Minerva Reef

While this is perhaps not the best written book, its story is at least well recorded. Minerva Reef is the story of a shipwreck - 17 Tongan men stranded on a remote reef which is only exposed at low tide. This occurred in 1962 when the cutter Tuaikaepau, sailing from Tonga to Auckland, ran aground on South Minerva Reef, 380 miles south of Suva in Fiji.

We are told the story from departure from Tonga; the crew and their relationships, backgrounds and friendships; the circumstances of the grounding and destruction of their boat; the discovery of another much larger wrecked boat nearby, which provided them some shelter. Cleverly these men constructed a still to produce drinking water, were able to fish and collect shellfish, octopus and crayfish sufficient to eat (except for the requirement for vitamin C - unfortunately no seaweed in this proximity); amazingly they then undertook to construct a boat from salvaged materials and tools, even developing ways to steam curve timbers.

Three men then set off on a voyage to alert people to their plight, sailing to the nearest island of Fiji and triggering the rescue of their companions, 102 days after initially being wrecked.

A story of the determination and courage of these men, ably led by the captain David Fifita. Not a happy ended for all seventeen men however, but I won't spoil the outcome. A part of Tongan maritime history.

Hard to rate. There was a flat part in the writing toward the middle, where there was excessive repetition and much was made of minor conflicts among the men. The writing was factual, but not particularly good. There was a balance of backstory and history of the Tongan men and the reef. Black and white photographs occupy a section near the rear, and while these are primarily of the rescue, these are again preserved for posterity.

On balance, for me, this sits at 3.5 stars, and due to its historical nature just gets a round up to 4 from me.