What makes it different to the previous six books in this column is that it’s an adventure brought on by necessity rather than free choice.  It’s a story that is playing out in some form or another every day of the year in 2021, whether it be in the Mediterranean, the Indian ocean or the Caribbean. Normal people, whose mere existence is under threat, take to a small boat, to escape to a new life. 

So, when I was given a copy of South Sea Vagabonds by Johnny Wray I assumed it was going to be another entertaining but outdated, perhaps pompous account of a privileged white man’s parade through the islands. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The story is brilliant … However what I found difficult to grasp was the genre. Was what I was reading based on documented research or extrapolations from the imagination of my author?

I refuse to call THE ENDLESS SEA a coffee table book. It’s so much more than what that mildly derisive term implies. Once in a while a beautifully designed book such as this, lands on my desk, and …

“I knew there were already plans to electrify the lights. To automate. To relegate man beneath machines. To make us redundant. To take all the purpose out of life. As if richness did not lie in purpose and meaning but in leisure. I was keenly aware that I was in love with a dying life.”