Arabella Twigg is an ordinary girl. Her father invents things that don’t work. Her mother cooks food no one can eat and her horrid brother, Tom, likes to get her into trouble. Her Gran is crazy but loves Arabella very much.

Arabella’s life was boring until strange things began to happen to her. One day, she is caravaning with her family in Whitby, England and visits the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, when suddenly she and her brother find themselves actually on board the Endeavour with Captain Cook and his eighty seafaring crew, on the open seas sailing to Tahiti.

Will they every make it back from this perilous journey, especially when the ship hits a reef and takes on water?