The brave Scottish boatswain, who spent 4 years and 4 months on a desert island, managed not only to survive, but also to become the prototype of the legendary Robinson Crusoe.
In April 1703, Alexander Selkirk became a member of the British expedition to the coast South America... In just one year, the Scotsman, who had an extremely scandalous character, managed to infuriate the entire crew of the Cinque Ports. That is why, when Selkirk, during another quarrel, demanded to be dropped off, Captain Charles Pickering sighed with relief and immediately gratified this desire. Of course, realizing his prospects, Selkirk was still trying to take his words back, but it was too late: the team left him in the Pacific Ocean on the uninhabited island of Mas a Tierra (nowadays it bears the name - long live recursion! - Robinson Crusoe Island).
Before Selkirk, settlers had already lived on the island, leaving behind goats and cats, which, however, managed to run wild over the years. The Scotsman had plenty of free time, so he managed to tame goats and get a constant source of fresh meat and milk, as well as skins from which he could make a kind of clothing. Selkirk used cats as a guard against rats (and probably for mental relaxation). Among other things, thickets of wild turnips and edible berries were found on the island.
At the beginning of 1709, the British ship Duke anchored off the coast of Mas-a-Tierra, the crew of which discovered and rescued Selkirka, who had already settled on the island. Returning to his homeland, the Scotsman became a celebrity: they wrote about him in the newspapers, and in pubs a queue of people wishing to treat him with a drink and listen to stories from the life of a hermit lined up. A few years later, Alexander Selkirk joined the Royal Navy and sailed to the shores West Africa, where he died during the yellow fever epidemic.
Pavel Vavilov, 34 days
Icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov"
On August 25, 1942, the team of the famous icebreaker Alexander Sibiryakov entered into an unequal battle with the fascist cruiser Admiral Scheer near Domashny Island in the Kara Sea. Almost all crew members and passengers died in the fire on board or were captured. Only the stoker Pavel Vavilov managed to escape the same fate, who found himself in the water, and later managed to climb onto the surviving rescue whaleboat. Having found an emergency supply in the boat, which consisted of matches, biscuits and a barrel of water, and also having fished a bag of bran and a set of warm clothes from the water, Vavilov set off towards the signaling lighthouse and ended up on the uninhabited island of Belukha.
For 34 days, the stoker survived on an island inhabited exclusively by polar bears. Having settled down on the upper platform of the lighthouse, in relative safety, he ate bran soup and drank melt water, since in September it had already snowed in those parts.
By the time the stocks of food were almost exhausted, Vavilov was noticed by the crew of the Sacco steamer passing by. A seaplane was sent for the survivor, driven by the famous polar pilot Ivan Cherevichny.
After the salvation, Pavel Vavilov, as a Soviet man should, did not rest on his laurels, but quickly returned to ordinary life. Until the end of his life, he managed to work on the icebreakers Georgy Sedov and Lenin.
Ada Blackjack, 2 years old
Expedition before departure
The life of a simple Inuit girl Ada Blackjack (nee Delutuk) was not very joyful: two of her three children died in infancy, and a little later the young husband also died. Due to the difficult financial situation, Ada had to send her only son to an orphanage for a while and go to work. The job was found quickly: Canadian Alan Crawford invited Ada to join the Arctic expedition as a cook and seamstress.
On September 16, 1921, five people - Ada, Alan and American polar explorers Milton Halle, Fred Maurer and Lorne Knight - set off towards Wrangel Island in order to outstrip the Japanese expedition, who were about to claim their ownership of the island. The first wintering was given to the team too hard: food supplies were quickly depleted, and the hunt, on which great hopes were pinned, did not bring results. In January, Halle, Crawford and Maurer made the decision to head back home. Ada refused to return and stayed on the island with Knight, who was seriously ill and could not move, and an expeditionary cat named Vitz.
Since the polar explorers who went back disappeared on the way, and Knight died suddenly, Ada and the cat were left alone for a whole year and a half. In August 1923, a girl who had learned to hunt and survive in extreme cold was taken from the island by the rescue expedition of Harold Noyce. Returning home with the money she earned, Ada took her son out of the orphanage and moved with him to Seattle.
Lucy Irwin and Gerald Kingsland, 1 year
A scene from the movie "Shipwrecked Survivors" based on the novel by Lucy Irwin
People do not always end up on a desert island by chance, sometimes they do it deliberately.
