Black Dog, Blue Sea: Circumnavigating the Caribbean with a Grumpy Old Man

Twenty years after leaving home, serial traveller Dan Slater feels the need to reconnect with his loving, yet impassive, father. To this end, he hatches an ambitious plan to take the old man on a three-month long circumnavigation of the Caribbean Sea. This will be no luxury cruise though; a modest budget demands catching long-distance buses, sleeping in hostels, and eating street food - not exactly your average holiday for a 72 year-old. Fortunately, Peter is game for anything. While Dan is aware of his Dad's Asperger Syndrome, he doesn't realise the extent of the clinical depression that accompanies it. This revelation gets things off to a shaky start, but the pair gradually develop a comfortable rapport. While working their way around almost 10,000 km of Caribbean coastline, with a backdrop of beaches, jungles, reggae music, and colourful local characters, Dan unravels his father's eventful, and often poignant, life story. The journey is just beginning to bear fruit when disaster strikes, forcing Dan to evaluate his own mental and emotional makeup. Author Bio : Freelance writer Dan Slater has been crafting travel and adventure stories for fifteen years. Black Dog, Blue Sea is his third full-length book, following two epic travel memoirs on low-budget trips through Africa and SE Asia, entitled 'This is Not a Holiday' and 'March of the Warmdueschers' respectively. At the time of publication, Dan has visited 114 countries.