Professor Creamer, who died at the age of 104 on Wednesday, taught geography for many years at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in Glassboro, N.J.
His expertise helped him become a history-making mariner, the first recorded
person to sail round the world without navigational instruments.
His 30,000-mile odyssey, in a 36-foot cutter with a small crew, made headlines worldwide on its completion in 1984 ...
... It is daunting enough to circumnavigate the Earth with the aid of modern global positioning technology, much less with medieval and Renaissance tools like a mariner’s compass and sextant.
But Professor Creamer, in the grip of an obsession that had held him for years, shunned even those newfangled contrivances, as well as a radio, a clock and a wristwatch.
He chose instead to rely on his deep knowledge of the planet and its vagaries, and be guided by nothing more than wind, waves, the sun by day, and the moon and stars by night.
