Max Jenkins and three friends (Ken Furley, Raymond Brierly and Neville Sunderland) left New Zealand on Ken Furley's yacht Bounty for what was intended to be a nine month cruise in the South Pacific. The voyage began in May 1953 and ended two years later, via Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Australia, where they had left the Bounty a mere floating and scarred hull (manuscript p.211). To support themselves they engaged Trochus and green snail divers off Aneityum and worked on the Noumea wharf, in a Queensland timber town and on Lord Howe Island. Mr Jenkin's manuscript was written up in New Zealand just after his return in 1955. It is based partly on his memories of the voyage, and partly on his letters home and refers often to newspaper accounts of the voyage including the Australian Women's Weekly interviews with Jean, a woman passenger, following their 11 April 1955 entry into Coffs Harbour, Queensland (Manuscript p.211). See also Pacific Islands Monthly entries listed under Bounty (yacht) in the Cumulative Index to Pacific Islands Monthly ... August 1945-July 1955 compiled by Margaret Woodhouse and edited by Robert Langdon (Canberra: Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, 1984).

The typescript, on foolscap pages, consists of 21 chapters (211 pages) with the following headings:<P>1. The ship and preparation; 2. A hard squall; 3. Tonga; 4. On the reef; 5. Vatoa; 6. Totoya; 7. Suva; 8. New mast; 9. Earthquake; 10. Another new mast; 11. Aneityum; 12. Tana; 13. Hurricane; 14. Shell diving; 15. Mare Island; 16. New Caledonia; 17. Brisbane; 18. Sailing for Sydney; 19. Sydney and Lord Howe Island; 20. Lord Howe Island; 21. Adrift on the Tasman.