In the early 1980s, an elderly British journalist Gerald Kingsland decided to conduct a social experiment and live a year on a tropical island far from civilization. In an attempt to find a companion, he posted an ad in Time Out magazine, to which young Lucy Irwin responded. In 1982, adventurers traveled to Tain Island, located between New Guinea and Australia, after getting married to simplify the visa process.
Once on Taina, the couple realized that they had nothing in common, but since there were not only people on the island, but also a registry office in which a divorce could be filed, they had to learn to get along and endure the hardships of tropical life together. According to Irwin and Kingsland, the lack of understanding was harder for them than everyday discomfort.
In 1983, the island was hit by a drought, the couple was left without fresh water supplies. They were rescued by the natives from the nearby island of Badu. Back in Britain, Gerald and Lucy finally got divorced and wrote the bestselling books: The Thrown Out (based on the novel in 1986 they made a film) and The Islander.
The novel "Robinson Crusoe" immortalized the name of Daniel Defoe, and the name of the protagonist has long become a household name. In childhood, any child imagined how he would end up on a desert island and survive here. What can I say, not just a boy. So, just recently we talked about a ruined millionaire who celebrated the 20th anniversary of his stay on the island. But what else are there real stories Robinsons?
Robinson Crusoe Island, where Alexander Selkirk spent 4 years
Lived on a desert island: 4 years and 4 months
The story of the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk inspired Dafoe to write the novel, it was he who became the prototype for Robinson Crusoe. True, the literary hero stayed on the island for 28 years and during this long time, alone with nature and with himself, he grew spiritually. Selkirk stayed on the island for 4 years, and he got there not as a result of a shipwreck, but after a quarrel with the captain. And no friend of Friday for you, and, of course, no cannibals. However, Alexander managed to survive in the harsh conditions, he ate shellfish, tamed feral goats and built two huts. In 1709, the sailor was discovered by English ships. When Selkirk returned to London, he told his amazing story to the writer Richard Steele, who published it in the newspaper.
By the way, the island where Selkirk lived alone was later named Robinson Crusoe. And 150 kilometers from it there is another island - Alexander-Selkirk.
Traveler Daniel Foss
Lived on a desert island: 5 years
The story of another traveler Daniel Foss is also surprising. At the end of the 18th century, a man traveled on the ship "Negotsiant" with a team in the northern seas, where they hunted seals. The ship collided with an iceberg, and 21 people managed to escape by boat. For a month and a half they swam on the waves until two people were left alive. Soon the boat was washed ashore, where Foss lost his last comrade. And this island turned out to be far from heavenly: a small stony patch of land, where there was nothing but a seal rookery. Actually, the meat of the seals helped Daniel to survive, and he drank rain water. Only five years later, in 1809, a ship passing by picked up Foss. At the same time, the poor fellow had to sail before him, as the captain was afraid that he would run the ship aground.
Tom Neal is a voluntary hermit
Lived on a desert island: approximately 16 years
But there are also stories of voluntary hermitage. So, for almost 16 years coral island Suvorov became the home of Tom Neil, a native of New Zealand. He first visited the island in 1952. The man domesticated chickens, started a vegetable garden, caught crabs, shellfish and fish. Thus, the New Zealander lived on the island for almost three years, and after a serious injury he was taken out. But this did not stop him from returning: Tom returned to his paradise in 1960 for three and a half years, and then in 1966 for ten years. After his second stay, Neil wrote The Island for Myself, which became a bestseller.
Jeremy Bibs - Robinson, who managed to grow old on the island
Lived on a desert island: 74 years
In 1911, the ship "Beautiful Bliss" was shipwrecked. Only one Jeremy Bibs managed to survive. Then he was only 14 years old. Due to his age, he was very fond of adventure novels, and what do you think was one of his favorites? Robinson Crusoe, of course. Here he learned basic survival skills, learned how to keep a calendar, hunt and build huts. The young man managed to grow old on the island: he was taken away only in 1985 by an 88-year-old man. Just imagine, during this time two world wars have passed and man has conquered space.
