Barques. Sparks & Sharks : An Orcadian at Sea

Dodging the KGB in Murmansk, the vigilantes of Lake Maracaibo, or downing bowls of Kava in Fiji, Len Wilson recounts his globe-trotting adventure as a Morse-code 'sparks', serving on the swankiest passenger liner to the rustiest tramp steamer. Like his Viking forebears. he clocks up a stomach-churning quarter of a million miles, criss-crossing the equator at least ten times by the age of twenty-two. On eight epic voyages, a lost world of seafaring adventures is brought back to life, before the dawn of container ships and long distance air travel. We span the globe from the Clyde to Khorramshahr, dropping in on Caracas, Karachi and Calabar...as we trace a life he and his ancestors pursued down the centuries, helping to connect and create our kaleidoscopic world.