by John | Apr 20, 2020 | Uranie
If she had been taken to Valparaiso Rose would almost certainly have found herself meeting another extraordinary woman who, like her, had married a sailor many years older than herself. But unlike her, Kate Cochrane had not been welcomed into her husband’s family.
by John | Mar 20, 2020 | Uranie
200 years ago, it was the approach of winter that was to give the castaways from the Uranie their first sight of a potential rescuer, because was that which was driving the whaling and sealing fleets north
by John | Feb 14, 2020 | Uranie
Exactly 200 years ago, on 14 February 1820, the French corvette Uranie, captained by Louis de Freycinet and with his wife illegally on board, struck a submerged rock and was wrecked on the uninhabited Falkland Islands.
by John | Jan 21, 2020 | Uranie
In The Hunt for Earth Gravity there is a description of Jacques Arago’s last minute dash from Apra Harbour to Hågatña (and back) for a final farewell to a Chamorro girl with whom he had fallen, very temporarily, in love. Twenty years later he wrote much more about this.
by John | Dec 21, 2019 | Uranie
Amongst the entertainments provided on Guam for the de Freycinets (and almost every other foreign visitor) was a performance of a close relative of the All Black’s haka, by a group of Hawaiians.
by John | Nov 22, 2019 | Uranie
Had Louis de Freycinet, when he left Guam, chosen to go a little bit west of north, instead of a little bit east, and had he held that course a little bit longer before turning east, he could have visited the Bonin Islands,