BOCA CHITA: Prepare. Escape. Survive.

by Lance Long, Janet Doyle (Illustrator)

Overview

Mark, a retired boomer with a powerful survivalist streak, manages to avoid contamination from the deadly NOEL virus, released worldwide by terrorists on Christmas Eve. Within 3 days, 99.9% of the world’s population succumbs.
He decides to bug-out in his survival-prepared, live-aboard trawler to Boca Chita Key, an uninhabited island seventeen miles from Miami, where he uses his wits, resilience and mechanical know-how to homestead as a self-sufficient hermit. Access to unlimited fuel will guarantee his freedom to travel, and power the air-conditioning, laundry, hot water heater and freezer. He quickly learns the essential secret of harvesting diesel from marina pumps using his portable Honda generator. In a vastly changed world, Mark faces his first challenging year with only the companionship of a shipwrecked survivor, his dog Shadow.
In his Journal, he reflects on preparing for life aboard, watching the weather, harvesting the gifts of the sea, and nurturing the miracle of a kitchen garden. His encounters with a variety of animals and a handful of survivors succeed with the help of a salvaged Coast Guard Defender Class quick-response boat, a sawed-off 12-gauge pump Decksweeper shotgun, a stun-gun disguised as a camera, and some creative chemistry. He records a prepper's perspective on hot-wiring boats & cars, breaking & entering, false imprisonment and misdemeanor manslaughter. But Mark’s Journal also celebrates the mundane: bicycling, baking bread, doing laundry, and fitting-out, running, and maintaining his boats, island repairs and improvements.
In the months following NOEL, South Florida and the Keys suffer a series of natural catastrophes including a deep freeze, drought, uncontrolled wildfires in the Everglades, two hurricanes, and Lake Okeechobee breaching its dike, inundating South Florida. The first anniversary of the terrorist attack closes with a gathering of a small band of immune survivors, setting the stage for the creation of the community of New Islandia.
Boca Chita tracks a careful and thoughtful man achieving equipoise as custodian of his “green” island hideaway, overcoming isolation, and taking the next steps. It is the first book of the NOEL trilogy, which includes Calusa Coast and The First Coast.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940015685459
Publisher:	BENU Books
Publication date:	09/12/2012
Series:	NOEL , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Author Lance Long knows how mechanical things work and can fix almost anything. He can operate a bulldozer, fly a plane or navigate a ship to any safe harbor. Working his way through a Ph.D. in English as a carpenter, painter, and mason, he taught at the Merchant Marine Academy before abandoning academia for a rural North Florida beach to surf. Over the following twenty years he became a licensed general contractor, real estate and mortgage broker, and operated a very successful land development business.
When the real estate market collapsed in the Savings and Loan crisis of 1989, he lost everything, starting from scratch at age forty-four. He researched and wrote an insider disclosure book, Banking on Success, segueing into a television infomercial and a resoundingly successful seminar business. For ten years his television shows ran in a half-million households daily and he presented more than 3,000 seminars and workshops in 46 states, Canada and Mexico.
After 9/11, he realized it was not a question of if, but when, the world as we know it would change forever and began preparations, fitting-out out a large live-aboard diesel trawler. Already well versed in prepper survival techniques, having cruised extensively in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mediterranean, he could navigate anywhere and live off the gifts from sea and land. Most importantly, if anything broke, from a generator, to a water-maker, to a diesel engine, he knew how to repair it and get his vessel back home safely. When asked on a television show with whom he would most like to be shipwrecked on a deserted island, he answered unequivocally, “Thor Heyerdahl.”
Lance has researched and written numerous industry studies and marketing plans on alternative fuels, solar energy, aquaculture, electric vehicles, and wastewater bio-mitigation. As a public speaker, he has promoted federal government programs against bio-terrorism in Canada and Mexico.
Lance lives aboard and cruises the Florida coast between the Keys and St. Augustine, an area he knows intimately; he is currently working on Calusa Coast, book two of his NOEL trilogy.