The uncorrected proof of the novel accompanied me on an extended sea voyage, but I read it largely during a flight from Toronto to Tahiti. Powning's story, set in the 1860s, made perfect reading during the lengthy flight. Having sailed on vessels as small as 2,000 tons and in excess of 50,000, I found it easy to relate to the story, the storms endured on both the Atlantic and the Pacific, the discipline needed to survive. But, of course only a sailor caught in storm that threatens both ship and crew can really relate to what she so vividly describes in her story.

The protagonist, Azuba Galloway, dreamed from early childhood on of someday going to sea, of widening her horizon beyond Whelan's Cove, NB. When she falls in love with and marries Nathaniel Bradstock, captain of a merchant ship, she is determined to go with him rather than wait for years for him to return. She has little use for the stilted lives and conventions that the wives of other captains live in her town. They all may have the worldly goods that their husbands have brought home from abroad after long journeys, but they understand little or nothing of what it means to be at sea for their husbands. When in rare letters the husbands mention bad weather or other difficulties at sea or in port, those parts are skipped over when read during afternoon parties.

Azuba has different ideas. She makes Nathaniel promise her that he will take her along on his ship, the Traveller, when he next leaves for another voyage. But, when she becomes pregnant, Nathaniel changes his mind because he knows only too well what dangers a sea voyage can hold, and about the difficulty of having a child at sea or in a foreign port. He knows that Azuba lacks the toughness of those captains' wives who make their lives alongside their husbands. They are a different breed from the women Azuba knows.

What eventually leads him to change his mind to take her with him is part of the suffocating closeness of a small community where gossip and innuendo can play havoc with a 19^th century captain's wife who fails to follow conventions. A place where appearance rather than fact is more important. Suffice it to say that there are considerable tensions and problems to overcome when Azuba, along with their daughter Carrie, joins Nathaniel on his next voyage. She soon discovers that her husband is a very different man onboard ship. He must sometimes rule with an iron fist to keep the crew in line during difficult times. She finds this hard to reconcile with the husband she knew in Whelan's Cove, especially as she also has to bow to the discipline required of the men. She learns that being the only woman on board leads to loneliness, and visits to foreign ports are not always as romantic as she imagined.

Having experienced big storms at sea, but in far safer vessels than a cargo sailing ship, I can only imagine what it may have been like for Azuba to discover the hardship they wreak on a sailing vessel and its crew as it rounds Cape Horn. This is probably even today the most dangerous shipping route at the very tip of South America where waves frequently can reach above 65 feet. For me, though, The Sea Captain's Wife contained a historic a bonus. I learned through Powning's story about the guano trade of Peru and the life on the Peruvian Chincha Islands where it was mined by slaves and prisoners. Azuba became witness to the horrors associated with this trade of one of the most sought after natural fertilizers then ferried between Peru and Europe. Knowing I would also be visiting Callao, the Peruvian port where Traveller anchored while waiting for many weeks to get in line to take on this cargo, I was determined to find out more about it. What I eventually learned made me realize just how well Powning had researched her story.

During a visit to Easter Island in the South Pacific, I discovered that the local population had been virtually decimated in the 1860s by the slavers from Peru. Thus armed I asked questions while in St. Martin, Peru, about the mining of guano on the Chinchas. To my horror I learned that this bird excrement is still mined on a limited basis on a few islands off Peru. I naively expected it to be done by machinery. Not so. Now Peruvian Rainforest natives do the job in virtual peonage, and under circumstances that may be better than 150 years ago, but to me still inhumane. When these men, whom the educated Peruvians—even those of native ancestry—view as lesser beings the jungles, become incapable to continue to do the mining, their sons must take over the dangerous job.