Donald Bates Brands: 8 books

Enjoy reliving one couple’s experience with three separate trips to both the Quepos, Manual Antonio and the Arenal, La Fortuna areas of Coast Rica. These trips encompassed both rainy and dry seasons over eight years. Many things stayed the same and many were different, but we always found a friendly...

Within these pages is the real meat of core information that you need to be a safe and competent boater. It’s presented in an easy reading salty tale format. I’d like to think that this book will offer the pleasure boater a unique perspective on his sport. After spending over forty years with...

It's amazing if you think about it; the ways people's lives cross and yet you know very little about them. Pleasure boaters will frequently see tugs and ships and you may even have to take action to avoid them, but in the end were they anything other than a moving blip on the seascape? I have worked...

More years ago than I care to admit, I was a junior quartermaster on a Coast Guard Cutter. I had the job of maintaining and looking up all sorts of nautical information and Federal laws. In the age of paper this could sometimes be a daunting task. It could take hours if you didn't fully know your...

We bought our Jayco 19 about a year before I retired. The plan was to see our country without the constraints that family and work had previously placed on us. We would leave home and only come back when we felt like it. For the first trip, we spent a month touring the Grand Circle of National Parks...

My wife and I have always enjoyed travel. Who doesn’t? Any trip we have taken has ended too soon and there was always more that we would have liked to have done. I have always wanted to see the National Parks of the Southwest, especially the Grand Canyon. I guess you could say this trip was on my...

As of June 20, 2016 Subchapter M is officially here. It is supposed to address many issues in the towing industry and make our profession much safer. Everything has been addressed including fire fighting, supplies, record keeping, drills, surveys, inspections, training, navigation, security, lifesaving,...

February of 2015 ranked as the third coldest recorded winter in the US. We haven’t had it this cold since 1979. A disaster for some, but for the Great South Bay Scooter Club in Bellport, NY and the Sayville Yacht Club in Blue Point, New York, it meant that this last weekend of February was a rare...