The Ship and the Storm: Hurricane Mitch and the Loss of the Fantome
About this audiobook
Captain Guyan March had spent his entire professional career aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises’ fleet of extravagant tall ships that carry passengers on weeklong fantasy cruises spiced with rum and sun. When he agreed to command the Fantome, Windjammer’s marquee ship, a beautiful 282-foot schooner that “sailed like a pig” in the Gulf of Honduras, he knew that a storm would leave him little space to run. In the southern reaches of the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Mitch whirled to life like a nebula and became Captain March’s worst nightmare—a category five storm with 180-mile-per-hour winds and fifty-foot seas. After discharging his passengers in Belize, Captain March and his crew, most of them West Indians, took the $20 million uninsured tall ship out to sea to dodge the approaching storm. What ensued was a deadly game of cat and mouse that confounded experts’ predictions and cornered the Fantome with eerie precision.
Based on journalist Jim Carrier’s exhaustive research and hundreds of interviews, The Ship and the Storm explores the story of the Fantome and Hurricane Mitch from every angle. From the deck of the ship, to the research planes flying into the eye of the hurricane, to islanders and coastal villagers in a desperate battle for survival, The Ship and the Storm is the heartbreaking and horrifying story of the most destructive hurricane in Western Hemisphere history.
About the author
Jim Carrier is an award-winning journalist, civil rights activist, and filmmaker. He has written ten books, produced documentaries on civil rights, been published in National Geographic and the New York Times, and produced multimedia projects for the Southern Poverty Law Center. His reporting has been broadcast on NPR and PBS, and was included in Best American Science and Nature Writing. Volunteering at the Southern Poverty Law Center, he wrote Ten Ways to Fight Hate, a community guide distributed to one million officials and human rights activists. Carrier developed Tolerance.org, which won two Webbys for activist websites and produced the film Faces in the Water which shows every thirty minutes at the Civil Rights Memorial. He and his daughter, Amy, descend from Martha Carrier who was hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. His wife, Trish O’Kane, PhD, is a lecturer in environmental education at the University of Vermont.
Robertson Dean has recorded hundreds of audiobooks in most every genre. He's been nominated for several Audie Awards, won eight Earphones Awards, and was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of 2010. He lives in Los Angeles, where he records books and acts in film, TV, and (especially) on stage.
