Redmond OHanlon - Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic

Acclaim for TRAWLER by Redmond OHanlon

Redmond OHanlon is one of the literary worlds well-known eccentrics. Trawlings a risky business, but it makes for a rollicking read.

National Geographic Adventure

Like a Melville novel, Trawler is full of marine arcana and admiration for the dangerous work of seamen. They do most of the talkinglong, often ribald soliloquies, laced with Scottish curses, about watery graves, fishing friendships, the love of a good woman and homosexuality in the 19th-century Royal Navy. [OHanlons] delight in his mates erudite company and his faith in their ability to bring him safely back to port gives his writing a new emotional scope.

The New York Times

It has been years since reading a book made me a pest to be next to because I was laughing so hard as I devoured it. Its just the thing, this book, for that airport connection gone bad, that too-long commute on the bus, that escape from a world far too troubled of late. It is a book to keep handy: Its delight is dependable.

Lynda V. Maps, The Seattle Times

Redmond OHanlon is the poet-wag of natural science, owlish and darkly humorous, and intrepid unto a benign madness. Along with the humor, the erudition and the bouquets of delirium, Trawler is a reminder that there is plenty to be said for rambunctious adventure, much excitement to be had in the chase.

San Francisco Chronicle

Reads like a black-box transcription of minds trying to stay afloat while crushed by remorseless labor, cold, stress, sleep loss and fear of sudden death [and] OHanlon is just the man to guide us through this meltdown. He paints a memorable and unexpectedly tender portrait of men who perform one of the worlds most demanding jobs.

The Washington Post Book World

An atmospheric account of men absorbed by hard work, a story about where seafood comes from and the mysteries of the deep ocean, a tale of giddy exhaustion, lore, superstition, lust, camaraderie, courage, science, and getting the bills paid.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

A treat for readers. A wonderfully real and roiling account of the sea in storm, the wet slimy icy busy hold of the ship, the riotous cacophony of mens salty voices, the ancient human fear of being afloat in a gale the manic phases of sleep-deprivation, and even such absorbing ideas as the role of fish fats in brain development and the birth of life on Earth in the tidal grunge of warm shallow seas.

The Oregonian

About once every four or five years, an erudite, self-deprecating and half-mad natural historian from Oxford launches into one of the worlds wildernesses. The result is always something to look forward to. In place of the traditional travel narrative the book becomes a jumble of argument, ideas and descriptions of strange fish.

The Independent (London)

OHanlon takes a natural historians delight in documenting the instinctive behavior of his traveling companions.

The Telegraph (London)

This is sea therapy: it is men stripped bare at the furthest ends of the earth. [OHanlon] is the best kind of shipmate: funny, wise, garrulous and generous; his book [is] salted with memorable anecdotes and wit.

The Guardian (London)

Redmond OHanlon
TRAWLER

A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, Redmond OHanlon was the natural history editor of The Times Literary Supplement for fifteen years. He lives near Oxford, England, with his wife and their two children. Among contemporary travel writers, according to The Washington Post, he has the best nose for the globes precious few remaining blank spots. Long may he trudge and paddle.

ALSO BY REDMOND OHANLON

No Mercy
A Journey into the Heart of the Congo

In Trouble
Again A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon

Into the Heart of Borneo

Joseph Conrad and Charles Darwin
The Influence of Scientific Thought on Conrads Fiction

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer wishes to thank Olga Tsatolou, Max Peterson Linda Hopkins, Graham Porritt, Pat Kavanagh, Tony Lacy, Zelda Turner, Claire Pollack, Emile Brugman, Ellen Shalker, Gary Fisketjon, Liz Van Hoose, Sarah Robinson, Lexy Bloom, and Richard Drake.

To my wife, Belinda

R EDMOND , youve got to get up here, fast. Theres a storm coming in, big style! I have the satellite maps. Force 11, maybe more. Straight for Orkney. And Jason, the Norlantean skipperhes called on Cellnet. Hes north-west of Shetland. He says the weathers horrendous. And getting worse. Perfect! Just what you wanted! He says we sign on at Scrabster, Saturday, two days time, 7 a.m., no later. OK? Good. So pick me up at home19 Pilot Square, Fittie. Be there! And remembernothing green.

The speaker was Luke Bullough, probably the toughest (and certainly the most modest) young man Id ever met. A biologist at the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, a member of the Aberdeen lifeboat crew, he was a man with a vast experience of the real sea: as a research diver in Antarctica; as a Fisheries Patrol officer in the Falklands; on trawlers and research ships in the North Atlantic. Whereas me? Well, Ive crewed very small sailing dinghies in races round plastic buoys in sheltered bays; and, oh yes, I almost forgot, Ive taken passage on those cross channel car-ferries.

So this is it, I told myself, as I sat heavily down on the chair beside the telephone, by the front door of the small, snug, safe, warm house; by the door that let on to the ancient, stable, peaceful, comforting landscape of Oxfordshire. Yes, heres the defining momentthe one telephone call youve spent nine months trying to persuade to come your way. And I know, I thought (my head, Im ashamed to say, in my hands) I knowyou were all set to spend six or eight months in the swamp jungles of New Guinea; and how easy, how deeply attractive that now seemsmere rainforest, something you really do know about.

But a year ago, my daughter Puffin, then twelve, became so ill she had to spend five months in the Oxford hospital for childrenand her wise National Health Consultant Mary Ellis (shed seen it all before) said to me: Redmond, no; you are so wrong; fathers do matter; and no, you cant disappear for eight months, not nowand, if you do, you may well have your daughters death on your conscience. So I brought forward a secret, passionate project that Id been saving for my Zimmer-frame old age: The Wild Places of Britain.