One of the accounts in Tony Horwitrz’s book, The Devil May Care, is about a sailor with connections to Seattle. Joshua Slocum (1844 – 1909) was born in Nova Scotia and left home at age sixteen to work on sailing ships. Through years of experience, he became a captain of cargo ships and ran a schooner between Seattle and San Francisco in 1869. He also was the captain on cargo ships running to Australia and the Philippines. In 1882 he began to refurbish a 37 foot oyster sailing sloop Spray. In the meantime, he ran a ship to be delivered in Brazil. On his return he decided he would sail the Spray around the world all alone. On April 24, 1895 he left Boston on a solo voyage around the world. He survived the trip across the Atlantic and entered the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan. He crossed the South Pacific to Australia, went on through the Coral Sea, the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope and back to the United States. The entire trip was made on sail power. When he arrived back home on June 27, 1898 he had traveled some 46,000 miles. He had accomplished the first single handed circumnavigation. But, not long after returning home he became restless for the sea again and began making solitary trips to the Caribbean. Then, at sixty five years of age, he decided he would sail the Spray to South America looking for the unknown source of the Amazon. So, on November 14, 1909 he sailed out of New England heading South for South America, never to be seen or heard from again. The fate of Captain Slocum and the Spray remain a mystery of the sea