Half of my new book ‘A Bag of Blood and Bones’ traces Bathsua’s story as she prepares to leave Weymouth on a journey to New England in 1644. As this story came together, I always knew that at some point there would be a voyage out into the wide British Sea (that’s what the English Channel was called by Englishmen in the seventeenth century). I imagined some conversations on the deck and how this would move the plot forward.
Then it occurred to me that I didn’t know anything about how that voyage would feel. Then I breathed a sigh of relief because I live next door to a sea-fisherman. I knew I could chat to Bob about this. He pointed me to his friend, Ivan, who lives in Weymouth and knows those waters well.
So, I called Ivan and had a great conversation about my story and what things around Weymouth and Portland are really like. And it became obvious that I’d set the most dramatic part of my book in possibly the most dramatic part of the British coast. Wow! As I learned about the deadly currents and tides and rocks and sandbanks, I was thrilled to think how I could include those in Bathsua’s story.
The combination of the tides rolling up the English Channel and the currents swirling around the coast combine to make things quite complicated for a boat trying to sail out of Weymouth and to head west along the coast. And on top of this, there is the Portland Race and The Shambles. Weymouth Bay and the Isle of Portland began to take on the stature of Greek myth. Think Scilla and Charybdis in the Odyssey.
As well as Ivan’s insight I needed a book to show me in black and white what was happening, so I found ‘Inshore Along the Dorset Coast’, by Peter Bruce. This was an amazing resource – with helpful diagrams of the strength and direction of the currents at different stages of the tides. But I needed more. I went on some mariners’ forums (fora doesn’t seem to be a recognisable plural for forum anymore) and read sailors’ experiences of travelling along this coast and their advice to each other. It was fascinating.
A Bag of Blood and Bone will be published in February 2023. You can get it on Amazon.co.uk, on my website, stevecox.co.uk or in good local bookshops in Dorset.