You should make sure that you are brave enough to try it!

     Were going to head down to sunny Florida, where our journey will begin and we’re starting at Jacksonville. Here you can enjoy the beach and relax for a while before jetting off around Florida. There are also many places to stay here too so if you really want to, you can rest up here for a few days. You can explore the great outdoors, enjoy some fine wining and dining or take part in some of the many sports and activities.

     Just an hour and a half away is Daytona Beach and again, you can relax and enjoy the beach or go to many of the attractions here such as the Halifax Historical Museum and the Museum of Art and Science. As well as many places for you to shop until you drop with a vast variety of places to choose from. There are so many restaurants that you will never be stuck for choice from Chinese to Italian. Daytona Beach also has a thriving night life with many Beach Clubs, Blues Clubs, Comedy and many more for you to see and enjoy. Read more…

     Born in the small village of Marton in North Yorkshire, near Middlesborough, Cook came from an impoverished family of Agricultural Workers. This fact, given the class-ridden social structure of contemporary England, makes his achievements all the more remarkable.

     It was the English practice then of sending boys in their early teens to sea, expecting them to learn on the job and work their way up the hierarchy if they had the talent and determination. Naval pay was excellent, so there was a lot of incentive to ‘go to sea’. The work was extremely hard though, and few of the youngsters made it a lifetime career. After a few years usually, they found a job onshore.

     Cook, not in keeping with this tradition, went to sea later at the age of eighteen and found it so congenial that he probably never gave a thought to switching careers.

     For the first ten years, Cook worked on the small Coal Trading Ships known as ‘cats’ around the East English Coast from Tyne to the Thames. This was a highly risky occupation, give the treacherous nature of the coastline and the rather unsafe harbors, and no doubt provided him with much valuable experience for the Royal Navy, which he joined in 1755.

     By 1758, he had passed the Master’s Exam in Navigation that was required to be able to handle a Royal Ship. He participated in the Seven Years’ War between England and France in North America and gained important surveying experience. In the years after the war, he charted the Newfoundland Coastline, trained himself in Mathematics, Astronomy, and other technical skills needed on-board. He was an undoubted success in the Royal Navy, showing distinctive qualities of leadership and determined ambition. His ship was always efficiently-managed and clean, the crew was well-organized, well-drilled, and had good quarters and food. Cook banished the scrounge of Scurvy by introducing compulsory rations of fresh vegetables and citrus juice. Read more…