Miles Hordern

This account details more of the unpleasant, i.e. realistic aspects of sailing. For example, he tells of how his skin dries out and acquires ridges of salt that trail over his body. He writes of the lonliness of long passages. He writes of how the Pacific nights are more significant than the sunny days. He talks of the rubbish ashore in the fabled South Pacific Islands, the drugs, pollution, human flotsam. He talks of how waste is disposed of at sea and on land. His own story is interspersed with digressions on the history and iconograhpy of sailing and of the places he visited. I found these to be far less interesting and usually skipped these parenthetical passages.… (mehr)