Category : Reading

Sea Novels, recreational or technical marine books…

About Marine Charting

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Christmas is coming and, the party is religious or pagan, so traditional gifts.

You've no doubt guessed my passion for marine charting, but before electronic charts, I hold a special attachment to paper charts. I started sailing with SHOM charts in black and white, accompanied by beautiful calligraphy carvings representing prominent headlands, alignments. Then appeared the colored charts, flat, difficult to store in a sailboat 8 meters high. I bought charts from the British Admiralty, more colorful, formats that can not, with folds and intricate carvings in the form of cartridges. Finally I discovered the West Indies charts Imray charts, a smaller format, plastic and folded into envelopes plastic protective, a revolution on chart tables. Then SHOM also produces folded charts, "P" for Plaisance, I've sold for several years.

But this is only the overall 35 years of nautical charting.

I was particularly fascinated by the two books that follow, maybe you already know because not recent, mais qui valent vraiment de profiter de cette période de fête pour se les faire offrir, if you did not yet got. Read more …

Reading : "D'Entrecasteaux in search of La Perouse" by Jean-Pierre Ledru

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Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse

Jean-François de Galaup de La Pérouse

Antoine de Bruni d'Entrecastaux

Antoine de Bruni d´Entrecasteaux

Well known, today, fate befell the expedition of Captain Jean-Francois de La Perouse, lost with all hands in the Solomon Islands in 1788. What we know much less, on the other hand, is the story of Admiral Antoine de Bruni d´Entrecasteaux gone for his search in 1791 at the request of Louis XVI, and whose fate was hardly more enviable.

It is about this unknown expedition Jean-Pierre Ledru wrote, in the imagery of the sea at the time, through the gaze of a Norman "pilot" on board for better or for worse (¹). Read more …

Reading : "The castaways on Tromelin Island" by Irene Frain

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In late summer, I let the sea novel thriller to tell you about a novel, published 2009 Editions Michel Lafon, based on historical facts recently updated (*).

This book tells the tragic journey of the French ship "L'Utile", a 800 grt carrying a cargo of illegal Malagasy slaves destined for the Ile de France, Mauritius today. The boat ran aground in 1761 on a tiny coral block lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, devastated by storms : Tromelin Island. Of 160 slaves abandoned on this island deserted by the white crew, 8 survivors were only discovered, 15 years after the shipwreck, by the corvette "La Dauphine" commanded by the ensign De Tromelin (whose name was given to the island). Read more …

Reading : "The Swordfish Reef" by Arthur W. Upfield

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History

Published in 1939, " The Mystery of Swordfish Reef " has been published in France in the year 2000 by Editions 10/18, translated from English by Michele Valencia.

Arthur Upfield, born in England in 1888, was sent at the age of nineteen years by his parents in Australia. He spent his whole life, except the period of the 14-18. war. He will discover the wildlife outback Australian outback, will cross for years throughout the continent, living with odd jobs and trades fortune. He will meet in 1927 a mixed aboriginal, "Tracker" of the Queensland Police, who will inspire the character of Detective Napoleon Bonaparte, and reveal with him a great talent for writing novels. He will publish its first thriller in 1928, and never stop until his death in 1964, at nearly a novel a year. It is now recognized as the father of "polar ethnological"(*).

With 30 novels written by Arthur Upfield, a single has the action at sea, far from outback and aboriginal : is "Swordfish Reef to ". Read more …

A new "Reading" section

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This Blog, finally rather technical, seems sorely lacking in poetry ! So I decided to make, from time to time, a little distraction by sharing with you my favorite "maritime" readings. This may be the source for some of you ideas to spend the long sailing days – that many landowners imagine so boring – and for others long winter evenings spent on shore awaiting the come-back of spring time.

I do not ask me ambitious of literary criticism. Just to discover those who do not already know the few books, fiction or technical, that I especially like.

In return, I'm interested in any literary discovery, more or less maritime, I would be ignorant, there must be a lot !

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The section titles of Reading
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