Whenever you think life has dealt you a crappy hand, remember this poor soul.
From Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
Unluckier still was Guillaume Le Gentil, (snip). Le Gentil set off from France a year ahead of time (1760) to observe the transit (of Venus) from India, but various setbacks left him still at sea on the day of the transit -- just about the worst place to be since steady measurements were impossible on a pitching ship.
Undaunted Le Gentil continued on to India to await the next transit in 1769. With eight years to prepare, he erected a first-rate viewing station, tested and retested his instruments and had everything in a state of prefect readiness. On the morning of the second transit, June 4, 1769, he awoke to a fine day, but just as Venus began its pass, a cloud slid in front of the sun and remained there for almost exactly the duration of the transit: three hours, fourteen minutes and seven seconds.
Stoically, Le Gentil packed up his instruments and set off for the nearest port, but en route he contracted dysentery and was laid up for nearly a year. Still weakened he finally made it onto a ship. It was nearly wrecked in a hurricane off the African coast. When at last he reached home, eleven and half years after setting off, and having achieved nothing, he discovered that his relatives had had him declared dead in his absence and had enthusiastically plundered his estate.
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poor guy 
