topics: |  sea | travel | adventure | sail

Quotations

I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on
morning of April 24, 1895, was fair, at noon I weighed anchor... - p.14

A young naval officer ... offered his services as pilot. The youngster,
I have no good reason to doubt,  could have handled a man-of-war, but
the Spray was too small for the amount of uniform he wore.  - p.32

[After passing a ship that didn't respond to his flags] People have
hardly time nowadays to speak even on the broad ocean, where news is
news ... There are no poetry-enshrined freighters on the sea now; it is
a prosy life when we have no time to bid one another good morning.  -
p.56

--
[Slocum lands on the tiny island of Juan Fernandez, where the population of
45 souls all spoke spanish.]

   The pleasantest day I spent [was] when the children of the little
   community, one and all, went out with me to gather wild fruits for the
   voyage. We found quinces, peaches, and figs, and the children gathered a
   basket of each. It takes very little to please children, and these little
   ones, never hearing a word in their lives except Spanish, made the hills
   ring with mirth at the sound of words in English. They asked me the names
   of all manner of things on the island. We came to a wild fig-tree loaded
   with fruit, of which I gave them the English name. "Figgies, figgies!"
   they cried, while they picked till their baskets were full. But when I
   told them that the cabra they pointed out was only a goat, they screamed
   with laughter, and rolled on the grass in wild delight to think that a man
   had come to their island who would call a cabra a goat.

 		[compare with John McWhorter's introduction
		 in The Power of Babel,
		 where he discovers that other languages are possible

Reviews

The classic travel narrative of a Don Quixote-of-the-seas-the first person to
circumnavigate the world singlehandedly.

First published in 1900, Joshua Slocum's autobiographical account of his solo
trip around the world is one of the most remarkable--and entertaining--travel
narratives of all time. Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six
foot wooden sloop "Spray" in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the
ranks of the world's great circumnavigators--Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But
by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all:
his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in
maritime history for courage, skill, and determination. "Sailing Alone Around
the World" recounts Slocum's wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters
with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging
tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the
Pacific; and a hilarious visit with Henry ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?")
Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum's incomparable book endures
as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

Wellington is the capital of the dominion of New Zealand, and its
inhabitants ... all had ample means of living, and seemed contented and
happy.

I was honored by some of Auckland's yachtsmen, being taken round in a
launch to various places where the yachts were hauled up, and
considering the number of pleasure boats and launches I saw that day
it would seem that nearly every man, woman and child in that fair city
must be devoted to yachting.

You may talk of the odor of bad eggs; it isn't in it with the smell of
fish oil.