I needed something to do, to take my mind off the recent events. So I decided to go for a walk to explore the island to see if I could find any food as I was getting quite hungry as I didn’t eat much of the plane food as it usually tastes really bad even in 1st class! But little did I know that that food would be the last proper “meal” I would eat in all of 5 years.
The island was very small and it only took me 30 minutes to circulate the whole thing, I noticed in time that it was shaped like a “C” with a small hill in the centre, there was also a relatively small forest on the island which was made up of tall palm trees and other tropical plants. I noticed a large brown boulder shaped object hanging from a few of the trees, I wondered what on earth they could be and then I realised they were actually coconuts. An ideal source of food- even if I absolutely despised them! I knew that I would not be able to be picky about what I was going to eat whilst on the island as food there was quite restricted. So I threw rocks at them to try and make them fall to the floor, after a while, one luckily fell and I picked it up to carry back to the beach for me to open later.
I carried on wondering about, taking in the full beauty of this tropical paradise, but it wasn’t long before I began to feel tired, so I decided to call it a night and to go to the beach to sleep under the stars. I needed to make a fire; so I collected together some dry moss and small twigs to act as kindling, from the edge of the forest. Whilst there I found some very rough, grey stones and I realised that they were flint. Having seen in cartoons the characters make fire by rubbing two stones vigorously together to produce a few sparks, I decided I too would use this method. It worked (after a short time) and finally I had a wonderful fire set up.
I also used one of these flint pieces to get into the coconut shells; I drank the milk from inside them and nibbled on the fruit. It tasted disgusting! And I thought to myself how on earth would I survive on this food?
I hadn’t found any source of water as of yet so I decided to rip out the preface of my book and use this to filter out the salt from the sea water, which left me with relatively clean fresh water
I had the most awful time that night, I couldn’t get off to sleep at all, and to top it off I awoke in the morning to feel a cold wet snout smelling my face. As you can probably guess, I was pretty shocked to see a wild bore gazing down at me! As I did not know they were living on the island and at first I was quite weary of them but when I realised that it meant no harm and noticed that it was actually quite cute. This pig was my friend over the next 5 years of my stay and I used to talk to it on a daily basis pretending it was one of my friends- as I couldn’t help but notice slight similarities between it and one of my friends back home! He kept me entertained also and helped me to find edible berries in the forests undergrowth. We grew very close and I helped to keep him groomed well and he was my little island pet. It also was someone to talk to when I was fishing in the sea with my hand-made spear. I sharpened a piece of bamboo and then used twine to attach a sharp rock to the end of it, I managed to catch a quite a lot of fish whilst I was there on the island, but I dared not go too far into the sea because of the Sharks.
I was wondering around the island the next day and I noticed a slight sparkle through one of the bushes so I went to investigate with my pig and I realised it was in fact a rusty old knife which would be ideal to help me to make a shelter with. I also thought I could use this to cut down coconuts and bananas and to open the coconut shells to get to the milk inside them. Finding this knife brought lots of joy to me and I thought to myself, could this mean that others have lived here before and maybe survived if so did this mean , so too would I?! I heard the sound of running water; I decided to follow the sound to see if I could see the source. I had found a small stream running through the forest from the hill I wandered up to it and dipped my hands in to the water and I poured it over my face, it trickled into my mouth and I realised it was actually fresh. This was great it meant that I would no longer have to filter off the salt from the sea water using the ripped out prefaces of my book.
I decided it was time to make myself a shelter, using the wood in the forest. I cut down one of the smaller palm trees and I stripped it of its bark and used this as the base of my bed, just under the bark the wood was stringy so I used this as twine to tie bamboo sticks to the sheets of bark and I had made myself a bed. I wanted to make a tree house so that I was away of the pigs and the snakes as they didn’t climb the trees. But there was one problem- the Scorpions. But luckily I was wearing a net top under my jumper on the plane so I stretched this out and placed it over my face and arms when I slept.
I strapped together lots of sticks of bamboo to act as my tree houses walls, and it was very sturdy and withstood the strong tropical storms.
I had 150m water resistant diving watch with me, which my mum had brought for me as a gift for the trip and this allowed me to keep an eye on the time and also the date but unfortunately the battery did not last all of the 5 years I was there so I developed a calendar whilst there using pebbles on the beach, which started the day I got there.
To pass the time of the days I would chase my pig around on the beach, and also talk to it, but unfortunately the only reply I tended to get was a random snort so most of the time I just listened to may favourite CD and read my book over and over again, because it gave me hope because I would think how trivial my problems were compared to Kurt’s and his bad family relationships, and I also said that I wasn’t going to give in like him because there was so much more I actually wanted to do with my life and a desert island wouldn’t stop these plans
[ read passage from book” Heavier than Heaven” P.351]
Also in my hand luggage I had: a metal knife and fork which I had taken from the plane when the hostesses came around offering food, water bottle a pair of flip flops, small primitive first aid kit, string, sewing kit, sun cream, a swimming costume and a glove and a baseball. Most of the items in my hand luggage were quite helpful, especially the glove and ball as this helped me to pass the time when I was feeling bored, but it also helped because I could just knock out the pigs with it and then use the knife to get the meat which I put on a spit (made of a sharpened bamboo stick) and roast..
I would write in pebbles and sticks “HELP, STRANDED!” on the beach, to try and catch the attention of any over flying helicopters, and I would leave the fire at night to burn with black flames to attract boats. I was eventually rescued after 5 years on the island by a biological lab. Boat which had noticed the thick smoke and knew no one live on that island so wondered what it was, due to their curiosity I was rescued and saved.
I enjoyed the freedom of the island and the ways that you could just walk around looking a state and no one was there to judge you. I learnt how to fend for myself in both the cooking sense and that I was totally independent, also the fact that I managed to gain a good tan added to the good points of the island, I also lost quite a lot of weight due to living 5 years on just a diet of fruit, fish and occasionally pork.
The things I really hated on the island were the facts that you were totally isolated, I think I would have preferred it if there was another person there with me. I also hated the food; I couldn’t stand fish, bananas or coconuts before I went to the island and I still can’t but I had to make do with what I had.
I’m now going to play a song off the CD I had with me-[Learn to Fly, by the foo fighters}