(EEAR - 2021)Life on a desert island Alexander, L.

(EEAR - 2021)

Life on a desert island

Alexander, L.G.

Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines. Life there is simple and good. Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work. There is also the other side of the picture: Life on a desert island is wretched - you either starve to death or live like Robison Crusoe waiting for a boat which never comes. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.

Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island whished they had stayed there no longer. They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink. They quickly loaded a small rubber dinghy with food, matches, and cans of beer and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island. There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water to drink, but this didn’t prove to be a problem since the men collected rain-water in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat. They caught lobster and fish every day, and, as one of them put it, “ate like kings”. When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave.

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The men on the island didn’t go thirsty because they: