Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare

Ignore the naff title; this book is a little ripper. Subtitled only on the front cover 'From the Bounty to Safety - 4,162 miles across the Pacific in a Rowing Boat' it tells the little-known story of what happened to Captain Bligh after the Bounty mutineers herded him and those 18 other crewmen who refused to go along with the mutiny into a 23-foot long boat and set them adrift in open ocean.

And it is a continually amazing tale. Toohey writes vividly but unpretentiously, bringing to life Bligh's youthful service with Captain Cook, an experience of mapping the South Seas that served him well when he eventually came to be marooned, as well as his Bounty experience.

Navigating by the stars, baling frantically as storms filled the tiny vessel with water, and eating the foulest stuff imaginable (when a booby was foolish enough to perch on the edge of the boat they carved it up, discovering "to their joy" half-digested flying fish and squid in its stomach which they also ate "greedily").

You end up agreeing with Toohey that crossing the Pacific in a small boat under these incredible conditions constitutes "one of the greatest achievements in the history of European seafaring", and that Bligh himself, poor maligned "sadist" Bligh, was actually a thoroughly decent and even heroic figure.

It is a book out of the 'Longitude' school, but a superior example of the type, and it could just resurrect Bligh as a neglected hero. - Adam Roberts