Title:

The Wide Wide Sea

Author:

Hampton Sides

Category:

Non Fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

September 22, 2024

he Wide Wide Sea is a description of James Cook's third and final voyage. Cook was a towering figure in the Age of Exploration; his third voyage led to many discoveries (the Hawaiian Islands by a European nation), - and disproved other ideas, such as the existence of the mythical Northwest Passage. In the 18th century, the British were still obsessed with the idea of a sea route over the top of North America that would allow them to sail to the Orient without having to go all the way around Africa or South America. A scholar claimed that the sea ice encountered by sailors on previous expeditions was due to river water freezing near coastlines. Since "everyone knows that sea water cannot freeze", if someone could find an open expanse of water far from any coastline, they would be able to sail balmy seas all the way over North America. This strange idea (if sea water didn't freeze, how to explain the walls of ice that confronted explorers sailing north between Iceland and Norway?) led the British to mount an expedition. The commander would sail into the Pacific and explore the vast gap of water between Asia and North America that had previously only been charted by Bering, who at made a previous attempt to map the area in the name of the Russian Empire. The commander of this British expedition would of course be the lauded Captain Cook.

Cook set sail in the Resolution in July of 1776. There were several Americans in his crew, but they left before word reached England of the Declaration of Independence. A second ship, The Discovery, captained by Clerke, left port shortly afterwards to join Cooke on his voyage of exploration.

Cook soon discovered that the Resolution had been poorly prepped for the journey. It had been so poorly caulked that there was a two-inch gap between the planks in the hull that allowed sea water to splash in. The British navy was so convinced the Cook would find clear sailing through the Arctic Ocean that his two ships had not even been reinforced to withstand ice pressure. If Cook was expected to sail back to Britian from the north, why hadn't any previous sailor been able to find a large gap in the ice between Greenland and Norway for him to return through?

One of primary goals of this voyage was to return Mai to the Tahiti Islands. Mai was a Polynesian Islander who had been brought to England by an earlier voyage. Mai had become a sensation amongst the aristocrats. Mai even met with King George III. The Resolution set sail with many gifts for the Tahitians, including pigs, cattle and goats. How all this livestock was able to cram onto such small ships is amazing. Mai was hoping to enlist the British and their arms to fight against the other Islanders who had captured his home island. But Cook was determined to be neutral. Cook was unusual amongst Europeans in that he seemed to accept native cultures at face value, not demeaning their religions or customs.

After delivering Mai to Tahiti, Cook's two ships set sail for the west coast of North America. Bad blood existed between the British and Spanish empires, so Cook was warned to stay away from the Spanish possessions of Mexico and California. Indeed, the Spanish had heard of Cook's voyage and tried to build some ships on the west coast to capture him. Cook expected to sail all the way from Tahiti to the Pacific Northwest, but instead he bumped into Kauai. This turned out to be an ideal spot to resupply. The natives were friendly and Hawaii (which Cook called the Sandwich Isles because the Earl of Sandwich had a major hand in organizing this voyage) had plentiful food and fresh water.

When Cook reached North America, he mapped the coastlines of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. He found that the Russian maps of Alaska were rubbish. Cook sailed up through the Bering Strait, and became the first person to have crossed both the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. Of course, he found impenetrable sea ice everywhere in the Arctic Ocean. There was no balmy passage of open sea to sail above North America.

With winter coming on, Cook decided that spending the cold months on the newly discovered Sandwich Islands would be a great way to resupply. Cook intended to return to the Bering Strait the following summer and see if there was open water earlier in the season, though he doubted that the fabled sea route existed. Cook landed at the Big Island of Hawaii on his return, and though the initial reaction was one of great welcoming, ultimately the theft of a long boat (which had been tied up behind the Resolution) led to a final fatal tragedy and Cook perished.

After Cook's death, the Resolution and Discovery did return to the Bering Strait earlier in the summer, and conclusively proved that there never was a gap in the giant wall of ice. When the two ships finally returned to England, they had been at sea for 1548 days, the longest known voyage at the time. Yet not a single sailor died from scurvy.

The Wide Wide Sea is the best kind of nonfiction writing. It provides lots of historical detail about an interesting subject, painting a clear portrait of a famous man who explored the world. I should read more books by Hampton Sides.