- Could you survive years on end all alone on a remote island?
We’ve all read stories about sailors or pirates surviving after being marooned on desert islands. They’re often quite incredible, but they have nothing on the real stories.
Getting stranded on an uninhabited island during a sea voyage used to be a very real risk. Most people who faced such misfortune didn’t live to tell the tale, but some did — and what tales they told.
Here are 6 unbelievable but real stories of real-life castaways.
1. The Pirates’ Captive
Philip Ashton was a fisherman from Nova Scotia. In June 1722, while out at sea fishing, he was scooped up by the crew of the notorious pirate Edward Low, also known as Ned Low.
Ashton refused to join the pirate crew and was mistreated on the boat. In March 1723, while the pirates were getting supplies at the then-uninhabited Roatan Island near Honduras, Ashton slipped into the jungle and escaped.
Now, he faced the problem of having no food or equipment. He survived months on fruit and raw turtle eggs until an unknown sailor showed up at the island. Sadly, he didn’t become Ashton’s companion, as he soon disappeared on a solo hunting trip.
The sailor left behind a knife, flint, and other supplies that allowed Ashton to hunt and cook meat. Still, by the time a docking British ship finally saved him in June 1724, two years after his capture, he was little more than a walking skeleton.
Ashton later published a memoir of his experiences, but it was so outlandish that most people thought it was just a rip-off of the popular novel Robinson Crusoe. Ashton almost could’ve served as inspiration for the book, if not for a guy I’ll get to later.
2. The Mutilated Voluntary Castaway
Fernão Lopes was part of a 1510 Portuguese expedition to India that sought to convert Hindus and Muslims to Christianity. Lopes, however, ended up sympathizing with the locals and became a Muslim himself.
Enraged, his commander had Lopes mutilated, cutting off his nose, ears, right arm and left thumb. Lopes stayed in Goa until 1515, when he was pardoned by the Portuguese king and allowed to return.
On the return voyage, the ship Lopes was on docked at St. Helena (the same island Napoleon would be exiled to). Utterly traumatized by his experiences, Lopes ran away to St. Helena so he wouldn’t have to face life as a traitor in Portugal.
For the next 14 years, he lived in total isolation on the island. Despite his forced amputations, he managed to feed himself with abundant plants and fruit, alongside fish from the island’s shallows.
Eventually, Lopes returned to Portugal to receive the royal pardon. Yet, he missed St. Helena and eventually returned with pigs and goats, dying on the island in 1545.
3. The Lady of the Isle of Demons
We often think of desert islands as being tropical. But Marguerite de La Rocque had no luxury of warm southern weather.
De La Rocque was a French noblewoman in the 16th century. In 1541, while traveling to the New World along her relative Jean-François de Roberval’s ship, she had an affair with a dashing young sailor.
De Roberval was outraged and abandoned de La Rocque on a desert island with her new boyfriend. Her chances of survival were fairly low, considering the island was marked on the maps of the time as Île des Démons — the Isle of Demons.
Little is known about what happened to de La Rocque on the island. She survived by hunting animals with the few firearms de Roverval’s regretful crew had given her.
According to accounts of the time, she had a child with the sailor on the island. However, both the baby and its father died before they could be rescued.
After a few years, de La Rocque was rescued by passing fishermen. She later became a schoolmistress and disappeared from the historical record, the date of her death being unknown.
4. The Real-life Lord of the Flies
Young guys tend to pull stupid stunts, and that’s what a group of Tongan schoolboys did in 1965. They stole a boat and sailed out to the sea — despite having minimal sailing experience and no map or compass.
A passing storm wrecked their boat and pushed the boys out to the sea, eventually marooning them on a desert island called Ata. With the boat smashed, the boys had no way off the island, and they survived initially by eating coconuts and catching fish and birds.
Then they had a stroke of luck. They found the ruined village of Ata’s native residents who had long since been captured and sold to slavery. The descendants of their chickens still lived in the area, and their ancient fields were still full of taro and bananas.
Much like in William Golding’s famous novel Lord of the Flies, the boys built a small house and organized themselves into a functional little society. Unlike in the book, though, they didn’t descend into madness and violence but worked successfully together.
In September 1966, a passing ship saw smoke rising from the known uninhabited island. The crew came to check things out, found the boys, and took them to safety.
Once they got home, they found out their families had held funerals for them. Talk about an awkward family reunion.
5. Desert Island Family Reunion
Speaking of family reunions, a bizarre rescue story took place in 2024. Three fishermen from Polowat Atoll in the Pacific Ocean set out to sea, only for yet another storm to trash their boat.
They ended up stranded on Pikelot Atoll. Luckily, the tiny island was a regular stop for fishermen, and it had a well and a small shack (that doubled as a chapel), and the trees were full of coconuts.
After about a week, a passing U.S. Coast Guard recon aircraft noticed the huge “HELP” sign the men had constructed on the beach. A couple of days later, a ship arrived to retrieve them.
On the ship rescuing them was Petty Officer 2nd Class, Eugene Halishlius. He, as it turned out, was related to all the stranded men, being a more or less distant cousin to each.
If you’d like to read more about this story, check out our article on it.
6. The Real Robinson Crusoe
I said earlier that Philip Ashton’s story could’ve inspired Robinson Crusoe. However, the story that really did do so is that of Alexander Selkirk.
In 1704, Selkirk, part of a buccaneer crew, told his captain that he would rather face being marooned on Más a Tierra island than spend another minute on his nearly wrecked ship. The captain obliged and abandoned Selkirk on the island.
Selkirk had made the smart decision, as the ship was indeed a wreck that sank and killed almost everyone onboard shortly afterward. However, he now had to face being all alone on Más a Tierra.
All he had with him was a musket, a hatchet, a knife, a pot, a Bible, bedding, and a change of clothes. Yet, he turned out to be a resourceful man who did quite well for himself.
He ate lobsters, fish, fruit, and feral goats (from whose skins he also made new clothes). Selkirk built to huts for himself and, all in all, lived about as well as a marooned sailor can.
Two times, ships arrived on the island — but they were Spanish. As an English privateer, Selkirk had to run and hide from the intruders, or they would’ve put a swift end to him.
Finally, after five years, a British ship anchored at the island in 1709. Yet, he didn’t go back to England, but returned to piracy with a vengeance.
Having inspired the famous novel, Más a Tierra is now known as Robinson Crusoe Island in Selkirk’s memory.