Super Cargo: A Journey Among Ports

Thornton McCamish's journey among ports is a wonderful, witty and whimsical work - the perfect holiday read. McCamish has a gentle and very funny writing style - completely engaging. His observations are sharp and his journey compelling. When do we get a second book Mr McCamish?

McCamish sets out from London to India on several ships (and some planes) with a mission to immerse himself in an obsolete idea of ports: the edginess of port towns, their last-chance saloons, their toothless old salts. Has the romance of sea travel vanished from towns built from the dregs and riches of the sea? The answer, in this warm, engrossing story, is a qualified no. As he makes his way from Marseille to Cape Town to Cochin, India on various cargo ships, McCamish gradually accepts that the days of adventures before the mast are over, but finds that the workaday tedium of modern container ships has been amply filled by a bizarre cast of lonely sailors, prostitutes, missionaries and mystical drunks. The strength of this book lies in McCamish's dry humour and his passion for his subject. There are some great lines and some lovely writing, evoking the atmosphere of the empty sea, the pleasures of a long journey, and the comedy and dignity of the ordinary sailors he meets. This is a journey begins with travellers' nostalgia and ends in a celebration of real life at sea in the 21st century. Highly recommended to armchair travellers.

This book is simply a great read. The writer, Thornton McCamish, takes us on a journey of discovery as he travels the ports of the world. Fabulously funny, especially as he fends of prostitutes and tries to keep on the right side of the ship's cook. Any traveller will love it. Just a question, though. There's a passage that reads:"... "Give me another riddle," Tristan said. So I gave him the one about the dwarf who comes home, goes inside, picks up a stick and realises that he might as well kill himself..." Can anyone tell me the answer?