Running Away to Sea : Round the World on a Tramp Freighter

by Fetherling, George; Fetherling, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780771031151
• ISBN10: 0771031157
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart Ltd

Summary

At a low point in his life, the prolific Canadian writer Douglas Fetherling sought to clear his head by taking the kind of trip that many of us dream about going round the world on one of the last of the tramp freighters. The four-month voyage carried him (and a handful of other travellers) some thirty thousand nautical miles, from Europe via the Panama Canal to the South Pacific, a region with a future as fragile as its past is romantic. There the ship, a converted Russian ice-breaker renamedThe Pride of Great Yarmouth, traded at some of the most fabled and some of the most disreputable ports in the southern hemisphere. The return voyage, by way of Singapore, Indonesia, the Indian Ocean, and Suez, was just as memorable. Written with dash, colour, and droll humour, Fetherling's narrative is peopled by a rich cast of characters, from the Foreign Legionnaires of French Polynesia to theraskolgangs of Papua New Guinea. Most memorable perhaps are the men and women who continue to follow the millennia-old life of the sea. This is the world of Ordinaries and Able-Bodied Seamen, but also of hopeful young officer cadets to say nothing of, in this particular instance, a temperamental cook, a computer genius with a nose-ring, and a young Russian woman who believes herself the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. Fetherling captures the reality of life aboard a working cargo ship the boredom, the seclusion, the differences of nationality and culture that isolation and cramped quarters seem to exaggerate. But he also describes how the routine of loneliness or tranquillity is punctuated by moments of near-panic shipboard fires, furniture-smashing storms, even a brush with pirates in the Strait of Malacca. Running Away to Seais literary travel-writing in the grand old tradition.

Author Biography

<b>Douglas Fetherling</b>, who has produced other travel narratives on Russia and East Asia, is a poet, fiction writer, editor, and teacher. His other books include <i>Selected Poems</i> and the much-acclaimed <i>Travels by Night: A Memoir of the Sixties</i>. He lives in Toronto most of the time.

Table of Contents

Taking Ship	1	(22)
Panama	23	(32)
Somewhere in the Pacific	55	(17)
Polynesia	72	(24)
Shipmates	96	(19)
Suva to Santo	115	(33)
Papua New Guinea: Rats and Butterflies	148	(23)
Papua New Guinea: Volcanoes and Raskols	171	(22)
Bandar, Singapore, and a Brush with Pirates	193	(26)
The Long Way Back Home	219	(18)
South Pacific Sunset	237	(8)
Note	245