In Linda Collison’s new novel, Water Ghosts, seven troubled teenagers embark on a vintage Chinese junk on a Pacific “adventure-therapy” voyage, to either help them work out their problems or just possibly to get them out of their parents’ hair. Among the motley voyagers is fifteen-year-old James McCafferty. While all teenagers, at one time or another, feel that no one sees the world as they do, James has it far worst than most. He says, “I see things other people don’t see; I hear things other people don’t hear.” Once at sea, James has premonitions of doom and believes that the ship is being taken over by Ming Dynasty spirits. It doesn’t help that the junk’s crew is disappearing or dying.
Collison, who has sailed the Pacific herself, captures the very tactile and real world of life aboard. At the same time, she evokes the otherworldly sense of being on a small boat adrift on an a vast, windless ocean where even time and space can also seem to come adrift. Are the voices of the dead in the water real, or just in James’ head? Are the doldrums driving James mad or is something even more sinister at hand? In Water Ghosts, the tension is as palpable as the equatorial heat and the rolling of the old junk in the incessant swells.
Water Ghosts is an absolutely gripping paranormal nautical adventure. While intended for young adults, it can be enjoyed by readers of all ages. Highly recommended.
First of all, notwithstanding the name, there is no point, as in point of land, to 
Great news. 
The Voice Tube: One day in February last year, our Museum Director got an email asking, “Is LILAC missing a voice tube from her bridge?” The ship was missing the mouthpiece to that very voice tube, but, how did the writer know to ask that question? He had it, of course. Ed Hlywa did, however, come by it honestly, buying it for $10 in the 1980s from LILAC’s last owner, Henry Houck. He says, “I always assumed that LILAC was heading to a shipbreaker and that I was preserving a little bit of nautical history.” Reminiscing one day, he Googled “LILAC Falling Creek” and was amazed to discover that she had survived and that the Lilac Preservation Project was working to restore her. Ed graciously offered to return this little piece of history, saying, “It has served me well and if you hold it to your ear, you may be able to still hear the orders being called down to the engine room.”
There is good and bad news about California blue whales. The good news is that the 
Earlier this month, 
If you are in the neighborhood tomorrow, Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 12:30PM, you may wish to stop by the “bon-voyage” party on Pier 17 in New York’s South Street Seaport for the 