Alexey Khimkov and his comrades - polar robinsons
Lived on a desert island: 6 years
This story is even harsher: no rainforests and warm sea... V arctic ice the team lived for six whole years. In 1743, led by the helmsman Alexei Khimkov, a merchant ship went fishing and got stuck in the ice. A team of four went to the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, where they found a hut. Here they planned to spend the night, but fate decreed otherwise: a strong Arctic wind carried the ice floes along with the ship into the open sea, where the ship sank. The hunters had only one way out - to insulate the hut and wait for rescue. As a result, they lived on the island for 6 years, during which time the team made homemade spears and bows. They hunted bears and deer, and also fished. So the harsh Arctic winter turned out to be in the teeth for men. However, in their small camp there was an outbreak of scurvy and one of the travelers died.
Six years later, a ship sailed past the island, which saved the polar Robinsons. But not empty-handed, they climbed aboard: during this long time they managed to get about 200 skins of a large animal and about the same number of Arctic foxes. About the misadventures of the Russian Robinsons, the book "The Adventures of Four Russian Sailors Brought to the Island of Spitsbergen by the Storm" was later published, which was translated into several languages.
Vacation on a desert island? Is that possible? Nowadays, there are a lot of tourists everywhere, and the opportunity to relax on a tropical island with a personal chef and your own piece of white sand beach is available only to very wealthy people. However, there are still hidden corners in the world where there will be no one on the island but you, the length of your own white beach measured in kilometers, and a bungalow with a personal chef and all the amenities costs less per day than a cup of coffee in a Moscow cafe.
I wrote in more detail about how to get to this island in previous posts (you can find their table of contents at the end of the post). I will only say that it is not easy to get to Palambak, and some time ago it was and simply impossible because of the civil war in the Aceh province in northern Sumatra, with which a small, always crowded boat travels to these parts. However, for those who have always dreamed of visiting a real desert island, all obstacles are surmountable.
Palambak Island is located in the Banyak archipelago and has a circumference of about 20 km, and there is only one hotel on it that guarantees a real VIP vacation for a few dollars a day. The hotel includes 4 double bungalows, built at the end of 2010, and a restaurant with a chef. The hotel is called Banyak Island Bungalows and even has its own website.
This is how the bungalow looks from the outside. The house stands on stilts - like all buildings on such islands. This is done in case the water level rises during high tides or floods.
This is how the bungalow looks inside. A mosquito net on the bed is a must-have addition to any accommodation in the tropics. Shower and toilet are located in a special house behind the bungalow. Inside you can see the electrical wiring and lamps - from 6 to 10 pm, the hotel owner starts a powerful generator, and at this time you can charge your laptop or camera. There is almost no telephone connection on the island, more precisely, only one operator works with which Beeline does not have a roaming agreement, MTS in theory should work. Fresh water for the shower is generated by a desalination plant.
The window offers a wonderful view of Indian Ocean located just a few meters from the doorstep.
The bungalow has a cozy outdoor terrace with comfortable wicker chairs.
View from the terrace. Small sprouts are planted by the hotel owner coconut trees, which in 5 years will reach a five-meter height.
In the restaurant there is a varied selection of dishes (some, however, must be ordered in advance), there you can also take any book for free, rent a surfboard, fins, a mask for a modest amount, or book an excursion to anywhere in the Banyak archipelago. Also, there is always a supply of Bintang beer in a special refrigerator container. Food, drink and services can be ordered without money - everything ordered is recorded in a special notebook, on which a check is written during a checkout. The average cost of meals is about two dollars per serving. A can of beer - two and a half. You can boo and order royal lobsters - but it's very expensive, almost $ 20 per kilo.
We are here! Note the unusual location of the continents on the map.
Coconut trees grow everywhere around the hotel and on its territory, you can pick up coconuts, open them and drink coconut milk until you get bored)
An endless beach stretches the entire circumference of the island, occasionally interrupted by coral reefs or fallen trunks of palm trees.
The ocean can be admired endlessly. Or you can take fins, a mask and a snorkel, and swim right next to the hotel, looking at the fishes scurrying around the coral reefs.
If you don't sit on the beach, you can go to explore the island. Here the skeleton of a boat was thrown ashore.
Around the skeleton of the boat and through it grow such cute flowers - exactly the same as those that enveloped used cars on the outskirts of Berastag. Mystic!
In this reservoir, at high tide, connected to the sea by a small rivulet, there are very strange creatures (but more on that in the next post)
Here, the waves threw a giant log onto the beach, reminiscent of the one from which Robinson unsuccessfully gouged the pie in Daniel Dafoe's novel.
