Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic - Paperback

by Redmond O'Hanlon (Author)

Having survived Borneo, Amazonia, and the Congo, the indefatigable Redmond O'Hanlon sets off on his next adventure: his own perfect storm, in the wild waters off the northern tip of Scotland. Equipped with a fancy Nikon, an excessive supply of socks, and no seamanship whatsoever, O'Hanlon joins the commercial fishing crew of the Norlantean, a deep-sea trawler, to stock a bottomless hull with their catch, even as a hurricane roars around them. Rich in oceanography, marine biology, and uproarious humor, Trawler is Redmond O'Hanlon at his finest.

Front Jacket

Having survived Borneo, Amazonia, and the Congo, Redmond O'Hanlon now ventures into his own perfect storm in the wildest waters he could find.
His rendezvous with destiny begins aboard a trawler converted for deep-sea fishing at a cost of $3 million-which is why its young skipper's setting out from Scotland's northern tip when the rest of the fleet is running for safe harbor. Equipped with a fancy Nikon, an excessive supply of socks and no seamanship whatsoever, O'Hanlon joins a crew of five who stock a bottomless hull with the catch, day after sleepless day, even as the hurricane threatens to wash them overboard. While he helps inventory the creatures of the deepest North Atlantic-from jellycats to the wormlike hagfish, unchanged since its evolution more than 500 million years ago-his shipmates exchange manic monologues that range from their woeful longing for loyal women to trade laws and complex fishing quotas.
Rich in oceanography, marine biology and men's lives, "Trawler reveals once again the inimitable spirit of the man Bill Bryson has called "probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language, and certainly the most daring."

"From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, Redmond O'Hanlon 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 globe's precious few remaining blank spots . . . Long may he trudge and paddle."

The following books by O'Hanlon are available in Vintage paperback:

Into the Heart of Borneo
"A learned and sensitive book as well as a knockabout farce." -The New York Review of Books

In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon
"When Evelyn Waugh . . . and Graham Greene traveled, the going was still rough . . . Redmond O'Hanlon, hacking his way up an unmapped tributary of the Amazon, fearful (and not without good reason) of ending his days in someone's cooking pot, has managed to keep that tradition alive." -Jonathan Raban

No Mercy: A Journey into the Heart of the Congo
"Old-fashioned, gut-wrenching, real-life adventure . . . As much an inner journey that explores fear, religion, magic and childhood as it is a dangerous trek into the depths of the jungle." -Time