Epic Adventure: Epic Voyages - Magellan, Cook, Shackleton, Heyerdahl, Chichester (Epic Adventures)

It takes a certain kind of adventurer to sail off into the unknown of the world's oceans, sailing by the stars, alone in the vastness of a life at sea. Join an accomplished sailor for the stories of five epic mariners who set off on some of the great ocean journeys ever undertaken. Learn the art and skill of sailing from great square-riggers to the smallest craft. Learn what it takes to survive at sea, and how great sailors must adapt to challenging conditions like unpredictable weather, physical hardship, sleep deprivation, and unforeseen perils. Find out what survival strategies succeeded, and which failed-with tragic results. Illustrated throughout with maps, photographs, posters and eye-popping gatefolds, this book is the perfect introduction to the incredible distances and epic challenges of a life at sea.

The polar regions and their oceans have been the backdrop of Robyn Mundy's life for 14 years. She has over-wintered with emperor penguins in Antarctica, and regularly roams the high seas as an Assistant Expedition Leader on ship-based tours to wild, remote places. Robyn lives in Australia and has had a lifelong passion for the Heroic Era of polar exploration. Her novel, The Nature of Ice, was published in 2009.

Nigel Rigby is Head of Research at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK. He joined the Museum in 1996 to curate a gallery on Britain's imperial maritime trade. His own research interests lie in exploration, particularly the European exploration of the Pacific Ocean. With colleagues, he has
written two books on exploration, based on the Museum's fine Pacific collections:
Captain Cook in the Pacific (2002) and Pioneers of the Pacific (2005).