This book is based on the true story of the ship the 'Treasure', which sank in June 2000 just north of Cape Town, and caused a huge oil slick that harmed thousands of sea birds. People came from far and near to help rescue the penguins in an enormous clean-up operation driven by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, the Avian Demography Unit at UCT, SANCCOB and WWF among others. About 43 000 penguins were rescued in total, of those about 20 000 were oiled. The clean penguins were shipped from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth by truck to swim back to Cape Town (with some luck, because no one knew for sure what they would do, but they were counting on their strong homing instinct) in order to buy time to clean the beaches and the sea. The whole of South Africa plotted the progress of the 3 rescued penguins, Peter, Pamela and Percy, who were equipped with tracking devices (provided by SAP Southern Africa), as they swam home to Cape Town.
