Alone at sea : The Adventures of Joshua Slocum /

"Published in cooperation with the Old Dartmouth Historical Society, New Bedford Whaling Museum."

The true story of Canada's greatest sailor, the first to sail around the world single-handedly. When Joshua Slocum sailed into port in Massachusetts on June 27, 1898, he was the first man ever to have completed a voyage around the world without technology, money or companion. It took him three years to cover the 46,000 miles, and along the way he was chased by pirates, buffeted by storms, and narrowly escaped death by sharks. When a goat ate his charts, he managed to navigate through the Caribbean by memory and intuition. This is the true-life adventure story of an extraordinary man, who ran away to sea at sixteen and never looked back. Born on a farm in Nova Scotia, he apprenticed on voyages to China, Hong Kong and Indonesia; met and married his wife in Sydney, Australia, and raised his family aboard sailing vessels in ports around the world. He survived mutinies, lost cargoes, terrible storms, and treacheries at sea before resolving on his voyage around the world in a dilapidated oyster sloop he named The Spray. After settling down and writing his memoirs, he set sail on November 14, 1909, and was never seen again. From the Trade Paperback edition.
In 1895, Nova Scotia-born Joshua Slocum embarked on a three-year 46,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe, aboard a refitted oyster sloop. Sailing through pirate-infested waters, confronting the sea at its most cruel, surviving beachings and wrestling with the demons of solitude, Joshua Slocum achieved a voyage that will forever rank among the epic feats of seamanship.