Eighteenth-Century Aphorism

[thomm225]

Those who would go to sea for pleasure would go to hell for pastime.

I found this gem in the book Blue Latitudes which is about the life of Captain James Cook.

In the prologue, it told of how the officers and men divide up and sold the captains clothes and other effects after he was killed in Hawaii. This because they were " two and a half years out " and these items were hard to come by.

Two and a half years out! That just seems amazing to me. We even now marvel at a possible trip to Mars which could take years.

Capt Cook and his men though had no idea what they would find as they entered the Pacific or when the sailed to what is now Alaska or to the Antarctic.