CRUISE SHIP ENRICHMENT TALKS
by Carol Baxter
Carol Baxter, the history detective, is a cruise ship "Enrichment" or "Special Interest" speaker telling true tales of drama, mystery and adventure. Most sessions are gripping storytelling performances.
Topics include:
- Aviation mysteries and dramas
- Maritime mysteries and dramas
- True historical crime
- WW2
- General ocean-going subjects
Carol is also a Destination speaker and a Writing teacher.
Carol Baxter speaking on the Regent Seven Seas Explorer in 2024.
AVIATION TALKS
What really happened to Amelia Earhart?
Who could imagine that the disappearance of the world’s most famous aviatrix as she flew across the Pacific Ocean on 2 July 1937 would usher in one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time? Did she ditch into the sea? Was she spying for the US government? Was she captured by the Japanese? Let’s seek answers to this intriguing mystery.
SMITHY: They said he couldn't do it!
Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew become the laughingstock of San Francisco in 1928 as they attempt the most arduous flight of all: across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to Australia.
NB. To be completed in 2025.
Mayday!
When a US pilot ferries a tiny Cessna crop duster to Australia in 1978, his navigation system fails over the deadly Pacific. As darkness looms and his fuel tanks empty, can a nearby DC-10 find him?
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller series
Why haven't you heard about Australia's first internationally-famous female aviator, Jessie Miller, who became friends with Amelia Earhart and Charles Kingsford Smith? All is revealed in this three-part talk.
Carol's book about Jessie Miller, The Fabulous Flying Mrs Miller, is being turned into a TV series called The Aviatrix.
The Feisty Mrs Miller
Bored 1920s Australian housewife Jessie Miller joins WW1 British aviator Bill Lancaster in a (hopefully) record-setting flight from England to Australia in an open-cockpit biplane. Little did they realise ...
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
That Magnificent Gal in her Flying Machine
Australia’s first internationally famous aviatrix, Jessie Miller, becomes a record-setting celebrity in America and a close friend of Amelia Earhart. But dark clouds are brewing on her horizon ...
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
Be Careful What You Wish For
Celebrity Australian aviatrix Jessie Miller and her partner Bill Lancaster need money. They invite a handsome ghost-writer into their Florida home to help write her autobiography. What's the worst that could happen?
Click HERE to watch a video snippet from this talk (filmed late 2023).
MARITIME TALKS
Shipwrecked (or Danger!)
Imagine sending a fleet of eleven ships – six carrying cargoes of hardened criminals – across the world's oceans to establish convict colonies in Australia and Norfolk Island. What could possibly go wrong?
or
When Britain loses its greatest possession – America – and sends the First Fleet across the world’s oceans to establish convict colonies in Australia and Norfolk Island, little do they realise (or perhaps care) that these new outposts of the British Empire will soon be plunged into a life-threatening crisis.
NB. This talk could instead be called Danger! However, the title Shipwrecked keeps the passengers on the edge of their seats wondering if each dramatic shipping incident is about to become the shipwreck disaster foretold in the title.
The Catalpa series
Little do most people realise that Ireland's centuries-long crusade to achieve independence from their British overlords was critically boosted by a bold plan set in motion by some Irish-Americans.
Catalpa Conspiracy
Irish-born Americans plot to pluck Irish political prisoners – Fenians – from the grasp of their British captors in Australia's last convict colony. Could their audacious plan possibly succeed?
Catalpa Confrontation
The American whaler Catalpa docks in Western Australia in 1876 on a secret mission to liberate Irish political prisoners – Fenians – from the grasp of their British captors. What could possibly go wrong?
The Mary Celeste series
Have you heard about the American ghost ship that became one of the world's greatest maritime mysteries? These two talks grippingly recount the discovery, the investigation, and the theories proposed to explain its abandonment.
The Mary Celeste Ghost Ship
Who could have imagined that when the American ship Mary Celeste sailed from New York for Italy with a cargo of alcohol in 1872 it would soon become one of the world’s “greatest maritime mysteries”?
The Mary Celeste Mystery
After 150 years of theories, speculations and outrageous claims about the Mary Celeste ghost ship, can we now determine what really happened to the ship and to everyone on board?
TRUE HISTORICAL CRIME TALKS
Murder that Launched the Electric Telegraph
A suspected murderer. A line of wires strung between poles beside Britain’s revolutionary new railways. Who would triumph: the man or the world’s first commercial use of electricity?
From Carol's book The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable.
Bushranger Captain Thunderbolt
Join outlaw Frederick Wordsworth Ward – aka Captain Thunderbolt aka the Gentleman Bushranger – on a rollicking robbing ride across New South Wales during the 1860s bushranging epidemic as he exposes the mostly British and Irish cops as bumbling incompetents.
From Carol's book Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady, which is being turned into a TV series called Thunderbolt and Bugg.
Australia's Largest Bank Robbery
Building a bank in a convict settlement? A settlement populated largely by thieves? Surely someone must have recognised that maybe, just maybe, the temptation might be too hard to resist.
From Carol's book Breaking the Bank.
Black Widow
“The Lucrezia Borgia of Botany Bay!”, Australia nicknamed her. “Worse than Jack the Ripper!”, some declared. But was Louisa Collins guilty or innocent of the arsenic deaths of her two husbands … and perhaps others.
From Carol's book Black Widow. Watch a video snippet from her "Black Widow" cruise talk (filmed 2018).
WORLD WAR 2 TALKS
Australia's Pearl Harbour
As America reels from the shock of Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and Britain from the Fall of Singapore ten weeks later, Japan turns its deadly gaze towards Australia. What are they plotting?
GENERAL TALKS
It's About Time
"What’s the time? Have they changed the clocks again?" As we cross the world's oceans, let's explore the surprisingly strange subject of how humans shackled time and established the fixed time zones that plague us on our travels.
For Want of a Clock ...
Shipwrecks, drowned or starving seamen, disasters that would continue to destroy ships, lives and trade opportunities while sailors couldn't determine their longitude at sea. How did the world solve the greatest technological challenge of its time?
UNDER CONSIDERATION OR IN THE PIPELINE
Daring Escape
Mary Bryant, her babies and eight male convicts flee New South Wales' convict servitude in 1791 by stealing a boat and sailing north. Will they elude their captors, survive the arduous voyage to the Dutch East Indies (Timor) and successfully conceal the truth?
Captain Bligh's Disastrous Voyage
In 1789, Captain William Bligh and seaman Christian Fletcher face off in the world's most well-known shipboard uprising: the mutiny on the Bounty. What really happened during the infamous voyage?
'Til Death Do Us Part
Poison! It had long been considered a cunning tool by those seeking power or wealth. By Victorian times, this dark art was sweeping through society, the refuge of battered wives and hen-pecked husbands along with the bored or bedazzled. How did the poison detectives catch up?
The "Bloody Code"
Lex Talionis or legal retribution. Its origins lay in pre-history, the simple visceral balance of a “life for a life”. But was it always a just retribution? What extraordinary laws and horrific punishments can we see as we explore the legal systems of the past.