The adventures of New Zealander Gerry Clark will be introduced to a new audience today with the release of a Spanish version of his book ''The Totorore Voyage'' in Chile.
The book recounts the story of the late Gerry’s adventures sailing his homebuilt yacht, Totorore, from New Zealand to Chile in 1983 and the subsequent three year expedition in Chile’s remote southern regions, and then on through the Atlantic and Indian Oceans back to New Zealand.
The book has been released in Spanish after New Zealand Embassy staff in Chile recognised Gerry’s adventures, his message of respect for nature and conservation of environment, together with passages documenting the extraordinary beauty of remote parts of Chile, would be of interest to a Chilean audience.
Gerry Clark died in 1999 when, with Roger Sale, Totorore was wrecked and lost on Antipodes Island. In 2000 The Totorore Voyage was reissued, this time with an introduction by Sir Edmund Hillary.
The Totorore Voyage tells an extraordinary tale of adventure and scientific enquiry Gerry’s work on the voyage gathering new information about seabirds, including in Chilean waters, resulted in a least eleven ornithological publications and he was awarded an MBE for services to ornithology. International ornithologists highly praised the expedition and the quality of its work.
As the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Helen Clark, writes in her introduction for the Chilean edition, “though we are separated by many thousands of kilometres of the Pacific Ocean, we New Zealanders and Chileans share a common adventurous spirit, and a common love of our isolated and rugged homelands”.
With the help of Chilean private sponsors and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Latin American Strategy Fund, the book launch will be celebrated at an event in Santiago attended by Chilean members of Gerry’s original crew. 600 copies of the book will be donated to Chilean schools and universities.
