num_pages: 272
description: At dawn on 27 April 1789 Fletcher Christian, master's mate on HMS Bounty took a coconut to quench his thirst from the supply on the quarterdeck ... He thought this an 'act of no consequence', as insignificant as the flutter of a butterfly's wings. But consequences followed followed: mutiny; Captain Bligh's navigation 3000 miles across the Pacific in an open boat in violent weather, without maps or supplies and with starving men; the colonising of Pitcairn Island; the shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef of HMS Pandora sent to capture the mutineers; the seduction of the narrator in a storm in a rudderless yacht ...Hazardous and extraordinary sea voyages drive this story of quest and adventure, courage and villains. The cast includes the Bounty mutineers, the all-Indian crew of the Tundra Princess - a 17,000-tonne container ship - Lady Myre, an eccentric lesbian aristocrat, Pitcairn sex offenders and the narrator's ancient mother. The action moves through time and place from eighteenth-century Tahiti to modern-day Pitcairn, from Knightsbridge to Tauranga, from Mangareva to Tubuai.Inspired by chaos theory, Whitbread Prize-winner Diana Souhami brings sparkling wit and originality to a story that weaves together fact and fiction, history and autobiography, humour and danger. She shows how one chance act, one simple random event, had dramatic ramifications that ripple through time.Bibliographical note: The front cover has the strap line 'Pitcairn, Mutiny and a Seduction at Sea' after the title but the title page simply shows 'Coconut Chaos' and that is how the book is correctly catalogued.
language: English
title: Coconut Chaos
titlecomplete: Coconut Chaos
genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Adventure
ratings_count: 81
publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson