Island visitors

Unlike other stories I have posted, this is in only one part. I hope you enjoy it. Please do vote and, even better, leave me a comment. The characters are obviously entirely fictitious.

Society would probably describe my parents as 'New Age' or modern-day hippies, but it was all my sister and I knew growing up, so it seemed normal to us. My younger sister and I were brought up in a commune until I was seven and she was nearly six. We then moved to a remote plot of land in Northern Queensland by the sea (in truth, 'remote' describes most of northern Queensland!). There, we 'helped' our parents build a wooden cabin from what we could source from the surrounding countryside using just hand tools, and our (or rather our parents), physical strength. Our parents were extremely practical, and we learnt many skills over the next five years. By the time I was twelve, I could hunt, fish, forage, build shelters, start fires using traditional methods and make simple pots and bowls from clay we'd dug up. Our education didn't stop with practical things, as our parents ensured we learnt how to read and write, and we probably had a better understanding of maths than most sixteen-year-olds. Science, history, and geography were also included and enjoyed. Willow, my sister, and I had an idyllic childhood, during which we shared our parents' knowledge and love of the outdoors. The only things we probably missed out on were social interactions with other children once we had left the commune, but I don't think either of us felt we missed anything. Perhaps, you can't miss what you don't know, I'm not sure. By the time I was twelve and Willow was eleven, we were both stronger, more resilient and adaptable than children many years older than us, and very happy with our lives.

Shortly after my twelfth birthday, our family discussed sailing around the world for a few years. We talked about our views, and, as was common with our family, we voted on the idea. It was a unanimous decision, so our dad started searching for a suitable boat. He'd sailed a great deal before he'd met our mum and knew what to look for to take on our trip. After around a month, he found a two-masted schooner not too far away for a reasonable price and in good condition. A second family discussion was then had to ensure we were all still keen on the idea, which we were, so my dad took me to look over the boat and sail it back to our property. The schooner was named The 'Dahlia', which we considered a good omen as they were among my mum's favourite flowers. It was in excellent condition and ideal for what we wanted, needing minimal work to undertake a round-the-world voyage. My dad agreed to the purchase, and it was ours. The owner sailed with us up the coast to help familiarise us with it, and I started to learn a new skill in sailing. I loved it.

It took us a month to fit out the 'Dahlia' to our liking and then pack for our trip. Initially, we sailed down the East Coast of Australia so we all became accustomed to it, before sailing across to circumnavigate New Zealand and then returning to Tasmania, along the South of Australia, and then up the West Coast. We took our time, stopping frequently to explore and restock. After approximately four months, we left Australia to explore the islands of Indonesia and then New Guinea. By now, we had all become accomplished mariners, or 'Sea Dogs' as my dad called us. The 'Dahlia' proved an excellent home and a dream to sail in. Our education continued with learning the constellations, navigating by them, and learning more about marine life and swimming with dolphins and whales.

After New Guinea, we headed past the Solomon Islands and out into the Pacific to Fiji, a beautiful island full of friendly people. From here, our plan was to sail to Tonga, the Cook Islands, and French Polynesia before heading north to Hawaii. Then, we intended to sail to Alaska and then down the whole West Coast of the Americas before sailing up the East Coast to the Caribbean. That was our plan.

As the poet Robert Burns said, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and leave us nothing but grief and pain, for promised joy!" Both our parents were avid readers, as were Willow and I, and we'd brought along numerous fiction and non-fiction books. Everything went smoothly until we left Fiji, when a sudden squall hit us. We had sailed through storms before, but this one was particularly nasty. We put on our life vests, tied down anything that would move, and hunkered down as we tried to ride out the towering waves as the squall turned into a fierce storm. The afternoon turned into night, and still the storm persisted and even intensified. Willow and I eventually fell asleep sometime after midnight with the storm still raging, and the next thing I knew was a loud crash with the 'Dahlia' coming to an abrupt halt, listing heavily to starboard. The lights inside had been extinguished, and I was still wearing my life jacket as I made my way out of my room and towards the wheelhouse, trying to navigate the tilted passageway in the darkness. I couldn't find my parents, but I could see that both masts had come down, and it appeared the boat had hit a reef, holing it in the midsection. Venturing outside to try and find my dad to help him, the wind whipped viciously at my body as I scanned the deck. I'd taken no more than a couple of steps when a large wave washed me over the side and into the raging sea.

I was a good swimmer, but it was still a week before my thirteenth birthday, and I stood no chance against these pounding waves. From my brief look outside when I'd left the wheelhouse, the waves were smaller on this side of our boat, but still too strong for me. My life vest did its job, and each time a wave washed over me, it pulled me back to the surface. I don't know how long I was in the water, but eventually I was thrown onto the shore, weak, tired, but relieved to be on dry land.

