Sir,
When we lived at Coastguard House, Castle Hill, Tenby, we were visited a couple of times by Rosie Swale.
She gave us a copy of 'Back to Cape Horn' with a nice handwritten note. That was probably about 20 years ago and I recently re-read it.
It was about an epic 3,000-mile, 14-month trek on horseback down the entire length of Chile in South America, and was full of difficulties, danger and adventure.
She was drawn to visit Cape Horn which 11 years before, in 1973, was the climax of her greatest and most daring adventure detailed in her book Children of Cape Horn.
I contacted my local library and they obtained a copy which I have just read. It was one of those books one begrudges finishing.
It tells an incredible tale of Rosie with her then husband Colin in a 30-foot catamaran - sailing 30,000 miles through the Panama Canal to Galapagos Islands, the Marquesas and right through to Australia. Then via New Zealand to their goal which was rounding Cape Horn at the tip of South America. The first time that a small catamaran had achieved such a feat, with a crew of Rosie, husband Colin and two small children, Eve aged two, and six-month-old baby, James.
The blood-curdling adventures over such a distance taking one-and-a-half years cannot be imagined and now there she is walking round the world! I wonder what happened to Colin and the two children Eve and James, who would be in their late 30s now. Does anyone have that information?
John Evans, Cornwall.