By Power and Sail: Sixty Years of World Travel - Couverture rigide

Blois, Charles

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1910074470 ISBN 13 : 9781910074473

Editeur : Umbria Press, 2024

Synopsis

Charles Blois is a man with an unquenchable thirst for adventure, taking great pleasure in seeking new challenges in many remote regions of the world. Sailing, driving his Unimog, his boat Ribaleta, and his motorbikes, he has undertaken numerous daring projects.

After early travels in America and Australia, where he first learnt to sail, the spirit of adventure was first sparked during three months visiting Fiji, Tahiti and Central America where he dreamed of owning an ocean-going sailing boat.

After enjoying sailing the Mediterranean for seven years, he felt confident enough to sail the Atlantic and cruise the Caribbean for ten years with just his wife, Celia, as crew.

A solo game-watching trip in Africa led to Charles wanting to travel overland in his own vehicle. He bought a Unimog chassis and purpose-built the body before driving it's eight tons to Morocco, Algeria, the Sahara, West Africa, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Syria and Egypt. To celebrate his 80th birthday, he drove his Unimog 10,000 miles through ten countries in Africa from Namibia to Kenya.

The next transport was a 33-foot rigid inflatable boat (RIB) called Ribaleta, specially built with two 300 horse-power 4.2 litre diesel engines, in which he single-handed crossed the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean to Tunisia. Ribaleta was then put on a banana boat to St Lucia when, with his Spanish-speaking friend Ali, he drove Ribaleta on a 1,000-mile trip round the Orinoco Delta, followed by an epic journey of 5,500 miles up the Caribbean and the Bahamas and into the Intracoastal Waterway of the East Coast of America up to Baltimore.

With Colonel John Blashford-Snell, he went on four Scientific Exploration Society and Eathwatch expeditions - while water rafting the Blue Nile, tracking elephants in Nepal and tuning a grand piano in jungles of Guyana; catching crocodiles on the Zambesi River and tracking lions in Kenya as well as monitoring bald Uakari monkeys in the Amazon.

Charles is an intrepid motorcyclist and has adventured through Ethiopia, across Canada to Prudhoe Bay and from Arizona to Tierra del Fuego. Aged 70, he rode on a three-month, 13,000 mile trip from London to Beijing through deserts, snow-covered passes and to Everest base camp.

By Power and Sail Sixty Years of World Travel is an account of his adventures in more than 160 countries.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Sir Charles Blois was educated at Harrow, Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. From an early age he has had an obsessive love of travel and in 60 years has in various ways travelled the circumference of the earth five times.

He lives in Suffolk where he farms land owned by his family for more than 300 years. As a former member of the Rigid Boat Owners Association, he won the RIB World Championship and the Cowes to Torquay Powerboat Race and has sailed twice across the Atlantic. He is a Fellow if the Royal Geographical Society.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Umbria Press
• Date d'édition: 2024
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1910074470
• ISBN 13: 9781910074473
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 388
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible