Specks of land were just as vital to our shipwrecked survivors.
Not that they were easy to find.
Only 1% of the Pacific is land.
On 20th December,
the sailors arrived on the Pitcairn Islands,
over 2,000 miles from where they were first shipwrecked.
Described by them as "a paradise before our very eyes",
the starving sailors quickly set to work on the island's wildlife.
But the good times were not to last.
Within a week, they had eaten all its seabirds.
Leaving three of their group behind on this now impoverished island,
the others chose to take their chances back at sea.
They could have ridden the prevailing winds to the nearby Society Islands,
but they were terrified of cannibals.
Instead, they struck out east,
to the distant shores of South America,
two and a half thousand miles away,
and back into the dreaded Desolate Region.