In September 2001 I was in hospital on Thursday Island in the Torres Straits. For me the horror of 11 September unfolded in the middle of the night, as I stood in a corridor, watching television. That I was so far from home was, in no small part, due to our enduring fascination with Cook.

Three months earlier I had been sitting in the Courtyard at Somerset House, discussing a BBC project to retrace part of Cook's first Pacific voyage. The idea of picking a volunteer crew, and some contemporary ‘experts’ to man the replica HMS Endeavour, and then sailing from Cairns to Djakarta, was fascinating. As we discussed the social fabric of the eighteenth-century Royal Navy, and the demands of shipboard life, I was already looking forward to watching the series! Then I was asked to join the crew, as historian and foremast hand. I accepted without hesitation, subject only to clearance from my college department (since the trip would overrun the start of term), and my family. Both were agreeable, although my 11-year old daughter was horrified to discover that there would be no place for a ‘cabin-person’, and was hardly placated by the information that this was a legal stipulation, rather than a personal slight.

The next two months were filled with exams, conferences, and a number of writing tasks that had to be completed before I could set off. As the time drew near I began to have second thoughts: was it really such a good idea? By early August the administration of the trip was in full swing, dates were set, and I had been asked to speak at this conference; it was too late, I was going. But what was I going to be doing? The concept of ‘Extreme History’ began to appear in conversation; we were going to learn by suffering. We would push our interest in the past to the limits, and see what we found. We would be confronted with hard food, hard work, the removal of twenty-first-century luxuries, and necessities, drug free, out of contact, and deprived of our personal space.