Saw this some time ago, it is good. Hard to imagine such a life. If it was as miserable as they say I can’t imagine why some did it for so long.
“Captain’s Courageous”, 1937, Spencer Tracy and a fair gang of notables was close enough in time to get close to what life at sea was like in one part of the business I suppose. The movie is based on an 1897 novel by Rudyard Kipling of course. What a magnificent writer and thinker.
I think I’ll add “Captain’s Courageous” to my audio book list. It’s hard for me to read print books since my right retina developed a “pucker.”
Finishing “Follow the River” right now (Mary Ingles years old on the Virginia frontier in 1755 is pregnant with her third child when Shawnee Indians invaded her peaceful Virginia settlement, left behind a bloody massacre, and took her captive for months. Then she escaped.) It’s ok, not great.
Also finishing “Who Killed Jane Stanford” on Spotify. Fascinating inside story of Stanford University in the 1890s and the murder of Leland Stanford’s widow. But WHOA is there a lot of detail! Overwhelming detail. Mind numbing, choking detail. The author needed a good editor to trim it by a third or maybe a half.
Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast tells the story even better, I believe... not only the treacherous Cape Horn crossing, but a very interesting look at pre-American California, circa 1835. If you love history as I do, its well worth a read.
My favorite naval story after Midway is the tale of Count von Luckner, and his sailing voyage in WW1. Now there was a sea dog in the tradition of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher.