Darwins sea change
Darwins sea changeDarwin's Sea Change
In the mid 1830's, The British ship the Beagle set out to survey the shores of Chile, Peru and other islands in the Pacific; and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements around the world. The ship's captain was Captain Fitzroy. The young, religious captain was set out for five long years to run the Beagle's crew. Unfortunately, the role of captain did not allow any social contact with the other ship's crew mates other than work. This meant that Fitzroy had to dine alone, and would only talk to the other officers about the ship's business. The 26 year old captain also knew how bad it was for your mental health to be aboard a ship for five whole years with practically nobody to talk to [(especially with such a bad history of mental health in his family.) (Several years earlier, Fitzroy's uncle had killed himself.)] However, the navy did not like the Captain's to bring their wives, family, or friends along. Therefore Captain Fitzroy ended up finding another aristocratic nobleman to bring along the journey, to be the ship's "natural historian", or more importantly someone to keep him company.
It turned out that Charles Darwin was asked to join, and he accepted. He barely knew the captain but said "yes" anyhow. Darwin only lasted a year or so as the "natural historian", before he took over Robert McKormick's job. McKormick was the ship's naturalist, and did not get along with Darwin at all. When Darwin did take over (which did not take long), McKormick actually left the ship and went back to Britain. Even before Darwin became the naturalist, he did more then just eat dinner with the captain to...
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