U.S. merchant seamen try to revive a shipwrecked Filipino fisherman rescued in the South China Sea (1983)Castaways may need to survive on a desert island.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (marooned).
The provisions and resources available to castaways may allow them to live on the island until other people arrive to take them off the island. However, such rescue missions may never happen if the person is not known to still be alive, if the fact that they are missing is unknown, or if the island is not mapped. These scenarios have given rise to the plots of numerous stories in the form of novels and film.
Icelander Thorgisl set out to travel to Greenland. He and his party were first driven into a remote sound on the east coast of Greenland. Thorgisl, his infant son, and several others were then abandoned there by their thralls. Thorgisl and his party traveled slowly along the coast to the Eystribyggð settlement of Erik the Red on the southwest coast of Greenland. Along the way, they met a Viking, an outlaw who had escaped to East Greenland. This history is told in Flóamanna saga and Origines Islandicae and occurred during the early years of Viking Greenland, while Leif Ericson was still alive.
Icelander Grettir Ásmundarson was outlawed by the assembly in Iceland. After many years on the run, he and two companions went to the forbidden island of Drangey, where he lived several more years before his pursuers managed to kill him in 1031.
The Portuguese soldier Fernão Lopes was marooned on the island of Saint Helena in 1513. He had lost his right hand, the thumb of his left hand, his nose, and his ears as punishment for mutiny and apostasy for converting to Islam. For the rest of his life – he died in about 1545 – Lopes stayed on the island, except for two years around 1530, when the Portuguese king helped him travel to Rome, where the Pope granted him absolution for his sin of apostasy.
Juan de Cartagena and Pedro Sánchez Reina
In April 1520, a mutiny broke out in Magellan's fleet while at the Patagonian seashore. Magellan put it down and executed some of the ringleaders. He then punished two others: the King of Spain's delegate, Juan de Cartagena and the priest, Pedro Sánchez Reina, by marooning them in that desolate place. They were never heard from again.
Gonzalo de Vigo
Gonzalo de Vigo was a Spanish sailor (Galician) who deserted from Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa's Trinidad, part of the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, while in the Maug Islands in August 1522. He lived with the Chamorros for four years and visited thirteen main islands in the Marianas until he was unexpectedly found in Guam in 1526 by the flagship of the Loaísa Expedition, on its way to the Spice Islands and the second circumnavigation of the globe. Gonzalo de Vigo was the first recorded European castaway in the history of the Pacific Ocean.[1]
A French noblewoman, Marguerite de la Rocque, was marooned in 1542 on an island in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off the coast of Quebec. She was left by her near relative Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval, a nobleman privateer, as punishment for her affair with a young man on board ship. The young man joined her, as did a servant woman, both of whom later died, as did the baby de la Rocque bore. Marguerite survived by hunting wild animals and was later rescued by fishermen. She returned to France and became well known when her story was recorded by the Queen of Navarre in her work Heptaméron.
Jan Pelgrom de Bye and Wouter Loos
In 1629 Jan Pelgrom de Bye van Bemel, a cabin boy, and Wouter Loos, a 24-year-old soldier, had been on board the Dutch ship Batavia. The ship was famous because it was wrecked on Morning Reef of the Wallabi Group of the Houtman Abrolhos, (off the west coast of Australia) leading to the infamous Batavia Mutiny and mass killings. When all culprits were arrested on the islets, most of them were either hanged or sent to court in the town of Batavia (now Jakarta). However, Jan Pelgrom and Wouter Loos were marooned on the Australian mainland, probably at or near the mouth of Hutt River in Western Australia, on 16 November 1629. They were the first Europeans to reside in Australia. Abel Tasman (after whom Tasmania was named) was subsequently ordered to search for the castaways on his voyage along the coasts of northern Australia in 1643–44 but did not sail that far south. They were not seen again by Europeans. It has been argued by Rupert Gerritsen in And Their Ghosts May Be Heard and subsequent publications that they survived and had a profound influence on local Aboriginal groups such as the Nhanda and Amangu.
