People getting stranded in places they shouldn’t be seem to be a recurring theme in the books I’m picking up. Up to this point, it’s been disastrous arctic expeditions. This book was an “if you like those, you might like this” recommendation by Goodreads, and I thought it was really interesting! The stakes were a bit lower than what I’ve read before, but this was still a pretty good read about—not one—but two different shipwrecks on the same island! Two stories for the price of one!

We start out reading about Captain Musgrave’s ship the Grafton, marooned on Auckland Island after a series of bad calls and trusting in bad information. Him and his crew of four band together almost immediately and actually get themselves set up rather comfortably (given the circumstances). They built a sturdy structure, had a regular routine they followed, and when they realized the people they left behind didn’t lift a finger to see them rescued, took it upon themselves to get themselves rescued. Despite some squabbles about rank and deference and the like, they did as well as could be expected for themselves.

The second wreck happened several months after the first, and things don’t go nearly as well. The Invercauld runs aground, and a large number of her crew end up marooned as well. Instead of banding together, they find a derelict ruin of a building and spend all day wallowing in their own misery. One skilled crewmate did his level best to get people motivated, but you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves. After the food runs out and nobody seems particularly motivated to even do anything about that, a few of the crew, including the skilled man split from the group—and at a good time too, because talk of cannibalism starts circulating amongst the dispirited crew. The small group isn’t without its own set of challenges though, as nobody wants to follow anyone’s directions. Nevertheless, they manage to hang on together, until a ship rescues them eighteen months later.

It’s an extensively researched event, taken from historical records and journals. There’s also quite a bit of what happened after all was said and done, which I appreciated. It was interesting to see how the crew of the Grafton all went their separate ways after the event, when they seemed to work well together during their time on the island. The author does a good job of contrasting the two shipwrecked groups, marooned at the same time, and weaving their stories together in time despite never meeting or realizing the other existed. One group banded together and (sort of) thrived, the other group refused to work together, and failed.

It’s a unique survival story read, different than the arctic books I’ve read, with lower stakes but no less engaging.