lone sailor walked 15 days
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
after being swept off yacht
• On the High Seas all lone yachtsmen dread being swept overboard and having to swim for it. American Fred Wood was knocked into the sea five miles off Christmas Island by the boom of his yacht “Wind Song”, while sailing from Hawaii with all his possessions on board recently.
He never saw “Wind Song” again, but at least “I’m still alive” he writes.
I was swept into the water at three o’clock and land was about five miles off and out of sight below the horizon. I took bear ings from the sun, moon, stars and planets and swam hard, praying not to be swept seaward by the current. I gained land seven hours later and picked my way through gentle surf, distinguishing from rough surf by the different sounds. Using my hands and feet to avoid damage from the coral I staggered onto the beach.
I built a shelter in the lee of the beach by using dry sticks and branches and slept four hours until dawn. I walked windward for a mile until I reached the end of the island, scanned and then followed the beach towards Paris until a coconut grove came into sight in the centre of the peninsula. I made breakfast from young shoots, land crab and coconut water and meat. I continued walking along the beach towards Paris but could only use my sore eyes oc casionally to look for boats or signs.
So I judged my paces to obstacles on the beach and walked blind.
Continued this walk for three days, sleeping in crude shelters and also walking at night when the mosquitos were too thick to let me sleep. I lived off coconuts and even wrapped my feet in coconut fibre when my calouses wore thin. I carried a palm frond for shade, wind shield and sleeping cover. On the way I found and wore for the rest of the trip a pith sun helmet with half of the crown missing.
Crude knife
At Paris I also found a large boat nail which I hammered into a crude knife which I kept tied to my waist band. And I wove a mat. After sleep ing at Paris I started to walk around the lagoon, only to be driven back by the thorn-studded lowland too extensive to get round. I made a pair of wooden sandals and after another night in Paris, made it to the also vacant copra camp of Poland. There T made a G-string from a cast-off woman’s skirt.
I had my first fresh rain water here, caught in an old quart tonic bottle held under a spout. I con structed a screened sleeping cot and spent a fitful night swatting the mosquitos that got in. Found some rock salt spilled on the ground and an open can of rolled oats infested with weavils. I had my first “civilised”
breakfast of salted raw oats and coconuts, I followed the plantation road through a maze of coconut groves until I convinced myself of the futility of this. Then I decided to go cross-country across the lagoon and follow the shore line towards London.
On the sixth day I arrived at an abandoned military camp (Y site) and hungry, tired and footsore, I had a second drink of rain water and managed to bottle another two quarts of the rain. Lived on coconuts, portulaca and oatmeal for the next six days while building a boat and letting my feet heal.
Finished building my punt and pushed off to Little Oasis where I stayed a night and refreshed myself with land crab. Next day paddled to a boat house on the main shore and slept in a screened-in porch. Started before light towards London and I arrived in the village while church was in session. I met a native walk ing down the street and the children standing round the church raised such a commotion when they saw me that the plantation manager came out to see what was happening.
He gave his barely-clad castaway his first bath in five weeks, fed and clothed him and then took him to see officials who asked leisurely questions over coffee and toddy, T spent the remainder of my stay of five days being shown round the plantations, fishing and paddling my punt across the lagoon four miles to the seashore residence where I was alowed to live. The Gilbertese were wonderful to me.