A THIRD and final volume has been published of the memoirs of West Somerset-born marine expert and environmentalist Chris Marrow.

Titled ‘Travels with the Cornish Viking’, the book covers his travels and adventures in remote areas of Africa and Central America culminating in a knighthood bestowed on him by Democratic Republic of Congo Queen Diambi Kabatsuila.

Chris was born in Crowcombe, and some of his first memories are of Williton, where his grandparents had a house.

The first volume of his life story, ‘From Rat Race to Tide Race’, covered his family’s journey to the Orkney and Shetland Islands, where he pioneered new ferry services.

The Mozambique civil war features heavily in the second book, ‘The Cornish Viking in Africa’, where Chris used landing craft to help feed people suffering famine, poverty, and gunfire, and helped to open routes to get the country back on track.

Now, the latest autobiographical tome follows Chris to a number of different countries which all shared certain characteristics.

They were usually remote, often in conflict, and many were little known.

Chris travels the San Juan River to an isolated area of Nicaragua, which is reflected by the book cover showing workings at the river mouth of what was originally planned to be a canal – a waterway which was eventually built instead in Panama.

He then switches continents and goes to Sierra Leone during its civil war, followed by Rwanda, where he helped with lake transport to supply food to refugee camps at the north end of Lac Kivu at the time of the country’s genocide.

Chris also re-explored the river route from Malawi to the Indian Ocean via the Shire River and the Zambezi, the first person to follow the old David Livingstone route for 20 years.

Locals who saw his party passing by were beside themselves with excitement because they had never seen a white man before.

It led to Chris being asked to take over a Government shipping company on Lake Malawi and run it for private investors.

The exploits saw him knighted in 2021 by Queen Diambi Kabatsuila, ahead of which she stayed with her lady in waiting in Wellington, where Chris now lives.

The African wildlife features prominently in this period of his life, with tales of a buffalo rampaging around his garden and poisonous snakes infiltrating the house.

His wife Rosemary had a close encounter with a deadly black mamba.

Further travels in Africa follow Chris driving across the border from Tanzania into Mozambique, where the only route was through soft sand in the thick bush.

Returning to the UK, Chris was commissioned to inaugurate ferries across the Bristol Channel from Minehead to South Wales, an enterprise which was defeated by the global financial crash of 2008.

Protection of the environment features heavily in Chris’ current work as a member of South West Business Council, where he is part of an international group working on the clearance of plastics from the River Congo.

‘Travels with the Cornish Viking’ has just been released on Amazon.