There's something irresistible about a diary, especially one from over 150 years ago discovered under a house. Scrawled cryptic entries on water-stained pages, near-impossible to read, but hinting at the story of a man's adventures sailing in the South Pacific. That random find sent author Jean Day on a fifty-year journey of discovery where she found uncanny parallels between her life and that of the long-departed diarist, Thomas Kerr. This book is the story of how she unravelled the tangled threads of the careers he followed; his travels across the globe, from being an orphan in Devonport England; to becoming a naval officer and taking part in charting NZ on the HMS Pandora and fighting in the Chinese Opium Wars .His life as a Melanesian missionary in the islands around Vanuatu; and then as Vicar of Devonport NZ; and his final years as a meteorologist at Valentia, Ireland; until his death in 1875.