Stranded on a desert island, our man ponders a life
with just the barest of (21st-century) necessities.
By Bob Payne
I had often dreamed of living for a year on a desert island. It would be somewhere far out in the Pacific, accessible only by boat. During that year, alone on my island, I would be totally self-sufficient. I would build a shelter, catch fish from the lagoon, and perhaps, to make sure that my appreciation for culture did not desert me, carve one of those giant stone statues, like on Easter Island. Then I became addicted to e-mail…and I thought I'd better first try having myself marooned for a week.
During my Pacific travels, I kept an eye out for my island. With each candidate I weighed the necessary aesthetics:a sandy beach, coconut palms, and a lagoon. And I considered the major issues:fresh water, likelihood of hurricanes, danger that a big outboard-powered catamaran with a thatch sun shelter overhead would let ashore a horde of lagoon-tour day-trippers for a picnic. Then I almost put a machete through my foot…and I thought I'd better first try it for a night.
I was on a lagoon tour in the Cook Islands when I saw, out on the reef, way off by itself, my perfect island. It had a crescent of sand, a fringe of palms, and a background of white, booming surf. No, I was told, nobody lived on it, and yes, I could be dropped off…but only for a day because nowhere in the Cooks was overnight camping allowed. They'd had some problem, apparently, with would-be Robinson Crusoes.
A fisherman brought me out just after dawn. My hotel wanted to pack me a lunch, but I told them no. I wanted to live on my own resources, if only for a day, and even if I did plan to occupy myself by catching up on an unread issue of Wired.
The island was perfect. The palms overhung the sand, providing shade and just the right bracketing for a portrait of paradise. Fish splashed in the lagoon. A cooling breeze blew. Coconuts were strewn about. If I were staying for a year, I asked myself, what would I do first? A coconut crashed to the sand, not far from where I was sitting. I needed a shelter.
Collecting some palm leaves, I set out to make one of the sleeping mats I'd seen all over the Pacific. I figured I'd master my technique on that and then, if I had time, erect a shelter frame and start on a thatch roof.
By the time the fisherman returned, I had nothing that resembled a sleeping mat. And I was losing my fondness for coconut milk. The fisherman had thought I might be hungry, so he brought along some fruit and a rice salad his wife had made. Taking a palm leaf that happened to be lying around, he cut off a section five strands long and then slit it down the middle with a machete. Laying the two five-strand sections across each other, he wove them over and under and tied the ends to form a plate on which he placed the food. After a few tries, I was able to do it myself.
I wanted him to show me how to weave a sleeping mat, how to build a shelter, how to sustain myself on this island…but the sun was getting low. Still, I left feeling confident. Should I ever find myself living on a desert island, I know with every fiber of my being, in the deepest recesses of my soul, that I shall not be without plates.
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Illustration by Jason Schneider
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