Mediterranean cruising

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 10

Mediterranean cruising

The lonian Islands to Rhodes: A Sea Guide. By H. M. Denham. John Murray. 130 pp. There could be few more pleasant ways to spend one’s retirement than that of Captain H. M. Denham, the author of this sea-guide. A former Royal Navy officer, he spends five months of every year cruising in his yacht in the Mediterranean searching out and recording the mass of useful and hard-to-come-by information which he packs into his guides. That under review, covering the lonian Islands from Corfu to Rhodes, is in fact a new and revised edition of half of a former guide to the Eastern Mediterranean. The other half is to be published separately, covering Southern Turkey, the Levant and Cyprus. That

a division into two was necessary is due not only to changes in the region, but also to the greatly increased information which Captain Denham has to offer. For his book is not only a yachtsman’s “vade mecum,” but also a tourist guide. One is given precise information about channels, tides, currents and port facilities, but also about the local scenery, the people and their habits, the wines, the ruins, and the beaches. Not many New Zealanders, perhaps, will be able to take full advantage of Captain Denham’s expertise. But even the armchair traveller can enjoy the clear and uncluttered manner in which so much information is presented, and catch the flavour of the region which Captain Denham so effectively portrays.