68 passengers and crew from Vergulde Draeck
In the early hours of 28 April 1656 a Dutch vessel belonging to the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), Vergulde Draeck, struck a reef off Ledge Point on the central west coast of Western Australia, about 5 kilometres from shore, and approximately 90 kilometres north of where Perth now stands. At least 75 individuals made it to shore, where they camped. Seven men departed in a boat, making for Batavia, now known as Jakarta, at the western end of Java. They arrived there on 7 June 1656 and raised the alarm. A number of ships were then dispatched over the following two years to search for the survivors who had remained behind, but an incorrect latitude meant the searches focused on the wrong area. The original campsite, by then abandoned, was not found until 26 February 1658, by a shore party led by Upper Steersman Abraham Leeman.[2] There has been much speculation as to the fate of the 68, who may have ended up east of Geraldton, approximately 350 kilometres to the north, ultimately integrating with the local Aboriginal population.[3] Two stone arrangements, the Ring of Stones, found to the north in modern times may have been markers left by the 68 survivors. Archaeological investigations are continuing in an endeavour to locate the original campsite.
Upper Steersman Abraham Leeman and 13 others
On 28 March 1658, while searching for the 68 survivors of the wreck of Vergulde Draeck along the lower central west coast of Western Australia, Upper Steersman Abraham Leeman and his boat crew of 13 from Waeckende Boey (also known as Waeckende Boeij ("Watching Buoy")) were inexplicably abandoned by the skipper of that ship, Samuel Volkersen. They were then about 180km north of present-day Perth. Their boat was in poor condition, they had no water, just a few pounds of flour contaminated by seawater, and some rashers of bacon.
Leeman, who kept a journal,[4] rallied his crew. They found water by digging on an offshore islet, and then killed seals and dried the meat, using the skins to raise the sides of the boat. Leeman even constructed his own compass. They then set sail for Java. They made their way up the Western Australian coast, and after a voyage of 2500km reached the eastern end of Java with the loss of only one man. In endeavouring to land, their boat was wrecked and many of the men ran off into the jungle. Leeman and his three remaining companions then walked the full length of the south coast of Java, through jungle, volcanic country, braving marauding tigers along the way. Upon getting to the western end of Java they were captured by a Javanese prince and held for ransom. The Dutch then paid the ransom and Leeman and his compatriots finally made it to Batavia (Jakarta) on 23 September 1658.[5]
In 1681, a Miskito named Will by his English comrades was sent ashore as part of an English foraging party to Más a Tierra. When he was hunting for goats in the interior of the island, he suddenly saw his comrades departing in haste after having spotted the approach of enemies, leaving Will behind to survive until he was picked up in 1684.
The Juan Fernández Islands, to which Más a Tierra belongs, would have a more famous occupant in October 1704 when Alexander Selkirk made the decision to stay there. Selkirk, a sailor with the William Dampier expedition, became concerned about the condition and seaworthiness of the Cinque Ports, the vessel on which he was sailing, and chose to be put ashore on the island. The ship later sank with most of its crew being lost. Being a voluntary castaway, Selkirk was able to gather numerous provisions to help him to survive, including a musket, gunpowder, carpenter's tools, a knife, a Bible, and clothing. He survived on the island for four years and four months, building huts and hunting the plentiful wildlife before his rescue on 2 February 1709. His adventures are said to be a possible inspiration for Robinson Crusoe, a novel by Daniel Defoe published in 1719.
