AOS Other Nautical Fiction

Money ships were wrecks of treasure-galleons belched up from the bottom of the sea after tremendous storms, yielding doubloons and all kinds of precious treasure ... gold bars and bullion, chests of brilliant gems.

Oriental adventurer Captain Rochester spun an entrancing tale to Jerusha, seafaring daughter of Captain Michael Gardiner — a story of a money ship, hidden in the turquoise waters of the South China Sea, which was nothing less than the lost trove of the pirate Hochman. As Jerusha was to find, though, the clues that pointed the way to fabled riches were strange indeed — a haunted islet on an estuary in Borneo, an obelisk with a carving of a rampant dragon, a legend of kings and native priests at war, and of magically triggered tempests that swept warriors upriver. And even if the clues were solved, the route to riches was tortuous, involving treachery, adultery, murder, labyrinthine Malayan politics ... and, ultimately, Jerusha’s own arranged marriage.

Joan Druett, bestselling author of many award-winning books, including Island of the Lost, Tupaia, She Captains, and the Wiki Coffin mystery series, paints an epic drama of fortune-hunting in the South China Sea during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The Money Ship is a fast-moving novel on a sprawling canvas that spans three oceans and a myriad of exotic ports. As the pages turn, Jerusha voyages from the smuggling and fishing port of Lewes, Sussex to Boston in its glittering heyday, then back to newly settled Singapore, until her quest for love and pirate treasure comes to a spine-chilling climax in the benighted lands of Borneo.

Condor is a young man who is in love with the sea, but his twin brother, Hugh, does not share his passion. Thirst for adventure puts the two young men on a ship with Francis Drake. Drake harbors incredible ambition and does whatever is necessary to advance his career. He is also paranoid and forces Condor, who is an unusually large and strong man, to vow to serve him as bodyguard for life. Condor feels trapped, and when his brother mysteriously disappears, he risks the wrath of Drake on several occasions while he seeks his brother both in Panama and Europe. Condor sails around the world with Drake. Every mile deepens his disgust for the man. He also takes part in the battle with the great Spanish Armada. When he finally breaks away from Drake, he finds his lost brother after many foot-sore miles in a Spanish monastery. The ending gets intense when Condor finds the love of his life and tries to win her affection. This is a story of brotherly devotion, greed, cruelty and revenge.

Author: N. Beetham Stark

Title: Condor: Flying in Drake's Wake

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Format: ebook

Date: 10 January 2015

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As the water closes in over my head, I hear my father's words. 'Respect the sea. Never pretend to know her secrets.'

I'm a sailor, a swimmer. My legs ought to be reacting, kicking, trying to save me. Instead, I let the sea grab my heavy coat and pull me down. I'm dying, yes, I faintly comprehend this. But I've managed to escape.

It's a routine fishing trip off the coast of Ireland for Tom and his crew. But as night closes in, a mysterious galleon appears beside them.

Perhaps it's a mirage.

Perhaps there's a rational explanation.

Perhaps it's a ghost ship that will bring death to all who see it.

After being kidnapped and taken on board the Mistral Anne in Sea Captain’s Promise I, Thomas Quinn now faces a bigger problem in Sea Captain’s Promise II: Revenge of the Sea Witch. Mollie McLeod, a female pirate well known for causing trouble, disappears off the Mistral Anne’s deck and hides somewhere on the ship where she now fights the crew. They search but can’t find her, and Aedammair and Elias McDonnell show up, who hate and despise the captain every bit as much as the missing pirate, and threaten to take over the ship.

Featuring a trip to Sable Island, nicknamed The Graveyard of the Atlantic because of all the shipwrecks there, major storms, and battles at sea, things don’t get any easier for Thomas and the crew. In fact, Mollie and the others threaten to sink the Mistral Anne. And they may just succeed.

After a lapse of several years, James is recalled by the colours to carry out a secret mission to find a suitable deep water naval base in America. He becomes embroiled in the Boston riots and later while making his way to report to the Admiral in Jamaica, he is attacked by pirates, is driven ashore in a hurricane and then gets becalmed in the doldrums.

Exciting Nautical Fiction With Enough Twists And Turns To Keep You Guessing.

Assume you are the new owner of a cargo vessel with access to secret information. You need money to pay for the ship and crew. Your competition is well-entrenched with contracts covering most potential customers. There is little business. You could lose everything. Would you chance doing something risky? That is exactly the position of Captain Jon Swift of the schooner Providence.

In desperation, Swift buys cargo and heads south to the Caribbean seeking contraband. He soon finds out that cash is king, and the lack of cash can have dire consequences. That lack of cash hinders the acquisition of new loads and the sale of cargo.

Accepting cargo in payment in lieu of cash leads to further problems, some of which are life threatening. Swift faces opposition from all directions, and cash seems to be his only means of salvation. Will Swift's cash problems be his downfall?

Oblivious to the invasions, massacres and religious fanaticism that characterise the 15th century, a young girl falls in love with a noble Arabian tribal leader. But all eyes are on the Portuguese fleets in the Arabian Gulf, intent on securing the profitable spice trade.

Abdulaziz Al Mahmoud weaves a tapestry of momentous historical events with stories of love, honour and nobility, while guiding us around the medieval world of Lisbon, Cairo, Jeddah and Istanbul.

The Holy Sail brings to life a neglected episode of history that impacted not only the region but the world for centuries to come.

Excerpt:-At six o'clock in the morning Captain Cochrane came on deck and joined his son, who had been keeping the look-out since four, and who now stood leaning over the bulwark-rail, whistling softly to himself, with his eyes fixed upon a large ship, going the schooner's way, between two and three miles ahead. She was under all sail, but the light breeze was on the bow, and she showed no studding-sails.

