Ocean Adventure 1840

ISBN-13: 9781505767766 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 166 str.

Gillian Noakes

Opis

This is a story that is based on fact in that it is about the author's great-grandparents, Douglas and Laure Wales and their first meeting in l840 on the three-masted barque, "Orient" that was owned by her great-grandfather. The story is also fictional in that the author has created other characters and has, of necessity, imagined their conversations and their reasons for embarking on the voyage in "Orient." Douglas Wales was also conveying 250 government-assisted emigrants to Australia, and his care of these passengers earned him praise in Parliament due to the fact that he ensured that he took on board wholesome food for them and that there was a doctor on board to see to their medical needs. This was at a time when there were unscrupulous Masters of emigrant vessels who, to cut costs, purchased inferior food for the emigrants that caused life-threatening illnesses on such ships. The author had access to Douglas Wales' own accounts of a shipwreck and a mutiny on board in a letter he wrote to his mother and the diary of a passenger on "Orient" at that time. Other letters written by him indicated his caring and honourable nature and his courage. One of the fictional aspects of the book is the creation by the author of many other characters who shared the voyage with her great-grandparents, both emigrants and paying passengers. The author has also used her imagination in describing the experience of sailing in a wooden ship on a voyage that took 3 months to a land few, if any, of the emigrant passengers had ever seen before. The author obtained much nautical information from the National Maritime Museum, engravings showing life on board such a ship from the British Library and also maps showing the countries in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius being the destination of Laure Wales, nee Volpeliere, and her mother. This is a true romance that was fraught with difficulties of language, religion and the age of the two chief characters. These difficulties needed to be vanquished if there was to be a happy outcome. The fact that they were the author's great-grandparents proves that this was the case, but the twists and turns of the romantic journey were almost as complicated as the dangers and difficulties facing the crew and passengers of a wooden sailing ship who had no means of contacting the outside world should they need assistance."