Philip Ashton, born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in 1702, was captured by pirates while fishing near the coast of Nova Scotia in June 1722. He managed to escape in March 1723 when the pirates' ship landed at Roatán in the Bay Islands of Honduras, hiding in the jungle until the pirates left him there. He survived for 16 months, in spite of many insects, tropical heat, and crocodiles. He had no equipment at all until he met another castaway, an Englishman. The Englishman disappeared after a few days but he left behind a knife, gunpowder, tobacco, and more. Ashton was finally rescued by the Diamond, a ship from Salem, Massachusetts.[6]
Survivors of the Zuytdorp
The Zuytdorp departed from the Cape of Good Hope on 22 April 1712 with at least 200 to 250 people on board, including women and children, and disappeared. It is now thought to have struck the Zuytdorp Cliffs on the central coast of Western Australia in early June 1712. The first signs of the wreck were found in 1927 but it was not until 1959 that the identity of the wreck was confirmed by Dr. Philip Playford.[7] The discovery of a considerable amount of material from the wreck on the scree slope and top of the cliffs established that many people had managed to get off the stricken vessel and on to shore. Exactly how many people survived the disaster is uncertain and estimates vary from 30 up to 180 or more. There has been speculation that the survivors headed east along the Murchison River, 60 kilometres to the south. However, finds of a coin and a 'Leyden Tobacco Tin' at wells to the north, as well as linguistic and technological evidence suggest they headed north, perhaps ending up in the northern Gascoyne, about 450 kilometres north of the wrecksite.[8] It is thought the survivors ultimately integrated with local Aboriginal populations.
Leendert Hasenbosch was a Dutch ship's officer (a bookkeeper), probably born in 1695. He was set ashore on the uninhabited Ascension Island on 5 May 1725 as a punishment for sodomy. He was left behind with a tent, a survival kit, and an amount of water sufficient to last about four weeks. He had bad luck in that no ships called at the island during his stay. He ate seabirds and green turtles, but probably died of thirst after about six months. He wrote a diary that was found in January 1726 by British mariners who brought the diary back to Britain. The diary was rewritten and published a number of times.
In 2002, the full truth of the story was disclosed in a book by Dutch historian Michiel Koolbergen (1953–2002), the first to mention Hasenbosch by name. Before that time, the castaway's name had not been known. The story is available in English as A Dutch Castaway on Ascension Island in 1725.[9][10]
In 1812, the British ship Isabella, captained by George Higton, was shipwrecked off Eagle Island, one of the Falkland Islands. Most of the crew were rescued by the American sealerNanina, commanded by Captain Charles Barnard. However, realising that they would require more provisions for the expanded number of passengers, Barnard and a few others went out in a party to retrieve more food. During his absence, the Nanina was taken over by the British crew, who left them on the island. Barnard and his party were finally rescued in November 1814. In 1829, Barnard wrote, A Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Captain Charles Barnard, detailing the happenings.
Crews of the Grafton and Invercauld
On January 3, 1864, the 56-ton schooner Grafton was wrecked in the north arm of Carnley Harbour, Auckland Island. The five-man crew, led by Captain Thomas Musgrave and Francois Edouard Raynal as mate, spent twenty months on the island until three of them went out for rescue in the ship's dinghy, sailing more than 400 km up north to Stewart Island. All men survived. Unknown to them, on May 11, 1864, the ship Invercauld bound from Melbourne to Callao was wrecked in bad weather on the west coast of the same island. From the initial crew of 25, only 19 made it to shore and after more than a year spent on the island only three men survived starvation and cold, being rescued by a ship looking for a shelter to make repairs.
A week after sailing from the Canary Islands on January 19, 1982, Steven Callahan's self-made sloopNapoleon Solo had hit an unknown object during a night storm, he managed to escape into a six man life raft, diving into the sinking boat a few times in order to get the supplies he needed for survival before cutting his raft loose. Utilising 2 solar stills (a third of which was cut open to find out how they worked) and eating fish, barnacles and birds he captured, he survived for 76 days adrift before reaching the Caribbean, where he was discovered and rescued by local fishermen.
Survivors of the Strathmore survived for 7 months on a small island of the Crozet Islands from 1875 to 1876. They survived from eating eggs and flesh of geese, albatrosses and other seabirds. The also ate root vegetables and fish.[11] The survival was the input for, among others, the book “Survival on the Crozet Islands: The Wreck of the Strathmore in 1875”.[12]
Other castaways
Other castaways in history include:
Pedro Serrano, a 16th-century Spanish sailor marooned on a small island in the Caribbean.
