Far horizons steeped in marvels had bounded the vision of his imagining eye.

His passion was to see and do in realms at the back of the sunrise.

He wanted to sail and explore in parts represented by blank spaces on the map.
These dreams of the boy, basking with Robinson Crusoe under remote skies, were suddenly translated into a reality as dazzling-bright and wonderful as anything pictured in pages often and fondly conned.

This was his first voyage, and he was serving under a commander who had lived the romance that other men wrote and read about, who was himself a living part of an adventure whose story will be told and re-told to the centuries, and who had served under as great and noble a captain as ever trod an English deck.
The very nature of the voyage was bound to stimulate that "passion for exploring new countries," to use Flinders' own phrase, the hope for which was a strong factor in prompting him to choose the sea as a career.

It was a voyage whose primary object involved a stay in two of the loveliest regions on the earth, the paradise of the Pacific and the gem-like Antilles.