Rime of the Ancient Underwriter

How I Stowed the Day Job and Went to Sea

by Jim Salmon

Illustrated by Jan Mercuri Grossman

We all have those days, the days when we think to ourselves: "I wish I could just get away from it all."

Jim Salmon did much more than think these words in 2000 when he left his job as an insurance underwriter and embarked on a nineteen-month trip around the world. Rime of the Ancient Underwriter is his humorous and engaging personal account of the journey on board the Picton Castle, out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The world voyage was the subject of a popular, sixteen-part series on Canadian cable television called Tall Ship Chronicles.

The author weathered storms at sea and stormy relations aboard ship, tramped through a steamy Panamanian jungle, climbed the rarified summit of Kilimanjaro, and tracked wildlife on the high plains of East Africa and the Australian Outback. There are pirates and a mutiny, but mostly this account is about people, places, and the human condition as seen through the eyes of a corporate exec turned seafarer.