Pen Portraits-22

JAMES COOK (British) (1728  –  1979)
Explorer.

He was one of the greatest navigators known to history. Though he made his mark as a explorer, cartographer and dietician, his fame largely rest as the explorer of the Pacific and Antartic Oceans. After eight years of experience with North Sea trading ships he joined the Royal Navy. A born leader, he rose rapidly. He saw action in the Seven Years war. In 1768 the Royal Society appointed Cook commander of the ‘Endeavour’ and charged him to convey gentleman of the Royal Society to Tahiti where they were to observe the transit of the planet Venus across the Sun. He was then to locate the so called Terra Australis which was thought to exist. He set out and found and chartered New Zealand. Besides he sighted the South East cost of Australia and landed at Botany Bay on 19 April 1770 and successfully navigated the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most navigational hazards of the world. During the voyage none of his crew died of scurvy, (by providing fresh vegetables for his crew) a remarkable achievement, considering the mortality rate that existed among the sailors at that time.
After his successful voyage Cook embarked on another, more ambitious venture of exploration and discovery. (1772-’75). He reached as far south as the Antartic Circle, charting Easter Island and most of the major island groups in the South Pacific.
Returning to England he was promoted to captain and was awarded a Copley medal for the paper which he presented on scurvy.
His last voyage (1776-’79) was an unsuccessful effort to discover a passage connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, like a North-West passage around Canada and Alaska or a North-East one around Siberia. He discovered the Hawaiian Islands and charted the Bering Strait. During the course of this voyage he was killed by the natives of Hawaii.
compiler:benny

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A Poem for a Sunday Afternoon

Love Dream©
Rosie, you came late last night
To stir my dream about a little.
Ashes taste my lips this day
Where your kisses once seared
Nether regions and thereabouts.
I thought I died a little each time
You whispered love.
Love is still chaste, but let it pass.
Rosie we merely made love
And messed the bed a little.
A well made bed has no memory
As a heart that seeks something new
To cheat the old of its sting.
My heart still goes about its paces
And my legs carry my age well.
Well Rosie you came last night
And I feel like a sailor cast ashore.
Round the globe I have been
In a coffin of brine ferried across
And feel not the sea on my tongue
Or sand under the foot.
Is that all you could or I to you?
benny

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