Voyaging the Pacific : In Search of the South - Softcover

Miles Hordern sailed alone in a 28-foot sloop across the Southern Ocean from New Zealand to Patagonia and back -- a voyage of 13,000 nautical miles across the largest stretch of water on earth and a region of icebergs, gales and high seas. Six weeks later he made landfall on the coast of Chile and, after a chance meeting, embarked on a 1,000-mile cruise southwards to survey channels and fjords in Patagonia, one of the last uncharted areas in the world. From Chile he sailed north on the Humboldt current, then west through the tropics on the return passage to New Zealand, arriving home some eighteen months after he had left. He conjures up the experience so vividly that we feel the motion of the boat and enter the lone sailor's state of mind. In his description, however, Miles Hordern journeys into the past as well as the present, recalling other mariners who have over the centuries sailed south in search of unknown lands and mythical treasure -- and what was believed to be the largest continent of all, Terra Australis. As he voyages through the calms and squalls of the South Seas the ghosts of castaway sailors, real and imaginary, follow in his wake.The result is a unique mix of history, myth and adventure that evokes the sea and its power as mesmerically as Conrad.