Such a skill (and in the most literal sense) later very useful and Joshua himself. In his later memoirs, he frankly noted that his «father was one of the men who, after the shipwreck on a desert island, would have been able to return home with only a folding knife in his pocket and a suitable log». However, life lessons learned as a child clearly benefited the future captain.

The debut was unsuccessful: dissatisfied with the young chef's culinary delights, the team almost rebelled, so he had to return to his parents' house.īut to keep on land the boy, who has discreetly turned into a young man, even the strictest father managed for a short time: 16-year-old Joshua left home for a second time, now forever, and was hired as a sailor on a merchant boat, carrying out long voyages to Japan, China and Australia.Īlong with a new, truly bright life, he found a new last name, changing his parent «Slocombe to «Slocum»», which he was to glorify. The inevitable result was that at the age of 14, Joshua ran away from home for the first time, becoming a junga (at the same time) and coca on a fishing schooner.

However, a stern father (although he himself came from a family of sailors) did not approve of the «strange» hobby of one of his offspring by sea, seeing it only a future farmer. In the rare free minutes, the boy and his peers sailed along Fandi Bay on homemade rafts and small boats, risking daily drowning (Captain Slocum never learned to swim well for the rest of his life). The sea got closer when the Slocombe moved to Briar Island a few years later.

Slocum sail around the world