At dawn on April 28, 1789, Captain William Bligh and eighteen men from HMS Bounty were herded onto a twenty-three-foot launch and abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Thus began their extraordinary journey to Java. Covering 4,162 miles, the small boat was battered by continuous storms, and the men on board suffered crippling illness, near starvation, and attacks by islanders. The journey was one of the greatest achievements in the history of European seafaring and a personal triumph for a man who has been misjudged by history.Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare reveals Bligh's great mapmaking skills, used to particular effect while he was exploring with Captain Cook. We discover his guilt over Cook's death at Kealakekua Bay. We learn of the failure of the Bounty expedition and the myths that surround the mutiny led by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the trials and retributions that followed Bligh's return to England, his successes as a navigator and as a vice admiral fighting next to Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen.Combining extensive research with dazzling storytelling, John Toohey tells a gripping tale of seafaring, exploration, and mutiny on the high seas, while also dismissing the black legend of the cruel and foulmouthed Captain William Bligh and reinstating him not just as a man of his times but as a true hero.

John Toohey is a photographer, historian, and journalist. He was born in Australia and now lives in Montreal, Canada.

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"After the mutiny abroad the Bounty, Captain William Bligh and a few loyal crewmen crossed most of the Pacific in an open boat, an epic feat in any age. John Toohey brings this tragic, doomed man and his desperate voyage vividly to life in this fascinating new book."

—Stephen Coonts, New York Times-bestselling author of Flight of the Intruder

"Beautiful written and wonderfully researched. This book will educate and entertain you."
—Sunday Times (London)

"Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare is highly imaginative and vividly evokes what it might been like for Bligh and his men during a nearly fatal open-boat voyage."
—New York Times Book Review

"This fiercely lyrical, stylish chronicle is likely to resurrect debate over the mutiny, Bligh's character and his place in history."
—Publisher's Weekly