He died in 1995, but his nautical adventure books continue to bring entertainment and escape to legions of fans worldwide. He was larger than life, perhaps the most successful sailing writer of the twentieth century. But, as Anthony Dalton's meticulously researched biography reveals, Tristan Jones was not who he said he was. 
Wayward Sailor began as an uncomplicated tribute to a great adventurer and writer, but one line of inquiry branched to another, plunging Dalton into a three-year odyssey of his own. With the cooperation of Tristan's friends and supporters, Dalton pursued Tristan's life through correspondence, logbooks, government documents, and interviews worldwide. With each new revelation, Tristan's voyage through life seemed more and more like his greatest adventure. 
His real name was Arthur Jones. He was born in Liverpool in 1929, the illegitimate son of a working-class Lancashire girl, and he grew up in orphanages with little education. Too young to see action in the World War II naval battles he would later write about so movingly, he joined the Royal Navy in 1946 and served fourteen unremarkable years. 
Arthur Jones then bought an old sailboat and tried his hand at smuggling whiskey cross-Channel. In his early thirties he sailed into a Mediterranean limbo, scraping a living from charters by day and haunting the bars of Ibiza by night. When he was drunk, which was often, he could be loud and obnoxious and had the scars to prove it. He had no family, no attachments, no accomplishments. 
Then came a midlife sea change. Arthur Jones looked into his future, imagined greatness, and began to claw his way to it. Having taught himself to sail, he taught himself to write. He was a natural at both. As Tristan Jones, in his midforties, he sailed out of Brazil's Mato Grosso and into a Greenwich Village apartment to write six books in three years and reinvent his past. 
The Tristan Jones of his books was born in a storm at sea in 1924 on his father's tramp steamer; was torpedoed three time in epic World War II engagements; completed the first circumnavigation of Iceland; traveled farther north and farther up the Amazon River than any sailor before him; and sailed more than 400,000 miles, 180,000 of them solo. Readers loved his books and crowded his lectures and signings. He had a bard's voice and a street performer's delivery. He had more renown than he could have dreamed. 
Having invented a life, Tristan Jones tried to live it. After the amputation of his left leg in 1982 he sailed more than halfway around the world. He lost his right leg in 1991 yet still returned briefly to sea. But as his body failed him, so too did his spirits. It was as if the life from which he'd bodily lifted himself were pulling him down again. He died a bitter man. 
Wayward Sailor is the biography Tristan Jones did not want. His books were autobiographical, he said; there was no more to tell. But there was. Wayward Sailor is the last Tristan Jones story and the most incredible one of all: the story of a man who invented himself.

Wayward Sailor : In Search of the Real Tristan Jones

Sports & Outdoors

Dalton, Anthony

Biographies

International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press

"This is a necessary book for anyone who has read Tristan Jones's stories with enjoyment or suspicion, or both." --Derek Lundy, author of Godforsaken Sea "I was enchanted from start to finish by Anthony Dalton's biography." --John Rousmaniere, author of After the Storm Tristan Jones boasted a worldwide following for his memoirs of extraordinary adventures from the Arctic to the Dead Sea. But, as Wayward Sailor proves, Jones was a fascinating invention of his own imagination. Wayward Sailor is a voyage into the soul of a mysterious adventurer.

Wayward Sailor: In Search of the Real Tristan Jones

Water Sports

In 1975 Rod Johnstone finally decided to build the boat he'd been planning since completing design correspondence school 10 years earlier. Thirty years later, the J/24, the boat based on that first garage-built vessel is the most popular recreational offshore keelboat in the world. The story of J/Boats' success, as inspiring as it is unlikely, unfolds for the first time in this illustrated history, which tells how Rod and his brother Bob turned one homebuilt boat and a $20,000 investment into the company that dominates the performance-oriented sailboat market today.

J/Boats: Sailing to Success

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

Voyageur Press

Adventures with Camera and Pen is a collection of tales from Anthony Dalton's nomadic life as an adventurer and photo-journalist. The stories run the gamut from searching for Polar bears on the shores of Hudson Bay through mountain climbing in Western Canada to tracking Royal Bengal tigers in Bangladesh jungle. They depict Dalton's often hilarious encounters with an eclectic variety of wildlife in the Canadian Arctic, the Falkland Islands and Namibia. He recounts his adventures at sea on tall-ships, and his fumbling attempts at fishing closer to home. As an expedition leader, he documents a difficult journey to remote salt mines in the Sahara north of Timbuktu with a CBC-TV film crew. With Dalton we are privy to conversations held in a rustic tea-house in Afghanistan, and we learn about the problems of travelling in Iran as the Shah began his fall from power. He takes his readers with him on a camel-buying expedition to desert locations in Oman and Saudi Arabia, and describes the difficulties involved in successfully smuggling a fellow Canadian out of Nigeria. In Morocco, Dalton wrestles with other people's problems after a drug dominated dinner. This is a book for all those who yearn for far away places: the adventurers and the armchair travellers.