The intertwined roots of an unknown tree resemble a three-dimensional spider web
Some palm trees are devoid of vegetation - a consequence of the 2004 tsunami
Fallen palms
The beach is so deserted and endless that you can even walk naked, the main thing is not to forget about sunscreen,
and also about the fact that sometimes fishing boats pass by, from which the locals look with interest at white strangers.
In some places on the island there are traces of life - bungalows destroyed many years ago, the decaying walkways of the pier.
Sometimes fishermen spend the night at the far end of the island.
One evening, fishing enthusiasts from the capital of Sumatra, Medan, sailed to our island.
The fishermen turned out to be Chinese - representatives of the local wealthy class. They came from Medan by car (the trip takes 9 hours) and rented a local boat for fishing, and when they saw our fire, they decided to moor and chat. To start a dialogue, they gave us some huge fish, very expensive by local standards. The fish was immediately skinned with a huge machete. We ate this fish for a few more days on the whole island :)
We burned a gigantic fire and talked peacefully.
Boats at sunset.
A bit more.
Another sunset on our beach
Dawn in the ocean
Sunset at the same place. In these latitudes, the sun sets at about 5:30 pm.
The case helped. A New Zealander captain I know was ferrying a small fishing schooner from Vero Beach to Honduras. When I approached him and began to complain that I could still buy something in the twentieth century, but in the twenty-first I no longer wait - it turned out to be some kind of dear - the captain looked at me like a child and helped me literally in two weeks to find ground underfoot.
We left Vero Beach and headed for Costa Rica. There are a bunch of uninhabited islands in the Southwest gulf of mexico... The captain is very experienced - he has been walking in this region all his life. He picked me up a small island, which according to some maps belongs to Costa Rica, according to others - to Venezuela, and according to the third - to Holland. That is, no one still really can say who exactly. And if you think that this is such a unique phenomenon, you are mistaken, the world is full of islands, which, even if they belong to someone, are empty. Come to them and live - in English, even a special term for people like me was invented - “ islandsquatters "- in Russian, probably" squatters ", I would say - a lot of people already live like this - if you don't believe me, then google" islandsquatters ”And see for yourself. While you are there saving money for your apartment, people are taking over the islands with might and main.
Well, he unloaded me on the island, and in a couple of days I adjusted my whole life. Before leaving, I bought a second-hand modular house for the tropics from a German literally for a penny (I gave three of the Baku ones). It consists of shields that are twisted by bolts and placed on steel pipes - a house half a meter from the ground. This is so that all tropical animals would not crawl into it. We dug eight holes, stuck support pipes into it and filled it with cement. The water nearby - a hundred meters from my home, a small waterfall - pours constantly.
After that, I unpacked, pulled out the kitchen utensils, assembled the bed, and connected the toilet to the portable tank on the roof. The toilet is right in the house, you do not need to go outside, otherwise you will go at night out of need and some other creature will bite your leg - it is safer in the house.
After that, I dug in another post and put a satellite dish on it - two-tone Internet from “ Directnet "- it works anywhere in North and South America. Now I have a phone via Skype and a decent stream - one and a half megabytes per second. Works like a clock and costs a penny - eighty dollars a month without traffic limitation. Now I can work on the Internet, download videos and chat with friends for free.
The island turned out to be decent, along the coast, full of pow-pow, coconuts and guava. They can be safely eaten without fear of any chemicals and herbicides. I bought a nice diving kit and a spear (cost 48 bucks). I must say right away that you definitely need to have on hand the publication of the Atlas of the Atlantic Fish (30 bucks in the Barnes & Noble store) - everything is detailed there, what you can eat and what not, otherwise you can get poisoned out of habit.
I put in a solar oven for cooking. Funky thing - google « solaroven »At leisure - it does not require any fuel, it is powered by the sun. It costs one and a half hundred. I bake fish in it under pineapple - both are free. True, you quickly get tired of pineapples - I alternate pineapple with pow-pow.
After settling in, I walked around the whole island - I took small plastic tags and inventoried all the coconut trees - there should be an order in order to know exactly where and what you grow. Coconuts are cool stuff, you can make coconut oil from them - I fry fish on it.
Well, in case one of the officials suddenly comes to me, he has developed a legend - for the Costa Ricans I say that I am a caretaker from Venezuela, for the Venezuelans - that I am a representative of the Dutch government. In the most extreme case, I have a special corruption fund in my locker - you know, officials, all people, in our time, you can corrupt anyone, if you wish.
