North-west by north: A journal of a voyage

by Dora Birtles

It was a strange crew and an even stranger craft, the clumsy thirty-four-foot cutter Skaga, which set sail from Newcastle, Australia, in 1932. Dora Birtles was one of the five on board -- three women and two men -- whose dream it was to sail to Singapore by way of New Guinea and the Java Sea. Much more than a diary of an adventure, this extraordinary book reveals the events played out between the five people on board.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

432 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Kris Dersch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book in 2021 is strange, because it's a time capsule, but also one that spoke to me.
First of all, it captures an interesting time. The part of the world they travel through had been changed by colonialism but was going to go through another big change with the war in just another decade. So she is describing a world that only existed for that time, and that's interesting.
CW for sure on racism for this book. Her reactions to the people she finds may have been progressive in her time but are difficult to read in 2021.
The most interesting part, especially in a world where we've all been under quarantine for a year, is living on a 34 foot sailboat with her particular crew. That part was interesting. This trip cost her a lot...friendship, her possessions...and there is drama as they came close to not making it.
I wouldn't call it a great read...but it's an interesting one.