Compulsively Aimless

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting and enslaving than the life at sea. ---Joseph Conrad Life on a ship is a world in miniature.   Everything you know is there populated by a crew, officers and captain.  To survive the storms, privat ion and wartime, the crew must follow the structure of a strictly control led environment.  This can either degenerate into mutiny or great success .   Here's a short list of books that show both sides of the coin. 1.   The Mutiny On Board the H.M. Bounty, William Bligh (Signet Classic, 1961).  First published in 1972, Captain Bligh 's account is t he most well known of mutinies.  He uses the ship's log to present an objective account leaving the reader to judge what type of captain he really was.  If nothing else, Bligh and his small crew of loyalists demonstrated an amazing account of seamanship to survive a 3,600 mile south Pacific voyage in the Bounty's long boat.   Made...

Ship's logs began as a way for captains to record the distances and directions they traveled. It didn't take long for captains and ordinary sailors to keep their own journals describing their adventures. Christopher Columbus's log book is lost to history but would certainly be priceless today. Captain Cook's log of the Endeavor was must reading in England at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Ship journals were, for me, the perfect intersection between travel and fascination with the sea. Here's a very miscellaneous list. 1. The Nagle Journal: A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor from the year 1775 to 1841 (1988). Nagle joined the British Navy at the time of the American Revolution and served in American waters, later fought with Commodore Nelson's fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. His adventures took him to India, China and Australia. He died peacefully at the age of 80 in Canton, Ohio. Excellent color plates illustrating the era Nagle serv...