Bautino for Orders

About the Book

The trails and tribulations of a sea captain working in a remote location.

About the Author

Capt. Paul Douglas Kersey was born in Beckenham, Kent, in 1963 and was put into a children’s home within five months due to parental issues. He spent his first six years in Alverstoke, near Gosport, Hampshire. This is where he probably picked up his passion for the sea, being close to the historic Portsmouth docks HMS Victory and HMS Warrior. The children from the home had free access to the dockyard museum, so he spent many days aboard these amazing vessels and in and around the docks. He was moved to Elmstead Woods Home near Chislehurst at age six and stayed there until he was twelve, when his father was once more in a position to take him and his elder brother. A council maisonette in Beckenham was his home until, having finished school, he joined the army. Thereafter he had a serious injury from a boat while visiting his grandma in Eastbourne, was kidnapped by his mother, was retrieved and returned to care for a short period, and finally returned to his father. He packed his bag and left home just before his sixteenth birthday. He made his way back to Eastbourne, and a school friend’s parents kindly took him in and made him stand on his own two feet. He took a job as an apprentice butcher and lived in a tiny bedsit in Eastbourne. He still maintains that butchering was a great trade to learn and has stood him in good stead through the years. His passion, however, was the sea. After ten years of butchering and part-time fishing with the Eastbourne boats, he was offered a full-time position as a deckhand on a small beach-launched boat. After fishing for some years and sailing as a skipper on a Hastings lugger, he continued his studies, initially RYA courses. While his fishing boat was in a refit, he went away on a holiday on a traditional tall ship and fell in love with sailing. He left everything shortly after. With just his kit bag, he signed on as AB on a sailing brig that paid next to nothing but all found. It was on this ship that he met and married his first wife, Phillipa, but it was not to last, unfortunately. The next year he was offered the position as mate/navigator on a British expedition to retrace Columbus’s voyage on the five hundredth anniversary, a fourteen-month voyage across the North Atlantic and back. Then he joined Square Sail, a company that had three square riggers and mainly earned money in the movie industry. Paul has several film credits to his name for marine coordination and trade extras work. In 1996 he took command of a schooner for a private owner, working mainly in the Med and western isles of Scotland. Next, he signed on as sailing master on a three-masted schooner based in Hull, UK, trying to help wayward youngsters. He then decided that a bit more money would be a good thing and signed on to a North Sea standby vessel as second officer. He was quickly promoted to mate and, amazingly, was headhunted by a takeover company to go out to Turkmenistan and kick off operations there as master of MV Swan, which is where our stories begin. He continued his studies, funding them himself as he went. He finally attained his STCW 2/ll masters unlimited certification in 2010. He currently serves as master on a fisheries research vessel, a position he has held for thirteen years at time of publication. He still sails when he can and is involved with several traditional tall ship projects as volunteer officer and advisor.