I highly recommend this book if you are in a hurry, because it is very, very slow.
Richard Dana was a Harvard student in poor health, so naturally, in 1834 he shipped aboard a ship bound for faraway California as a common sailor. Next time you fret that your flight is twenty minutes slow, think of Dana sailing from Santa Barbara and reaching Monterey about ten days later. Next time you hate your job, think of the sailors high aloft on the masts and toelines in the snow and ice of Patagonia, wearing only thin clothing. Discipline was strict, the hierarchy was absolute, and the sailors were expendable. The captain goes ashore, so the sailors row the boat, and sit waiting in the rain for hours as he finishes his business. On the return voyage, they sailed for a hundred days without seeing another sail or another person beyond the narrow confines of their ship.
Dana loves his sails and yards and lines and goes into them in great detail, but you can just skim that, there won’t be a test next Tuesday I promise. He describes Los Angeles when there were only a few scattered houses, and San Francisco with even fewer. One of my favorite scenes is these rough, tough, hard working sailors on the shore in LA, so what do they do for entertainment? Why, play hopscotch, of course!
Take your time with this book, give it the attention it deserves, and enjoy your voyage.
by Yugan-Dali