty Ships for Captain Litchfield at all of the harbor trial test runs. I moved to North Carolina to enjoy my boat and the weather, I developed a small marine railway yard in Harkers Island near the Outer Banks. There in 1969 I got a call; The “BIG BAD JOHN” had run aground. I was recommended to Jimmy Dean as the right licensed captain to pilot her to Florida. Later I was hired to Captain the “M.V. MOUNT HOPE” for cruises from Rhode Island to Canada. The forty five foot ketch the “FROLIC”, I bought for my own. The “FROLIC” was berthed at Morehead City close to my home. The last 25 years I have written of experiences of my wonderful lifetime. I am now 98 years old and still going strong; I now reside on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina with my family. Capt. Gardner Martin Kelley