After crawling up the beach, I collapsed against a palm tree and fell asleep, exhausted. When I woke with the dawn's rays on me, the storm had passed, and I stood to survey where I was. There was a long, white sandy beach stretching in each direction. Behind me, a large mountain was set back some way from the beach, with steep slopes running down on my side to a low cliff about half a mile inland. The land near me was dotted with palms, other trees, and bushes as it sloped gently towards the cliff. Out to sea, I could see the 'Dahlia' about a mile from shore on a ring of coral arcing around this part of the island. I expected it probably circled most or all of the island. The 'Dahlia' looked to be in a sorry state, but I couldn't see any movement onboard. Taking off my life vest, I headed along the beach to see if I could find any of my family.

I walked anti-clockwise around the island for about two hours without finding any signs of anyone. I did find a stream flowing to the sea, which quenched my thirst. I noted its location as I would need to return here to ensure I stayed hydrated. Retracing my steps to my life vest, I headed clockwise for another two hours, still without finding any signs of my family. I found some berries I recognised from our travels, so I ate as I walked, but they didn't fill my rumbling tummy. When I returned to my life vest, I was tired again and decided to swim out to the Dahlia the next day to see if my family were still on board.

The following morning, it looked like it would be another sunny day. I tied the strings of my life vest to my shorts and swam out to the boat, towing it behind me, deciding it would be easier than swimming with it on. It would be easy to put it on quickly if I got into any difficulty. I was a strong swimmer, especially in calm waters, so although it took a while and was tiring, the one-mile swim wasn't a problem. When I arrived, I found no one aboard. I hoped that with every fibre of my body, they had all managed to swim to shore, and I just hadn't found them yet.

Our parents had always taught Willow and I to be resilient and how to manage in emergencies. I now had to put that into practice, even though I felt so alone and frightened. Miraculously, our small tender was still tied on at the rear of the boat. It was a small rowboat, but I could use it to ferry supplies from the 'Dahlia' to shore. I brought it around to the middle of the boat and tied it up before searching inside. I made a mental list of what would be important. First food, especially tinned and dried. Tools and cooking equipment, including axes, saws, machetes, hammers and other tools stored in the hold and plenty of pots, pans and containers I could use to store water and cook with. Medical supplies and clothing, spare sails and ropes would be helpful too. Lastly, non-essentials like books, pens, even pillows and bedding, if I could fit them on. It would take many trips, but I broke the items into manageable chunks and started ferrying them to shore.

After the third trip, I checked out the cliff because I thought I'd seen a small cave. I had, and I decided it would serve as an excellent temporary shelter, so I moved all the items inside there as I brought them onto shore. Over the next three days, I collected as much as possible from the 'Dahlia', before, on the following day, checking the beach again for two hours in each direction. There were still no signs of my family, and I began to fear they hadn't made it.

My dad taught us the survival principles of the four 3s: You could survive for three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter in a harsh environment, three days without water, and three weeks without food. The first obviously wasn't a problem on dry land, but I'd need to address the remaining three. I'd found a source of fresh water, so it made sense to start there and look for a place to make a more permanent shelter. I would eat the fresh food I'd salvaged first, and then fish and forage to survive longer term. I'd leave the tinned and dry goods for emergencies, like if I wasn't successful fishing or foraging (or if I felt they would go off).

The stream led to a good-sized pond or small lake, depending on your point of view (I was never really sure when a pond became a lake, and now I couldn't ask my parents). Nearby, there were plenty of trees that would make good building materials, not too thick to cut down or too heavy for me to move. I spent the next week clearing an area big enough for the four of us to shelter. I was still hopeful they would all turn up, probably just as I'd done all the hard work. As well as clearing the site, I started learning where some of the better places to fish were and good sources of indigenous fruit and plants I could eat. I saved any seeds or pips from the fresh food I'd collected from the 'Dahlia'. I might as well try planting some of them and seeing if they grew. They probably wouldn't, but the ground looked fertile, and I suspected the 'mountain' was a volcano (I hoped it was extinct), in which case, if I remembered what my mum had taught us, the soil would, indeed, be fertile.

After two months, I had a good, solid shelter built. The axe and saw were a godsend, and I don't know what sort of shelter I could have managed without them. I'd returned to the 'Dahlia' periodically, and removed everything I could unbolt, including some cupboards, the cooker and two gas bottles. The gas wouldn't last forever, but it would tide me over and be better than cooking on an open fire outside. I found a source of clay around the pond/lake, and together with rocks from near the cliff, I'd made a basic stove I was proud of inside the cabin. Once the gas was all used up, I could still cook inside. I had plenty of space inside for me and all the gear I'd salvaged. The walls were made using small tree trunks I'd felled and then cut to fit at right angles to each other. It even had a pitched roof to which I'd attached spare sails to keep it dry. On top of the sail fabric, I'd woven palm leaves together to try and keep it cooler inside, with moderate success. All in all, I was convinced that my parents would be proud of it when they turned up.

But of course, they didn't. In fact, the months dragged on, and my weeks took on a routine. I tried cooking some kelp-like seaweed that was abundant in the lagoon. It tasted okay, a bit like cabbage, but it was very salty. From then on, I wove some baskets and put those in the stream filled with seaweed for a day, and the freshwater rinsed most of the salty taste away. The seaweed was actually very tasty, and it became a regular part of my diet.