Four Russian whalers, Aleksei Inkov, Khrisanf Inkov, Stepan Sharapov, and Fedor Verigin, survived from 1743 to 1749 probably on Halvmåneøya in the Svalbard group of Norwegian islands; one died shortly before rescue[13]
James Riley, who led his crew through the Sahara Desert, after they were shipwrecked off the coast of Western Sahara in August 1815
Otokichi, a Japanese boy whose ship was cast adrift and after 14 months reached the west coast of North America in 1834
Nakahama Manjirō, a Japanese fisherman's son, shipwrecked on Tori-shima in 1841, who was rescued by an American ship and played a role in the opening up of Japan to the West
James Morrill, an English sailor who was shipwrecked off the coast of north-eastern Australia in 1846. After surviving a journey in a makeshift raft to the mainland, he was taken in by a local clan of Aboriginal Australians. He adopted their language and customs and lived as a member of their society for 17 years before joining the newly established British colony.
Narcisse Pelletier, a 14-year-old French cabin boy who was abandoned on the Cape York Peninsula in Australia in 1858. He was adopted by an Aboriginal family with whom he lived for 17 years before being discovered by the crew of a passing ship and returned to France against his will.
Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days alone in the South Atlantic after his ship was torpedoed by the GermanKriegsmarine. Rescued in 1943. His story partly used by Alfred Bester in The Stars My Destination (1956) as an idiom for the protagonist Gully Foyle.
The Tongan castaways, a group of teenage boys who ran away from school in 1965 and ended up marooned on an island in the Pacific for 15 months. Their story has been held as a parallel with the fictional boy castaways in the novel Lord of the Flies.
Jesús Vidaña, Salvador Ordóñez and Lucio Rendón, three Mexican fishermen from the port of San Blas, Nayarit who sailed 5,500 miles (8,900km) in nine months before being rescued 200 miles (320km) from the Marshall Islands on August 9, 2006
On December 19, 2011, two fishermen from the Republic of Kiribati landed in the Marshall Islands where they were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard. The men were adrift for 33 days and fed on tuna. The two men, aged 53 and 26, were also involved in a rare incident upon landing when the 26-year-old found that his uncle, who had disappeared at sea more than 25 years ago and was long believed dead, had landed in the Marshall Islands as well and married there, where he also had children.[14]
The French cargo ship L’Utile ran aground in 1761 on an island of sand and coral today known as Tromelin Island on its way to Mauritius while on an unofficial detour when travelling from Madagascar, carrying an unauthorised cargo of slaves. A flat bottom ship was made using the remains of the wreckage and 80 Malagasy were left on the island with three months supplies and were told that the 122 departing sailors would send help at the first opportunity. They were rescued 15 years later.[15]
A number of crew members on the Polaris Expedition on a polar expedition were accidentally cast a float on an ice floe and endured six months and 2900 km living in tents and igloos while moving from floe to floe.
On the Jeannette expedition to the north pole, after being frozen in pack ice and spending 16 months adrift their ship was crushed. 33 Men took to the ice to walk and sail to the Lena River on the Siberian Coast. 13 survivors made it back to the United States.
Wildflower: The Barbara Crawford Thompson Story, is based on the life of a 12-year-old Barbara Crawford who was taken from her home in Sydney in 1843. She was rescued after being shipwrecked in November 1844.
Godfrey Morgan, published in 1882, also known as School for Robinsons.
Two Years' Vacation, published in 1888, which relates the fortunes of a group of schoolboys stranded on a desert island.
Literature
This is a list of fiction. There are also memoirs such as Castaway.
The Blue Lagoon, a 1908 romance novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole about two children stranded on a tropical island after a shipwreck, with multiple film adaptations.
Baby Island, a 1937 novel by Carol Ryrie Brink about two preteen sisters caring for four babies on a South Seas island.
Survivor Type, a 1982 short story by Stephen King about a shipwrecked surgeon who ends up eating parts of his own body to survive.
The Martian, a 2011 novel by Andy Weir, later a film, in which the Castaway literary tradition of self-reliance and will to survive is transposed to the planet Mars.
