In this often darkly humorous tale we learn what type of person would sign on for a dangerous three-year voyage across the globe, what types of medicines and surgical tools were available and what sort of people they encountered on remote South Seas islands.

Using diaries, journals and correspondence the author tells a fascinating story of remarkable men who shipped out as doctors on South Sea whalers in the early nineteenth century.

After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history's most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett's riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise...

In the heady climate of the nineteenth century goldrushes, "going to see the elephant" was a saying that described an exciting, often dangerous, and usually profitless adventure-something to tell one's grandchildren about. In the spirit of the bestselling Island of the Lost, the story is told of the crew of the Connecticut schooner Sarah W. Hunt. When their boats are blown out to sea, off one of the most icy and hostile islands in the sub-Antarctic ocean, twelve men are abandoned by their skipper, left to live or die by their own wits and stamina. Six survive, to be carried to New...

The remarkable story of Tupaia, Captain Cook's Polynesian navigator. Winner of NZ Post 2012 Best General Non - fiction Book Award. Tupaia, lauded by Europeans as 'an extraordinary genius', sailed with Captain Cook from Tahiti, piloted the Endeavour about the South Pacific, and interceded with Maori in NZ. Tupaia, a gifted linguist, a brilliant o...

More riveting tales of shipwreck and survival from the author of Island of the Lost.

Born at sea and raised on shipboard, adventurous young Abigail Sherman wants nothing more than to be wedded to the ocean for life. Instead, fate conspires against her. Beset by problems with the British administration in New Zealand, her widowed father packs her off to the dour household of relatives in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to learn proper womanly decorum. Arriving on the same day as the momentous news of the discovery of gold in California, Abigail does her best to conform, despite being involved in controversial events, including the Women's Rights movement, and a sensational murder...

Seventeen-year-old orphaned actress, Harriet Gray, wheedles her way on to Captain Jake Dexter's brig Gosling a brig of questionable ownership, whose master is driven by the same promise of conquistador gold that had once drawn Morgan the pirate. If there were dark secrets in the shadows below decks, Harriet had her own surprises for the adventurous crew of the brig. It was no ordinary young woman who had found her way across the seven seas from London to the far side of the world, and she had no ordinary part to play in the voyage of the Gosling toward the beckoning gold ......