It started with a manuscript left in a desk... October 29, 1870: A 155-foot Navy steam sloop has just completed her mission - widen the entrance to a harbor for ships in the China trade. Before returning to San Francisco, however, her captain decides to make a detour. To the most remote island in the Hawaiian chain, to be sure no one is shipwrecked there. But they hit a reef in the dark; now, they're shipwrecked themselves. When they don't turn up in San Francisco a rescue ship will be sent out, but they'll be looking for the crew in the wrong place - on the island they left the day before. This is a survivor's account of the crew's desperate attempts to save themselves, given by the captain to his cousin and left in a desk drawer. A true story, published a century and a half after the wreck by members of the captain's family. Relevant today because where the men were shipwrecked was like the ends of the earth in 1870; they may as well have been shipwrecked on Mars. This book includes George H. Read's THE LAST CRUISE of the SAGINAW. For information about the authors' other books and behind-the-scenes photos, please visit www.SinghaBooks.com.