105 days on a bamboo raft...

I'm sitting in front of the fire, happy in the midst of a rubble of books; some borrowed from the library and some bought through Amazon.com (a great source for the obscure tomes that I seek, which definitely aren't on Oprah's list.) I'm researching for my novel-in-progress, a paranormal that takes place at sea. (Some scary shit happens on a boat in the middle of the ocean, I can tell you that...)

Here are a few of my new found treasures:

The China Voyage by Tim Severin
Zheng He; China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty by Edward L. Dreyer
Chinese Junks and other Native Craft by Ivon A. Donnelly
Chinese Mythology by Anthony Christie
1421 The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
Chinese Junks on the Pacific by Hans K. Van Tilburg


Of these, The China Voyage is probably most compelling to the non-geek reader. The author Tim Severin and his crew set out to sail across the Pacific on a bamboo raft (kind of like Kon Tiki, but in reverse.) Their purpose was to test the theory that Asian sailors could have reached America 2,000 years ago.

OK, Tim and his crew didn't quite make it to California, and were rescued by a passing freighter about 3/4 the way across, but Severin kept me up late reading his story and brought me near to tears when they abandoned Hsu Fu, the humble bamboo raft that had served them well for so many months at sea.

If you have a soft spot in your heart for wanderlust types you might like to read The China Voyage -- or one of Tim Severin's other 12 books -- all of them accounts of re-created historical adventures. This crazy Irishman after-my-own-heart has sailed a leather boat across the Atlantic in the wake of St. Brendan, traveled on horseback with the nomads of Mongolia to explore the heritage of Genghis Khan, and written books about those experiences too.

When doing research, there's no substitute for first hand experience. Which makes me wonder how I'm going to get mine?