Rounding the Horn Being The Story Of Williwaws And Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries And Naked Natives -- a Deck's-eye View Of Cape Horn

by Murphy, Dallas

• ISBN13: 9780465047604
• ISBN10: 0465047602
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-25
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Fifty-five degrees 59 minutes South by 67 degrees 16 minutes West: Cape Horn-a buttressed pyramid of crumbly rock situated at the very bottom of South America-is a place of forlorn and foreboding beauty that has captured the dark imaginations of explorers and writers from Francis Drake to Joseph Conrad. For centuries, the small stretch of water between Cape Horn and the Antarctic Peninsula was the only gateway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It's a place where the storms are bigger, the winds stronger, and the seas rougher than anywhere else on earth.Dallas Murphy has always been sea-struck. In Rounding the Horn he undertakes the ultimate maritime rite of passage, and brings the reader along for a thrilling, exuberant tour. Weaving together stories of his own nautical adventures with long-lost tales of those who braved the Cape before him-from Spanish missionaries to Captain Cook-and interspersing them with breathtaking descriptions of the surrounding wilderness, Murphy has crafted an immensely enjoyable read.

Author Biography

Dallas Murphy is a novelist, playwright, and marine journalist. His plays have been produced Off Broadway, and his series of three novels featuring the reluctant sleuth Artie Deemer have been critically acclaimed. His most recent book, an account of Cape Horn, Rounding the Horn, was published in 2004 by Basic Books. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	ix
Introduction	xi
From Ushuaia to Puerto Williams	1	(22)
Sea-Struck	23	(16)
Wind	39	(12)
Discovering Seas	51	(22)
Drake	73	(22)
From Puerto Williams to Caleta Martial	95	(20)
A Glorious Failure	115	(16)
Discovering People	131	(14)
FitzRoy's Fuegians	145	(14)
``Too Much Skylark!''	159	(16)
Back Home Again	175	(22)
To Cape Horn	197	(18)
From Hermite to Duck	215	(22)
The Death and Life of the British Isles	237	(16)
How to Round Cape Horn	253	(14)
The Undiscovered Land	267	(16)
A Fjord for the Naming	283	(12)
The Martyrs Insisted	295	(20)
At Wulaia	315	(14)
``The Wet and Cold Life''	329	(4)
Acknowledgments	333	(2)
Bibliography	335	(6)
Index	341