AJ Mackinnon on 'Realms of Gold: The Remarkable Return of Jack de Crow'

When A.J. 'Sandy' Mackinnon sailed a tiny dinghy through twelve countries from North Wales to the Black Sea, he survived pirates, the English Channel, international incidents and all the disasters, big and small, that can befall a little boat on a long voyage. Those adventures became his beloved bestseller The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow.Decades later, that trip is a happy memory and Sandy is firmly back on land – until a message from a stranger presents an opportunity too good to refuse. Sandy picks up where his first voyage left off, sailing and rowing single-handedly around the coast from Romania to Venice. From Istanbul to Ithaca, Mount Olympus to the ruins of Troy, he finds himself immersed in the legends of antiquity, plays chicken with mercurial border police, and is saved more than once by the kindness of strangers. He recounts it all with his unbreakable enthusiasm and self-deprecating humour, taking the reader on a hilarious and unforgettable adventure.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to A. J. 'Sandy' Mackinnon about the reincarnation of that little mirror dinghy the 'Jack De Crow', the remarkable people he encountered on his journey from the Danube Delta to Venice, and why it's not curiosity alone that drives Sandy in his travels and his storytelling.