A young English navy lieutenant sets out to prove the quickest way to reach India from London is by way of the Mediterranean and Suez rather than the long sea route around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, which takes six months. Together with his friend, the French explorer and natural scientist Martial de Sassenage, Thomas Waghorn leaves London in October of 1829 with the aim of reaching Bombay in India in three month. The owner of a shipping line fears for the future his company should the two adventurers succeed and sends his agents to delay them along the way.