Edited by Colin Amodeo

"Adventure! Romance! The glamour of intrepid youth setting forth on uncharted seas to lands unknown to seek a fortune, adventure or untimely death. Hell! I am seasick already."

So wrote Jack Atkinson on the first page of his diary, in March 1932, as seven young men and two kittens sailed for Fiji in a 67-year- old wooden ketch, the Waterlily.

Few had sailed to the Islands, let alone in a ship with an engine useful for emergencies only and, as the 'Waterlilies' would later discover, rotting timbers in the stern. Jack Atkinson records the cruise with zest and a critical eye as crew members find their sea legs and learn to cope with the differing attitudes each has brought aboard.