num_pages: 216
description: Ambition "leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go..." It led Capt. James Cook in three harrowing voyages to explore unknown &amp; astonishingly beautiful portions of the globe. Inspired by the adventures of this brilliant navigator, author William R. Gray &amp; photographer Gordon W. Gahan set off to retrace the life &amp; travels of the man who opened up more of the world than anyone before him. This chronicle sweeps you like an ocean current into Cook's early years: coasting coal-laden ships in the North Sea, charting the lower St Lawrence River for the Royal Navy, &amp; finally commanding the bark Endeavour to begin his 1st voyage to paradise. This trip takes you to the "entrancing cloud-hung heights of Tahiti," where Cook &amp; his men were 1st wooed by the sunlit warmth of the sky &amp; water--&amp; ever willing young women. Its drama rises to crisis off eastern Australia, where a bone-rattling shock revealed that the ship had struck coral on the Great Barrier Reef. On the 2nd voyage, Cook succeeded in circumnavigating Antarctica in the perilous nightlights world of the aurora australis. With perseverance &amp; his "uncanny sense for land," Cook sailed a looping course thru the South Pacific, filling in enormous blanks on the map. To the Pacific Northwest on Cook's 3rd &amp; last voyage, the tale follows his struggles to search along the Bering Sea--&amp; beyond--for a passage to the Atlantic. It conveys vividly the frustration of his forced retreat from the Arctic ice pack &amp; the finality surrounding Hawaii, the place destined to be as far as Cook was to go. The story of this man's world-expanding voyages enthralls with each new landfall. From Arctic to Antarctic, it captures pristine landscapes of the vast Pacific as the wide-eyed crew aboard Cook's sturdy barks saw them. "Paradise is still there!" says photographer Gahan. "&amp; it's just as spellbinding as it was in Cook's time--if not so startling. Remember, exploring the Pacific was the moon shot of his time. Of all my assignments, this was by far the most spectacular." Page after page of this book will lure you just as surely as horizon after horizon lured James Cook 200 years ago.
language: English
title: Voyages to Paradise: Exploring in the Wake of Captain Cook
titlecomplete: Voyages to Paradise: Exploring in the Wake of Captain Cook (Special Publications Series 15, #4)
genres: Nature, History, Nonfiction, Travel
ratings_count: 15
publisher: National Geographic Society (DC)