Knight writes an engaging travelogue of his cruise from England to an island named Trinidad in 1889 in search of buried treasure. He starts the narrative in the Fall of 1888, leaves Southampton in late August 1889 and manages to return in February 1890 (whether successful or not, I won't disclose).

He includes all the important details for such a trip as this and one gets the impression that following his steps of preparation, his packing lists and his timeline, a successful voyage could be made today.

As a sailor, I particularly appreciate Knight's ability to depict the sea, the islands, his moorings and the various difficulties encountered and how their little yacht was handled through them.

While in the middle of this book, I was astounded by the similarities to [book: Peter Duck] and others from the [author: Ransome] series and will have more to say about that later.

I've rated this book two of five stars mostly because you've got to be a certain type of reader to get through Knight's writings. This is not an armchair expedition but a synopsis of the Alerte's logs and as a consequence, may be a bit dry to some readers. ( )

Fabulous story of real life treasure seeing in the late 1800's. E. F. Knight sails the cutter Alerte, with a crew of volunteers and paid hands, to dig for fabulous treasure. Descriptions of living off the land rather disconcerting to a 21st century environmentalist! Best read for the descriptions of this amazing South Atlantic Island, now know as Ilha da Trindade. The edition I read had an introduction by Arthur Ransome - this book was the inspiration for his novel "Peter Duck" and fans of that work will recognise much here! One for fans of adventure and sailing. ( )