This is how you can your housing problem decide. It is not difficult to find a list of islands suitable for habitation, and modern technologies even allow you to inspect your future possessions without leaving your home - go to Google, turn on the view from space and in the evening with the whole family plan out where the house to put, and where the cattle corral is - everything is fine from space it is seen. If possible, ask the architect to develop an individual plan based on the terrain. Please note that the island you have selected has fresh water- stream or lake. Just in case, bring a portable solar watermaker with you - it won't get in the way.
If the Caribbean does not suit you - go to Pacific Ocean, well, let's say Apia or Nuku'alofa - and look around - there are a lot of opportunities there. Micronesia is just a still untouched virgin land, but what about Micronesia - spin around Tahiti and pick up something for yourself.
Well, if you really want to adventure - wind to the distant Murray.
Most importantly, when you move, do not overload the ship with things - try to adhere to the principle that if this or that object does not fit there, then it is rather unnecessary. Do not get carried away with complex household appliances - if, say, your dishwasher breaks down, then there will be no one to fix it on the island. Get used to doing as much as possible with your own hands.
The only thing - do not hesitate, otherwise, speaking in computer terms, there will be a hole from a google - if everyone rushes, then there may not be enough islands for everyone.
Postscript: Yesterday I attacked a native. She sat on a liana in the jungle in a cane loincloth and devoured pow-pow. I lured her from a tree with a can of Coca-Cola and dragged her home - what do you want, savages are savages, they react to cans instantly. The native looks strange - all pitch black, narrow narrow eyes, and white hair. All in some native hieroglyphs, apparently they have it that way. Here I am writing these lines to you, and she sits in my corner and looks pitifully at the computer. Babbling something on his own on the native and pulling his hands to him. "Ai shi teru" constantly repeats, climbs kissing, and she looks at the computer. But I constantly hit it on the hands and drive it away from the computer - you know, the technician is in the hands of a savage - a piece of metal, let him go to collect coconuts so that in the evening I have something to fry with mahi-mahi.
An uninhabited island is beautiful romantic place, which is located in the midst of blue, deep, ocean waters... Oh, how much seduction, mystery and hidden danger are contained in these two words. And what beauty, unknown to the human eye, is in the green jungle, filled with the sounds of the wild forest and the singing of exotic birds. Probably, every inhabitant of a huge metropolis dreams of being there and being in this boundless silence for a while, having a rest from the loud city sounds and enjoying the gifts of this paradise. But one question arises, how to get to uninhabited island, while excluding the possibility of shipwreck and aircraft crash. You can get to the uninhabited island in a safer and more reliable way. First, you need to decide on the direction where you would like to go. In fact, there are not so many uninhabited islands in the south of our planet, thanks to the development of the tourism business. However, you can find a secluded island by first examining it on the map, learning about the adjacent residential areas and deciding how to get to your destination from these points. ;
Basically, there are many settlements, residents who will be happy to advise how to get to the island and provide transport for this, on which it will be possible to fly or swim. In the Pacific space of our planet, there are more than twenty-five thousand islands and small islets. Many of them were formed from underwater volcanic rocks, coral reefs, and also arose as a result of earthquakes. Alone standing islands, absolutely deserted, but this does not mean that they are uninhabited, there is a real, living world of mollusks, fish and various mammals living in coral reefs and stones. This is the dream of every person who wants to know how to get to the island with such a paradise description and full embodiment of peace and tranquility. Today, due to the development of the tourist business, it will not be difficult to go to any of these islands. The travel agency will help you develop the desired route, purchase air tickets and make a list of things you need to stay on the island.
In order to visit the island, you do not always need to travel outside your homeland. For example, in the urban St. Petersburg environs for many years there has been the most real island, called Elagin. And on that island, built, of unprecedented beauty stone palace with pavilions, greenhouses and gazebos. The grandeur and grace of the Elaginsky Palace enchants every visitor and does not leave indifferent to its beauty and splendor. The guests of St. Petersburg are unrestrainedly attracted by the Elagin Island, how to get to it by metro does this question torment them? The best way to get to the glorious island is from the Krestovy Ostrov station, and then walk along Ryukhin Street to the Elaginsky Bridge. And in the summer, you can get to this place by aquabus - a route water taxi, which departs from the very center of St. Petersburg opposite the Finlyandsky railway station. This way of travel is quite economical and allows you to fully enjoy the beauty of St. Petersburg and the Neva River.