A yachtsman makes a bet his friends that he can swim ashore on a remote island in the South Seas with nothing but a toothbrush and be "living the life of Riley" when they return.
Adaptation based on the book of the same name. Lead actor Dan O'Herlihy, playing Crusoe, was nominated for the 1955 Academy Award for Best Actor – making him the only actor to receive a nomination for the role.
While flying from the Philippines, Stuart Bailey, his prisoner, and four other survivors of a plane crash reach an isolated island, only to discover that it's the target of an h bomb test.
Oscar Goldman becomes the target for several conspirators who want to stop him from negotiating with the Russians. As he and Steve Austin fly back to Washington, D.C., their plane is caught in a storm, and they crash land on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Amongst the survivors are the conspirators who want to kill Oscar.
Jaime is undercover as stewardess Miss Winters to keep an eye on Rudy Wells, who is transporting a top-secret Cobalt 247 formula. The plane goes down in an electrical storm and the passengers end up on a desert island where the conspirators will do anything to get the formula from Rudy.
Two American teenage boys on a joyride in their father's plane crash land on an isolated island where humans and sentient dinosaurs peacefully coexist. It later spawned a short-lived TV series.
2002
Television miniseries. Awards: 1 Primetime Emmy, 5 other awards
Based on the fictional character Green Arrow. Oliver Queen is a castaway, and to survive he must forge himself into a weapon. He goes on to become a vigilante crime-fighter to clean up his city.
A sketch called "Gillian's Island" has the titular castaway (portrayed by Amber Montana) showing viewers of her "TV series" how to survive on an island in the event that they get stranded and await for the day when someone comes to rescue them.
2013
Web series/Television show
Games
Johnny Castaway (1993), a screensaver that follows the daily exploits of its namesake
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 interview show in which the subject is invited to consider themselves as a castaway on a desert island, and then select their eight favourite records, one favourite book (in addition to The Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare), and a luxury inanimate object to occupy their time.
Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). She was built in Amsterdam in 1628 as the flagship of one of the three annual fleets of company ships and sailed that year on her maiden voyage for Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. On 4 June 1629, Batavia was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of small islands off Western Australia.
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company.
The Unknown Shore is a novel published in 1959 by Patrick O'Brian. It is the story of two friends, Jack Byron and Tobias Barrow, who sail aboard HMS Wager as part of the voyage around the world led by Anson in 1740. Their ship did not make it all the way around the world, unlike the flagship. The novel is a fictionalised version of actual events which occurred during the Wager Mutiny.
Boon Island is a barren, rocky island in the Gulf of Maine 6 mi (9.7 km) off the coast of York, Maine, United States. The island, which is approximately 300 ft (91 m) by 700 ft (210 m) at low tide, is the site of Boon Island Light, at 137 ft (42 m) high, it is the tallest lighthouse in New England. Numerous vessels have been wrecked on its rocky shoreline. John Winthrop, the English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, mentions passing Boon Island in the 1600s.
Jeronimus Cornelisz was a Dutch apothecary and Dutch East India Company merchant who sailed aboard the merchant ship Batavia which foundered near the Australian mainland. Cornelisz then led one of the bloodiest mutinies in history.
An uninhabited island, desert island, or deserted island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereotypes for the idea of "paradise". Some uninhabited islands are protected as nature reserves, and some are privately owned. Devon Island in Canada's far north is the largest uninhabited island in the world.
Strange Objects is a 1990 novel by Australian author Gary Crew.
The Vergulde Draeck, also spelled Vergulde Draak and Vergulde Draek, was a 41.8-metre (137 ft), 260-tonne (290-ton) ship constructed in 1653 by the Dutch East India Company. The ship was lost off the coast of western Australia in 1656, with a minority of its crew reaching shore, and only seven subsequently reaching civilization.
