The Golden Ocean

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over and over again. Peter stood, contemplating the pink-cheeked singer and wondering first where FitzGerald was and secondly how this child could have got aboard; and presently the song came to an end. Good yarn about Anson's 1740-44 trip around the globe, which included the capture of a Spanish galleon carrying over a million pieces of eight (the share for each seaman was something like twenty years' labor; Anson himself earned over 90,000 quid!). The tale is told from the perspective from a young Irish midshipman, Peter Palafox, who receives his berth despite never having seen a ship. The Golden Ocean” (1956) by O’Brian is his first historical sea-going novel, and it shows. There is a lot of promise in the material but the presentation is a bit uneven, with odd shifts in narration and leaps through time. At times though, we can see the first stirrings of the later O’Brian, he of the 21-volume ‘Aubrey and Maturin’ series that I devoured inside 2 months late last year and thoroughly enjoyed for the most part. I think this is a fairly good book overall, but I found it somewhat disappointing in several important aspects. Without a coastline to help define its boundaries, other biological characteristics and oceanic conditions have been used over time to help define the sea’s location and extent. This extraordinary open-ocean ecosystem is bounded by currents circulating around the North Atlantic sub-tropical gyre and is unique for supporting the center of distribution and abundance for a community of continuously pelagic drift algae, the Sargasso Sea provides habitats, spawning areas, migration pathways and feeding grounds to a diverse assortment of flora and fauna, including endemic, endangered, and commercially important species.The Sargasso Sea is named for Sargassum,a holopelagic, golden drift algae that can aggregate to form extensive floating mats on the surface of the ocean. Dr. Sylvia Earle has called it “the golden rainforest of the ocean.”

In the year 1740, Commodore (later Admiral) George Anson embarked on a voyage that would become one of the most famous exploits in British naval history. Sailing through poorly charted waters, Anson and his men encountered disaster, disease, and astonishing success. They circumnavigated the globe and seized a nearly incalcuable sum of Spanish gold and silver, but only one of the five ships survived. Captain Callis: He also courted Peter's mother, asks to be remembered to Peter's parents at dinner aboard Centurion.The trip was terrible, despite the loot at the end. In the small fleet, something like 1900 men set out from England; about 500 returned. But that was not uncommon in those days, which disease, starvation, and enemy guns all taking their toll. O'Brian is rather unromantic about it all, but then again, so was life at sea. The prose is not as mature as his Aubrey-Maturin series, but the seeds are clearly there, and beginning to grow. And yes, the nautical terminology is as glorious as ever. What a stupid blunder,' cried the first lieutenant. 'Don't you know that green is the proper emblem? Come, come; mix yellow with your blue and you will have green - the only correct colour. When will you begin to realise that you must think before you act?'

Mr Elliot: Midshipman who helps Peter to understand the trigonometry after Funchal. He dies of scurvy while ship goes so slowly around Cape Horn. Liam: Uncle to Sean and tenant to Peter's father ("farms my father's glebe" [6]), who rides with them to Cork, and takes the horses home.While not his best novel, the Golden Ocean is still a very fine story of a young boy growing into a man aboard a Man o' War and the people who he becomes brothers with along the long hard journey. Jeremy Weir, Trafigura’s Executive Chairman and CEO, commented: “Today’s announcement represents a further progression in the development of Trafigura’s response to the challenges and opportunities the impending IMO 2020 regulation will present. We look forward to providing an essential service to our clients and working closely with Frontline and Golden Ocean to grow this venture into one of the world’s leading suppliers of marine fuels in the coming years.” Certainly the book improves once we are on board the Centurion and the Irish dimension is not so prevalent. One interesting factoid about The Golden Ocean, it is one or two retellings of the same voyage that O'Brian novelized. The other is titled The Unknown Shore. Walter, Richard (1748). A Voyage round the World, In the Years 1740-1744. London: John and Paul Knapton. Compiled by Richard Walter (ca 1716-1795), Chaplain to his Majesty's Ship the Centurion. ANSON, George (1697-1762)