"That will be the ship we sighted last evening!" exclaimed Captain Cochrane. "She has no chance with this schooner in light winds and her yards fore and aft. Evidently bound to Kingston. A West Indiaman apparently. They rig those ships too loftily, and the steeve of their bowsprits is a danger to the whole fabric."

"I can't help thinking that I've seen that ship," said Arthur. "I have been working at her with the glass, but can't make out her name, though you can just catch sight of the white letters trembling in refraction as she lifts to the swell."

Excerpt:-The corvette looked a mighty long distance away from the low elevation of the boat's gunwale almost as far as the horizon, it seemed to my eyes, though from the height of the deck of the Indiaman the sea-line showed something above the bulwarks of the man-of-war. One hardly noticed the movement in the sea on board the Countess Ida, so solemn and steady was the swing of the great fabric, a movement stealing into one's thoughts like a habit, and leaving one unconscious of it ; but the heave was instantly to be felt in the boat, and I own that I could not have believed there was so much swell until I felt the lift of the noiseless polished fold and marked the soft blue volume of the water brimming to the hot and blistered sides and green sheathing of the Indiaman.

A huge lump of a ship she looked as we were swept away from her; her masts soaring in three spires with the flash of a vane above the airy gossamer of the loftiest cloths; groups of passengers watching us from the violet-tinted shadow under the awning, heads of seamen at the rail, or figures of them upon the forecastle near the huge cathead that struck a shadow of its own into the water under it. The great bowsprit went tapering to the delicacy of the flying-jib-boom end marshalling the flight of white jibs; a stream of radiance floated in the water under each large window. Inexpressible is the effect she produced, taken along; with the dwindling of her to the impulse of our oars, with the fining down into thinnest notes of the voices of the people, and with the soft and still softening sounds of her canvas lightly swaying.

Excerpt:-"Now, look here, men," he continued, with an air of bluster which I hoped would not increase upon him, "you know, of course, that Charles committed murder this morning by stabbing the mate, who lies a dead body in his bunk below; and you likewise know that for an act of this kind, when he gets ashore, he'll be hung up by the neck, and left to dangle there till his bones blow away. Now, as he's a murderer, it's my duty to put him in irons, and keep him under hatches till I'm able to hand him over to the people employed by the law to sentence and strangle him, and all such folks as he. D'ye see, men ?" with a powerful flourish of his arm, and a slight increase of bluster, as though he was gaining in spirit from the air of attention with which the sailors seemed to listen to him. "We don't want no difficulties. Aboard me everything has always been plain sailing, and up to the knocker. My mate lies a dead man, and I want the chap as killed him."

He paused, running his eye over them. Two or three of the crew gave their heads a quick shake, but none of them spoke.

"The man," proceeded Broadwater," is lying snugged away in the fo'k'sle. Now, look ye here, my lads. There need be no trouble about it at all. All that you've got to do is just to remain where you are, whilst me and the second mate fetches him — seeing that he won't come under milder persuasions."

Excerpt:-Amongst my ancestors were several sailors, who had served the king or queen of their times in the navy of the state. A portrait of Ebenezer Rockafellar, who was a rear-admiral in the early years of George the Second's reign, hung in the dining-room at home, and represented a face like that of the man in the moon when the planet rises very crimson out of the sea on a hot summer's evening. He had a tail on his back and a great copper speaking-trumpet under his arm and his forefinger, on which was a huge ring, rested upon a globe of the world. The artist had painted in a picture of a thunderstorm happening through a window, with the glimpse of a rough sea, and an old-fashioned ship like a castle tumbling about in it resembling a toy Noah's ark tossing on the strong ripples of a pond.

It might have been my looking at this red-faced ancestor of mine, and admiring his speaking-trumpet, and the noble colour of weather which stained his face that first put it into my head to go to sea. I cannot say. Who can tell where little boys get their notions from? I would stand before that picture, and in my small way dream about the ocean, about sharks, tropic islands full of cocoa-nut trees, and monkeys, and parrots gorgeous as shapes of burnished gold; and I would dream also, all in my small way, of flying-fish like little lengths of pearl flashing out of the dark-blue brine on wings of gossamer, and elephants and ivory tusks, and of black men in turbans and robes glittering with jewels, like the dark velvet sky on a midsummer night ; and so on, and so on, until there arose in me a passion to go to sea, and behold with my own little eyes the wonders of the world.

Excerpt:-Some time before I arrived on deck a vessel had been descried on the port bow, and now at this hour of four she had risen to the tacks of her courses, and her sails shone so radiantly in the dusky distance that at the first glance I knew her to be an American. The captain of my ship, a man named Hoste, was pacing the deck near the wheel ; I trudged the planks a little way forward of him, stepping athwart-ships, or from side to side. The men, who were getting their supper, passed in and out of the galley, carrying hook-pots of steaming tea. It was an hour of liberty with them, the first of what is called the "dog watches." The gloom of the sky seemed to heighten the quietude that was upon the ship. The sailors talked low, and their laughter was sudden and short. All was silent aloft, the sails stirless to the gushing of the long salt breath of the east wind into the wide spaces of cloths, and nothing sounded over the side save the dim crackling and soft seething noises of waters broken under the bow, and sobbing and simmering past, with now and again a glad note like the fall of a fountain.

The captain picked up a telescope that lay uponthe skylight, and crossing the deck took a view of the approaching ship; then approached me.

"She is an American," he said.