If It’s Thursday, Where’s Friday?

February 14, 2019, Robinson Crusoe Island — I grew up in a house full of books. Family heirloom books (a full set of Shakespeare and a gold-embossed set of Dickens), books written by family members and friends, and years and years (and years) of Book of the Month Club editions that arrived, well, every month.

In that first category was a book that I think (because I can’t pull it down from the shelf to check the flyleaf) was inscribed in maybe 1920, to my father or maybe my father’s brother or maybe to both of them. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.

That was a novel. But it was based on the true tale of a young Scottish sailor, Alexander Selkirk, who shipped out on a British privateer. When, near an island 400 miles off the coast of South America, he pointed out to the captain that the ship was so leaky it was no longer seaworthy, he was fired from the crew and disinvited from the ship. The captain gave him a musket, some powder, a hatchet, a Bible and some clothes and set him ashore on the island of Más a Tierra in the Juan de Fernández archipelago. This very island:

I shot that at sunrise, 7:49 a.m. And again just now, as I lounge in my new Chilean Bureau office…

Many years ago I had given David a book entitled Selkirk’s Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe, by Diana Souhami. And I brought it with me on this trip, since I knew I would be here.

Besides telling the true story of Selkirk, who Defoe turned into Crusoe, it tells a lot about going to sea at the turn of the 18th century. Either as a member of the Royal Navy, or as a more, shall we say, independent mariner: a pirate. Going to sea was a hard life, but if a landlubber could not find work on land, he might be inclined to sign aboard a ship, for legitimate or illegitimate purposes.

Frankly, I’m not sure why Viking picked this place to land for a day, except maybe to break up what otherwise would have been 6 sea days in a row. (We land at Easter Island — if we can land... the seas are often against it — next Tuesday then have another 6 days at sea.) The history of the island is more interesting than the island itself, though in 1997 it was designated a UNESCO World Biosphere site, due to its rich assortment of flora.

Viking had organized a ‘pirate party’ on shore, hosted by Rob Crusoe himself…

The music by a local band was so loud and so bad, I took a few pix and left.

So I’ve decided that this will be a garden club presentation — flowers I have known in a former life and rediscovered here on Robinson Crusoe Island. To wit:

‘The calla lilies are in bloom again...’ (channelling Kate Hepburn, Stage Door, 1937)

Morning glory up a bank...

Morning glory up close...

Amaryllis ... I buy mine in a box at Market Basket. Here they grow wild.

Crocosmia... these grow wild in gay profusion along the narrow roadways of Cornwall.

I have been asked to post more animal pictures, so here’s a goat, out for a walk. Note the leash. Send the children from the room and I will tell you more about the island goats’ ancestors.

Alexander Selkirk was alone on the island for 4 years and 4 months, and he got very lonely. And he ‘consorted’ with goats. Each one he consorted with, he cut a notch in her ear (assuming they were all female, but one never knows) so as not to repeat himself. There were a lot of goats on the island then...

Another animal shot... okay, I photographed a poster of local fish.

Various forms of island transportation...

The requisite artsy shot...

We were supposed to weigh anchor over an hour ago, but there is a large rock stuck in the port anchor. So we’re literally going around in circles trying to dislodge it. I hope we don’t have to stay here much longer. The old goats on board might get ideas...

Next up: some doings around the Sun. #