This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hello, it's Richard McLean Smith here with a huge favour to ask. With unexplained approaching its 10-year anniversary, I want to hear from as many of you as possible about what you like about the show and what you don't like. More importantly, I want to know what I can do to make it better. So I've put a survey together and would dearly like you to fill it in for me if you have the time.

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The Dark Tropper. The dark tropical sky was tinged with lemon as palm trees swayed lazily in the warm early morning air.

From somewhere out in the harbour of Arpia, the capital of Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean, muffled metallic clangs and hammering sounds had been ringing out all night. But now, as dawn broke, they finally went

quiet. They were coming from a small merchant vessel whose crew had been working tirelessly

to try and fix a faulty engine, to no avail.

The ship's captain, a British seafarer named Thomas Dusty Miller, looked harassed and

frustrated. In the gathering light, he told his crew that they'd be setting out that morning

regardless. Their departure had already been delayed enough as it was.

Captain Miller had been chartered by the Samoan government to take cargo and passengers to Tokalau,

one of a remote group of Polynesian atolls. His boat, the Hoyita, should have left port at noon

the previous day. Halfway between Hawaii and New

Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean, the archipelago of Tokalau was around 270 nautical

miles to the north of the Samoan capital. One of the passengers due to travel on the boat

was a doctor who'd been tasked with performing

an amputation on a patient out there, another a pharmacist with urgently needed medical supplies

for the island. Along with several other passengers, four tons of cargo were also on board.

Captain Miller was no doubt mindful of the urgent medical situation

on Tokalau, and with the engine at least functioning. Perhaps he reasoned the Hoytas cork-lined

...