Most of us have formed an unrealistic 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 fall from the trees and
you never have to work. The other side of the picture is quite the opposite.
Life on a desert island is wretched. You either starve 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 wished they had stayed there 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 tins 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 waters, but this did not prove to be a problem. 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.