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AN IRREGULAR SORT OF LIFE by C. Dana Densmore (Revie1ved in 2001 Winter issue of Sea Hi story)
309pp.
Pr ice: $20
S& H: $3 .00
508-540 -3542 P.O Box 116, West Falmouth, MA 02754
ON THE HIGH SEA "... You de finitely d 0 want to read the author's
colorful stories."
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- Th e Dallas Morning N ews
"Druett offers us a Vi Vi d sense of shipboard life in her descriptions of medicines, surgical tools, the tumult of a whale hunt and treatment of such common ailments as dysentery, dropsy, syphilis, scurvy and insanity." -The Arizona Re public
'Those who enjoyed Patrick O'Brian's eye for historical detail will delight in Druett" -Publishers Wee kly
Surgeons a t Sea in t he A ge o f Sail
Joan D ruett 1
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An Irregular Sort of Life, by C. Da na Densmore (C. D ana D ensmore, Wes t Falmouth MA, 2000 , 309pp , illus, ISBN 09645207-1-0; $23pb incl . shipping) Available fro m rh e author at PO Box 116, W es t Falmo uth MA 02574. D ana Densmore, who in 1995 wrote and published A -Boat, an annotated and illustrated jo urnal of six cruises on the Woods H ole Oceanographic Institution's o riginal ketch Atlantis, has done it again . This volume covers 50 years of wo rki ng on the wo rld's ocea ns in yachts, wo rkboats, fis hing boars and ocean ographi c vessels. It detailsaseriesof cruises from 1957to 1985 aboard Crawfo rd, Atlantis II, Calypso, Planet, Chain, and j ean Charcot, among others, ending up on Delaware. D ensmore, bo rn in 1920, is an intellectual sort of guy and one of the las t of rhe breed known locally as lee-rail wa ter ca tchers, a term relati ng directly back to the lee rail of the old Atfantis, when water samples were take n by less sophisticated means rhan today. Before spending the war running a bulldozer in a C B battalion on Iwo Jima and other isles, h e started seago ing on a W orld War I co nverted subchaser towing targets for the Army Coast D efense forces in New York H arbo r. After rhe war and a stint at harpooning sword fis h, he went to work fo r WHO!, cali bra ting thermometers and handling water samplers and related gear over the side and becoming a scientific watch stander. H e sailed on various WHOI ships as well as on Cousteau's Calypso and other fo reign vessels, where the food was sometimes very good and the wine mess better than at home. His perso nal journals, fleshed out to make a very readable narrative, are on the one hand replete with references to fam ous oceanograph ers and other lesser known shipmates w·hose nicknames at times confuse the story. Bur read a li rde less intensively, th ey g ive a marvelous and unique feel for what ir was like to be out therewith some of the idiosyncratic and wonderfully
SEA HISTORY 99, WINTER 2001 - 02