Adventures With Camera and Pen

Travel

Travel Writing

Bookland Pr Inc

Dewey Soper first travelled to the Arctic in 1923. During the next seven years he accepted three research postings on Baffin Island, each of which lasted between one and two years. In 1929 he discovered the breeding grounds of the blue goose in the southwest corner of Baffin Island. He also charted the final unknown region of Baffin Island's coastline. Later in life he worked in the western Arctic. Outside the Far North, Soper studied bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, documented bird life on the Prairies, and made a detailed study of small mammals in Alberta. Soper was the last of the great pioneer naturalists in Canada. He was also a skilled and meticulous explorer. As a naturalist, he was a major contributor to the National Museum of Canada, as well as to the University of Alberta and other museums across the country.

Arctic Naturalist: The Life of J. Dewey Soper

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Dundurn Press

Around the Arctic Circle and for some distance on either side of it, polar bears are at the top of the food chain. They have no natural enemies and are fearless. Wherever the North has icy seas, there are polar bears, living on the ice and hunting seals-their favorite food-with matchless cunning and ability. They roam far and wide, often being found far south of their Arctic habitat: they are seen regularly in Churchill, Manitoba, on the western shores of Hudson Bay, and have been spotted to the south and east in James Bay. They rarely attack humans, but when they do, they win. Considered wise and powerful by Native cultures, they have become a charismatic symbol of animals threatened by climate change in the Arctic ecosystem. Anthony Dalton has gathered stories of Ursus maritimus from most of the lands that touch upon the Arctic Circle: Canada, Greenland, Norway, Siberia and Alaska. These fascinating tales depict the bears' single-minded approach to life and acquiring food, tell of interactions between polar bears and humans, and capture the majesty of this mighty bear.

Polar Bears: The Arctic's Fearless Great Wanderers (Amazing Stories)

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Heritage House Pub Co Ltd

In mid-July 1925, the SS Bayeskimo ran into heavy drift ice at the entrance to Hudson Strait. The ice carried her north, squeezing the steamer and testing the strength of her rivets. Helpless until the tide changed and the ice moved, the officers and crew could only watch and listen to the ships tormented groans. Slowly at first, trickles of freezing water seeped through the steel plates on her bow. The trickles became a flood, and Bayeskimo began to sink. Bayeskimo was one of hundreds of ships in the Hudsons Bay Companys fur-trade fleet. For much of the companys history, they roamed Hudson Bay, the subarctic and beyond the Arctic Circle, servicing far-flung posts. Some even battled their way around the tip of South America to open up trade on the west coast of North America. During these arduous voyages, many came to grief under conditions that would test the mettle of any ship. Here are some of their stories.

The Fur-Trade Fleet: Shipwrecks of the Hudson's Bay Company (Amazing Stories - Heritage List)

History

Americas

Heritage Amazing Stories

Relentless Pursuit

Literature & Fiction

Action & Adventure

After Royal Navy captain Sir John Franklin disappeared in the Arctic in 1846 while seeking the Northwest Passage, the search for his two ships, Erebus and Terror, and survivors of his expedition became one of the most exhaustive quests of the 19th century. Despite tantalizing clues, the ships were never found, and the fate of Franklins expedition passed into legend as one of the Norths great and enduring mysteries. Anthony Dalton explores the eventful and fascinating life of this complex and intelligent man, beginning with his early sea voyages and arduous overland explorations in the Arctic. After years in Malta and Tasmania, Franklin realized his dream of returning to the Far North; it would be his last expedition. Drawing from evidence found by 19th-century Arctic explorers following in Franklins footsteps and investigations by 20th-century historians and archaeologists, Dalton retraces the route of the lost ships and recounts the sad tale of Franklin, his officers and men in their final agonizing months.

Sir John Franklin: Expeditions to Destiny (Amazing Stories)

World

Travel the world for free (or nearly) as a guest speaker on cruise ships. All you need to know to get started is in this little book.

How to Become a Guest Speaker on Cruise Ships: and travel the world for free

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

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