Publisher's Synopsis
Huguenot Roots-cum-Six Continent Odyssey (2015) is my 3rd book. My 1st book was to alert the world Bushman of Botswana as seen in the 1986 US version (vs. Afrikaans original) of The Gods Must Be Crazy movie). That's of our earth's oldest now endangered human species facing extinction while we are on about spotted owls and snail darters. The Bushman subject is updated in book's three's (Cpt 32). My 2nd book was creating a 914 Sq Mi National Park from an offered 63 Sq Mi Mozambique beach peninsula. A development via a 99 year MZB Gov develop-operate land lease concession. But our New Orleans developer threw craps, did not perform. My Save Mozambique's Elephant Coast (2007) book was to revise our development to a 4000 Sq Mi NP to connecting N with by then the Grand Limpopo Trans Frontier Park (GLTP) the world's largest at 34,500 Sq Mi (of three country International wildlife NPs). Our 4000 Sq Mi version was all in the UN Maputaland Center of Plant Diversity botanical treasure per the International Biodiversity Accord as created at the Rio 1992 Earth Summit. This story is updated in this book 3's (Cpt 37) as I try to locate a billionaire to get the 4000 Sq Mi Mozambique and Botswana enlarged wildlife-Bushman NP both going for his (or her) enduring living legacy. Back to this current 2015 book, It is double barreled. It traces family roots back through the 1500s as two million Protestant Huguenots were forced out of France by 16 million French Catholics after Paris's 1574 Bartholomew Massacre. My roots got from France to UK. Then Protestants English sent them on to Ireland to receive land taken from Irish. My great-great grandfather sailed Cork Ireland to NY in 1824, to get as far west as Michigan. My great grandfather went on west to establish our N Cal cattle ranch. I was of the 4th generation on it with smashing Pacific Ocean view. Our 2nd Cal generation was big in the Save the Redwoods era (world's up to 379" tallest trees) to save some of the best stands "native and unspoiled for future generations." My odyssey started with a football scholarship to Oregon State (my folks' alma mater), then rugby at Cal Berkeley to get my engineering degree. I did military (US Navy flight training), got out early via a Wash DC political "reduction in forces" (RIF). 1958 I joined international Bechtel for 30 plud years of key man on major projects, 17 years in Africa, 14 years in Muslim countries. I was the kickoff Alaska Bechtel site manager on the 800 mile 1970s Arctic to Pacific crude oil 48" diameter pipeline an eventual $8 billion project. Later I provided a revised Bechtel plan to put out the Saddam Hussein's set 800 1990s Kuwait oil wells. Our plan kept oil burn off at $30 billion loss vs.$90 billion via the original less adroit plan. I killed a man-eating lion in Kenya in 1965 (Outdoor Life cover story Dec 65). I later hunted in Tanzania after finishing Bechtel projects for near a year in the bush in three dry seasons to face a wounded lion charge with a jammed rifle. My real death defying experience was a Cape buffalo charge at 14 paces, to die from my .458 slug at seven paces, elapsed time 0.4 of one second surely thanks to divine intervention. I got more into adventure travel as North Pole in 1988, after two prior year's trips to Chinese occupied (devastated) Tibet. At North Pole, last 16 miles was in a Soviet military helicopter, for a story inside a story. I scuba dove the Israel Red Sea, then Coral Sea (et al) to face a circling tiger shark (second to Great Whites) on the shark man-eater list. Book gives insights into international pipeline industry, other happening, then adventure travel events as a four day Indian Himalayas white water rafting from 16,000' (Padum, Zanskar River) down to Indus River at 10,000', a few other "stranger than fiction' odyssey events in this non-fiction book. I hope the provided tales proved an interesting reading adventure for those who give it
