They Say Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction

This is a book about just such an event. History chronicles only one RMS Titanic but, there were two. We all know about the Titanic that struck the iceberg on her maiden voyage on April 14, 1912. The other was the first of the White Star Line’s evolution into luxury passenger ships with the SS Atlantic. Twenty-Nine years earlier, on April Fool’s Day, 1873, she ran hard aground on the Nova Scotia coast, causing the loss of a higher percentage of her souls than her descendant. The unique factor being only the fittest survived, leaving the souls of all the women and all, but one child buried with her at the bottom of the sea. Meet Reverend Ancient, Priest of St. Paul’s Anglican Church whose rescue efforts titled him a Hero. Was the Chief Mate able to save the woman after long hours of survival and what was the mass floating on the surf near the capsized hull? Families who offered sanctuary and the mass of humanity invading an isolated fisherman’s home. Know the fears and actions of those whose predictions of doom as they sailed through the sea came to pass. The book will take you on a voyage that will cause you to reflect on your own destiny. Events that can be played out by people you do not even know work their way along a path until circumstances throw you together at a common place and time as though preordained, culminating in a tragedy such as the Atlantic and Titanic of the White Star Line. Like father, like son, both decided based on mirrored motivations, both with tragic results. You will witness the actual words of the cast, including testimony at the Inquiries at Halifax and Liverpool. You will be the jury in forming your opinions as to the actual cause and who carries the primary guilt of responsibility. It’s a voyage you should book passage on to enhance your sensitivity to predestination and the history of one of the Atlantic Sea’s most traumatic disasters.

Bob Love started out life in the small Idaho desert town of Mountain Home, Idaho USA. The nation was trying to recover from the “Great Depression”. Bob’s father became a deputy sheriff in 1938. In 1943, the Army Air Corps created Mountain Home Air Force Base as the line of defense in the anticipated Japanese attack through Alaska and Canada. It was then the Deputy became the Sheriff. Rather than shielding his young son Sheriff Love took Bob on many of the traumatic events including military air crashes and serious vehicle accidents, ingraining the underlying respect for human trauma and the need of public service. Bob acquired his thirst for journalism when he became editor of his high school newspaper. He went on to pursue the vocation, but the Korean War draft interrupted his goals. After his service in the Air Force Bob fell back on the foundations of his youth, becoming his family’s fourth generation police officer rising to a Chief of Police position. He transitioned into a career as an independent insurance adjuster which spanned over 45 years serving Alaska. It was near this career change that he realized the relative chain of events that led to many of the cases he investigated. Bob wrote "E=A Syndrome" (Emotion Equals Attitude) about the positive and negative emotions that affect our attitudes setting up disastrous results. As an adjuster and marine surveyor in the Last Frontier he investigated hundreds of aircraft, vessels, vehicles, and industrial accidents. Prior to commuter air improvements, as a pilot, he flew alone to many of the Alaskan bush losses. In 1989 the Exxon Valdez oil spill presented he and his wife Bev’s firm with the responsibility to administer the claims arising from the spill cleanup activities. Exxon also commissioned them to handle the off-hiring surveys of the 2500-chartered vessels. A studious interest in Situational Awareness concepts gave Bob further insight into his beliefs and when he applied it to the history of the SS Atlantic, pre-destiny was clearly inscribed on her hull. Retired, Bob and Bev, along with their Bishon, Baby Boy, lived in Anchorage, Alaska when this book was first printed in 2006. As a licensed adjuster, Bev worked alongside Bob managing and owning their own firms for over 43 years... On Christmas Eve 2007, Bev lost her long and arduous battle with metastatic internal melanoma cancer. Bob and Baby Boy traveled in the west with their fifth wheel and now live with his childhood friend and Air Force widow, Patricia and their Bishon, Murphy in Boise, Idaho.