Booby Island is located 45 km (28 mi) northwest of Muttee Heads at the tip of Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia. This island is in the Torres Strait, 32 km (20 mi) west of Thursday Island and 23 km (14 mi) west of Prince of Wales Island. Booby Island is also known as Ngiangu by the Kaurareg people of the western Torres Strait, its traditional owners, named for the giant Ngiangu who was forced from a neighbouring island It has been called Booby Island by a number of European explorers, including Captain Cook, for the presence of the booby birds.
The Zeewijk was an 18th-century East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company that was shipwrecked at the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia, on 9 June 1727. The survivors built a second ship, the Sloepie, enabling 82 out of the initial crew of 208 to reach their initial destination of Batavia on 30 April 1728. Since the 19th century many objects have been found near the wreck site, which are now in the Western Australian Museum. The shipwreck itself was found in 1968 by divers.
Tryall was a British East India Company-owned East Indiaman launched in 1621. She was under the command of John Brooke when she was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622. Her crew were the first Englishmen to sight or land on Australia. The wreck is Australia's oldest known shipwreck.
Leendert Hasenbosch, was a Dutch employee of the Dutch East India Company who was marooned on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, as a punishment for sodomy. He wrote a diary until his presumed death.
Dundonald was a British four-masted steel barque measuring 2,205 gross register tons launched in Belfast in 1891. It was involved in a wreck in 1907 in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only 15 of its 28 crew survived; they were rescued seven months later by a scientific expedition.
Morning Star was launched at Calcutta, India, in 1813. She was wrecked on a coral reef south of Forbes Island, north Queensland in July 1814.
Wiebbe Hayes was a Dutch soldier known for his leading role in the suppression of Jeronimus Cornelisz's massacre of shipwreck survivors in 1629, after the merchant ship Batavia was wrecked in the Houtman Abrolhos, a chain of coral islands off the west coast of Australia.
A castaway depot is a store or hut placed on an isolated island to provide emergency supplies and relief for castaways and victims of shipwrecks.
Rupert Gerritsen was an Australian historian and a noted authority on Indigenous Australian prehistory. Coupled with his work on early Australian cartography, he played an influential part in re-charting Australian history prior to its settlement by the British in 1788, and noted evidence of agriculture and settlements on the continent before the arrival of settlers.
The Australian Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks (ANCODS) is an organization tasked with maintaining and allocating artefacts from 17th and 18th century Dutch shipwrecks off the coast of Western Australia. It was founded in 1972 by the Agreement between Australia and the Netherlands Concerning Old Dutch Shipwrecks.
Max Cramer OAM was an Australian scuba diver who became famous as the co-discoverer of the wreck of the Batavia on 4 June 1963. He was involved in a number of maritime archaeology projects pertaining to historic shipwrecks in Western Australia.
The Tongan castaways were a group of six Tongan teenage boys who shipwrecked on the uninhabited island of ʻAta in 1965 and lived there for 15 months until their rescue. The boys ran away from their boarding school on the island of Tongatapu, stealing a boat in their escape. After a storm wrecked the boat, they drifted to the abandoned, remote island of ʻAta and managed to keep themselves in good order for the duration under the circumstances. Long thought dead, they were discovered and rescued in September 1966 by Australian lobster fisher Peter Warner.
References
↑ Coello, Francisco. "Conflicto hispano-alemán", Boletín de Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, t.XIX. 2º semestre 1885, Madrid, pp. 233, 301
↑ Rupert Gerritsen 2011 Selected Transcriptions and Translations, and Collation of Information ... ... Relating to Material Evidence from the Vergulde Draeck ... 1656–1658, Canberra: Batavia Online Publishing.
↑ Rupert Gerritsen 1994 And Their Ghosts May Be Heard, South Fremantle: Fremantle Art Centre Press. pp. 232–46.
↑ Philip Playford 1960 "The Wreck of the Zuytdorp On the Western Australian Coast in 1712", Nedlands: Royal Western Australian Historical Society.
↑ Rupert Gerritsen 1994 And Their Ghosts May Be Heard pp. 252–60; Philip Playford 1996 Carpet of Silver: The Wreck of the Zuytdorp Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press pp. 213–17.
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