Today, we are visiting with Doug Danielson, a writer from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

JRC: Hi Doug.  I know you were an architect and now you’re a yacht Captain and a writer. Can you give us a brief description of this transition?

Doug: ‘Seems like a long time ago, Jim. I went to college in San Luis Obispo,California, studied to become an architect, and ended up with my own thirty-person practice in Orange County,California. Lots of stress and pressure and I had to have a release. For me it was racing sailboats and boating. My wife, Karen, and I were really into it and so were our three sons. It grew into a family activity and became our escape, our passion. I had to close my practice in 1991 during a bad recession and retired from architecture. Fortunately, I had obtained a USCG 100-ton Master’s license several years prior because I was designing marinas at the time and it looked good on the resume. It enabled me to have another career.                                 

 JRC: And of course, now you write books.  What was the jump from being a yacht captain to an author?

Doug:  In September of 1997 I was caught by Hurricane Nora on the outside of the Baja Peninsula, halfway between Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas, while delivering a large catamaran from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta. My crew and I had to put the boat on the beach in order to save it. Took us almost a month to get it off and back to San Diego for repairs. Kitty James, then editor of Santana, asked me to write a story about it for her magazine. I did, she liked it, and that article launched my third career, as a non-fiction feature writer.

 JRC: So you wrote articles on boating for West Coast magazines.  Now you’re writing fiction.  Are your novels all related to sailing?

Doug: Yes they are Jim, but only for now. I have two novels in print. They were originally self-published. Billie Johnson at Oak Tree Press thought they were a good read and is re-publishing them. They are the beginning of a nautical mystery adventure series, but each novel stands alone. My protagonist is a young ex-Navy guy who gets into all kinds of trouble, trying to catch bad guys and manage the attentions (or miss-directed attentions) of too many beautiful women.

 JRC: How much of the plots are drawn from real life incidents?

Doug: Pretty much all of them. I’m lucky I do what I do, because being a yacht delivery captain provides me with lots of writing material—from my own experiences and those I see and hear from other yacht captains. On top of that, I’m a people watcher and can sit in airports, bus and train stations for hours with my notebook, and observe other people’s mannerisms and the funny things they do. It all influences my writing.

 JRC: Your latest book is Shore Loser.  Can you tell us a little about that book?

Doug: I think the book jacket tells it best… “When JAKE MORTENSEN and his “always ready to party” crew are sent to Mexico to retrieve a stolen 50-foot ketch called SHORE LOSER, his first venture as a repo-yacht captain places his three friends in danger and almost gets him killed in the process. He doesn’t know it, but concealed on board SHORE LOSER is a package so valuable some San Diego businessmen would resort to murder to recover it and others would be shocked if they knew what it contained. While trying to protect the boat and his crew, Jake discovers the hidden goods, exposes an investment scam that rocks the San Diego yachting community, helps catch the bad guys, and learns the real reason why the Russians were unable to participate in the ’95 America’s Cup.”

 JRC: So, even the Russians show up.  Sounds too interesting to pass up.  I’m hooked.  How much is that ship’s captain like Doug Danielson?

Doug: My protagonist, Jake Mortensen, is not me. Although it might have been fun when I was younger, I’ve never had women chase after me the way they do him. He is a complicated character, made up from bits and pieces of the many people I’ve observed in marinas, on boats, and around the waterfronts of the world. He has his character flaws, is a bit of a Neanderthal when it comes to relationships with women, but he is basically a good guy and extremely loyal to his friends.

 JRC: I understand your wife can also handle a good-sized boat.  Any interesting experiences she has had when she was the Captain?

Doug: Karen  is quite a sailor in her own right. In 1989 we did a double-handed race from San Diego to Honolulu, two people on each boat, 2600 miles across the Pacific. We were the first husband and wife team to finish and came in fifth place. I had to go back to work and it fell on Karen to sail our boat back to California. She had a crew to help her, but she was the Admiral, responsible for navigation and getting the boat back to the mainland.

JRC: Okay. What’s next?  Have you started – or finished – the next book?  And what is it about?

Doug: My next novel in the series, hopefully to be re-released by Oak Tree Press under a different title in 2013, is Wet Dreams. The story line deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in our returning servicemen and women. I am working on two additional manuscripts in the series. One is about the potential for eco-terrorism off the coast of California in the Santa Barbara Channel, and the other is about a very competitive female yacht racer in a dangerous sailing competition that has turned deadly.

 JRC: Tell us something about Doug that we won’t find on your website, that other writers and readers might find interesting.

Doug: I never went to school to learn how to write and I began writing professionally late in life; so there is hope for everyone. Now at 72 years young, I am excited that I can keep on writing and exercise my brain doing something creative as the body starts to wear out. I’m not there yet, but it is comforting to know I can still have a rewarding career when I can no longer do the physically demanding things required of me when I deliver yachts over great distances under sometimes challenging conditions.

 JRC: Any last thoughts?

Doug: Just to encourage people to check out my website www.doug-danielson.com and enjoy the musings of an old guy with too many years of salt water on his brain.

JRC:  And I just got Shore Loser. Can’t wait to get started on it.  Thanks, Doug,for sharing your interesting life with us.