Jeff Ragan’s Reviews > The Eight Sailing/Mountain-Exploration Books > Status Update

"Then we had sanitary problems. The outlet pump on the lavatory broke down and, as we soon discovered, Baroque is not well adapted for business over the side. the double guard rails made things difficult except for a contortionist. Working up till midnight Nicholas and Andrew repaired the pump. At Godthaab I bought a galvanised bucket in case it happened again" (896).

"I cannot remember ever making a kindlier start in more benign weather, yet with the needles still in sight astern Alec and Nicholas were communing with the sea over the rail, the latter not sufficiently overcome to forget to tell us in his querulous voice what he wanted for supper" (892).

"Nicholas, our bird-man, had a habit of whistling or breaking into loud song...Like the poet Gray who could stand only the hissing of the tea-kettle, I am averse to noise. It was like living in the monkey-house or an aviary...devoted mainly to the keeping of whooping cranes, whistling ducks, & macaws...we are all as God made us, some of us much worse, & he who will have eggs must bear with cackling" (891).

"Big mountains are seldom climbed at the first attempt which is more often a pioneering effort, breaking the trail for those who follow. Whether successful or not, on these voyages of mine there is a little of the pioneer's reward as well as four months sailing to look back on with pleasure, four months of endeavor to mull over, and that much more experience to store away" (882-3).

"On nearly all coasts nowadays...alterations have been made by man in the shape of bases or weather stations...effectively to curtain off the distant past from the imagination of the present-day visitor...Not so on the north and east coasts of Vestspitzbergen....the coast looked as unknown forlorn, and inhospitable as it had to them" (866).

"With reason, mariners regard the Admiralty Pilots much as one would Holy Writ. Nevertheless, although attempts to bring the Bible up-to-date are to be deplored this should not apply to them" (862).

"As mementoes of Svalbard, for they had started collecting them at Bear Island, bones were highly prized by all the crew, bones of whales, seals, bears, and, of course, reindeer horns. Later on, at more than one anchorage, where there were the graves of old-time whaling men and trappers, I admired their restraint in not digging up a skeleton or two for their collection" (851).

"From my point of view...Greenland is the ideal objective, combining remoteness, difficulty of access, the grandest scenery, an inexhaustible number of mountainous fjords each with its own character, & on the whole a region still sufficiently unfrequented for a man in a small boat to feel very remotely akin to the early seamen-explorers and to their successors the old whaling men from Hull, Leith, Dundee..." (831).

"More important, however, is for them to have the right outlook. Activity can be instilled & competence can be acquired, but the right attitude must be ingrained - the cheerful acceptance & endurance of small privations & wearisome duties & the unquestioned belief that the success of the voyage & the care of the ship is what matters most. 'This ship, the ship we serve, is the moral symbol of our life'" (824).

"There is in some instances, too, an attitude new to mountaineering, that of death or glory, which sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails, and which in any case is foolish, because the glory is so transient. A man ought to rate his achievements only by the satisfaction they give him, for they will soon be outdone, outshone, and speedily forgotten by everyone but himself" (813).