06 November 2008.Greetings to Everyone! The Holiday Season is coming up, so if you would like to give a signed copy of Voyage of the Manteño to a loved one or friend this season, just let us know and we’ll be happy to make it happen.

We did this a little last year and it really worked well. The only thing we ask is that you try to make sure that we receive your info no later than the 10th of December, (or that you at least let us know it's coming!)

The books are 1st Edition hardbacks - $25.00/copy, and that covers everything, shipping, handling, etc.

Please make sure you remember to send us three things:

1. Who it is from, and who it is to (double check the spelling, if you can).

2. Anything special that you'd like John to inscribe when he signs the book, eg, "Good luck on your upcoming adventure," or, if they are a sailor, perhaps "Fair winds."

3. Let us know if you'd like it sent to you, or to your friend or loved one directly. We're going to have some red and green ribbon for the books, as well some nice blue ribbon, too. If you just want it sent to your home so that you can wrap it, make sure we know.

If you want to send a book to someone, just send us an email and we’ll get right back to you, to make arrangements. If we haven’t heard from you before, please let us know a little something about yourself, and how you discovered balsa rafts!

Send all holiday book requests to: jfhaslett@gmail.com

Cheers to everyone,

John Haslett
Voyage of the Manteño (St. Martin’s Press)
“You won’t be able to put it down.”
--National Geographic Adventure

19 November 2007. John F. Haslett has started a blog, where you can keep up with recent developments.

26 October 2007. John F. Haslett's expedition narrative, Voyage of the Manteño, has been reviewed in the recent Explorers Journal (Fall 2007).

20 October 2007. Expedition archaeologist Dr. Cameron M. Smith has started a blog.

17 October 2007. John Haslett's words of wisdom--regarding survival at sea, how to deal with mutineers and pirates, and other handy tips--are available at healthbolt.net.

16 October 2007. The website is being reloaded for the final expedition. You can now see the launch of the first of the expedition's four vessels on the YouTube clip below!

August 2007. You can hear the sound of a balsa raft at sea as recently broadcast on National Public Radio. You can also hear John Haslett's in-depth interview on KERA radio's 'Think' program with the following 22mb MP3 file.

March 2006. Hi it's me, (Cameron M. Smith) here, reporting on our continuing research into the native watercraft of Northwestern South America; reseach which, we hope, will result in another balsa sailing raft expedition. Most of the work right now is historical: sorting through the many ancient Spanish documents, many over 400 years old, pertaining to the exploration of Northwestern South America, and some describing the native vessels encountered there by the Conquistadores. In this work I'm very happy to say I'm currently assisted by Greg Baker, who works in the Department of Anthropology's Laboratory of Archaeology, and Iliana Lopez, a post-baccalaureate student here at Portland State University: they're pictured below painstakingly translaing some newly-found microfilm records of some rarely-cited 16th-Century documents related to the Spanish exploration of Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, that may be of great value to the expedition: but deciphering 16th-Century Spanish handwriting is slow, slow business!