After three months, I knew deep down that I was alone and likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future, at least until someone happened to pass by and rescue me. I'd started writing in a journal I'd saved, and jotted down a few lines daily. Most days were similar, checking the villa for any signs of war and tear (I'd started refering to my hut as my sea-side villa to make it more interesting in my journal), collecting water, food and fishing, taking the small boat out into the lagoon and then diving for crabs, lobsters, or seaweed, tending to my small orchard and plants that I was surprised, and proud, to find little shoots starting to appear. Once every other full moon, I'd walk around the entire island. I'd found this took three days, so I took enough provisions. At good locations around the island, I wrote HELP in large letters above the high-water mark using rocks and logs. On my regular trips, I checked that these didn't need repairing. I also looked for any flotsam or jetsam I could use, but rarely found anything of use. I noticed old, jagged lava flows leading down to the sea on the far, or east, side. They were now overgrown with mature trees and shrubs, so the mountain was a volcano, but at least it hadn't erupted for a long time.

By the time of my fourteenth birthday (I think, I wasn't entirely sure what date it was), my clothes would no longer fit. I'd been wearing less and less as I rapidly grew. I'd tried to row out to the 'Dahlia' again to see if I could get any of my dad's clothes, but I couldn't get inside their cabin. She was breaking up badly by now, too, so nothing was really salvageable anymore. Also around this time, while collecting firewood after a storm, I found a young parakeet trapped under the debris. It had only recently fledged and was weak and listless. I picked it up and carried it back to my villa, where I nursed it back to health and named it 'Polly'. It stayed with me for a year and was a great companion before it flew off to find a mate. It returned frequently after that, and we had long, deep, albeit one-sided, conversations while I fed it. We got along very well and it agreed with all my views.

As young boys do, I grew and developed over the years alone on the island. I think I was tall, although I didn't know how tall, unable to measure myself or compare with anyone else. When I constructed my villa, I built the doors so my dad could walk inside without bending, or I'd hoped I had. At about six feet tall, he was about a head taller than me at that point, so that's how I gauged it. I now had to bend slightly to go inside, so I was possibly six feet two or three, but this wasn't a problem, as a smaller door kept the insides drier, and I found that after banging my head a few times, I learnt to duck.

My entries to my journal had become haphazard, only occurring when something interesting happened. A storm, a particularly big fish caught, the first fruit of the year from my little orchard, the latest brood of fledglings that my tame parakeet brought to see me. Things like that. Consequently, I couldn't tell how old I was for sure, not that it occurred to me to worry about it. My hair had always been lightly coloured, but was now sun-bleached blonde and quite curly. I cut, or rather hacked, it periodically to just below my shoulder blades to keep it in check. My hair, being so light, meant my facial hair, when it started to sprout, wasn't too bushy, and I tried to keep it trimmed otherwise it made me too hot and itchy.

The day my life changed once more started like most other days did. Judging by the full moon, it had been around two months since the last tour of the island, and after filling some water bottles and packing some fruit and cooked fish in a backpack, I set off as usual. I'd only walked for a few hours when, in the distance, I saw something on the beach. As I approached, to my amazement, I saw it was a human being. I stood still in shock for a minute or two, then ran towards them to see if they were alive. The human turned out to be a woman. She appeared to be of a similar age to me, with shoulder-length blond hair. Although not responsive, she was breathing and had clearly been washed up with the morning tide. She wore a life vest over a thin white blouse, a knee-length red skirt, and sandals. I removed her live vest and checked her for any apparent signs of injury, but she appeared unharmed apart from a few cuts and bruises. I lifted her, carrying her to the shade of some palm trees, and sat her down. I removed my backpack and left it near her so she could have some water or something to eat if she woke up, and then I checked along the beach to see if she was alone.

I didn't want to leave her too long, so I think I was only gone about forty minutes (time wasn't something I could check, so everything was guesswork to me, and it had been a long time since I'd had a working watch). When I returned, she was drinking from one of my water bottles. She looked alarmed when she saw me and tried to stand and move away.

"Are you injured?" I asked, hoping she spoke English. It had been so long since I'd spoken to anyone that my voice sounded strange. "I found you on the beach. I've just been looking to see if there is anyone else. Are you alone? What happened?"

"I was in a light aeroplane with five of my friends when we ditched in the sea," she said. "I've been in the water for a few days. I'd resigned myself to drowning or being eaten by sharks."

She spoke with a strange, but lovely accent that, in my limited experience, I couldn't place.

"My name is River," I said. "I have a villa a short distance along the beach. Can you walk? Do you want me to carry you?"

"My name is Agnetha," she replied. "I think I can walk."

"There is some food in the rucksack if you are hungry," I told her. "Help yourself."

Agnetha peered into the rucksack and removed some fish, which she quickly devoured, followed by more water. While she ate and drank, we examined each other. In my admittedly limited sample size, she was extremely pretty. She had a delicate face, light blue, piercing eyes, a small, button nose, high cheekbones and a wide mouth with full lips. Framing her face was fine, straight, blonde hair that just touched her shoulders. Her arms and legs appeared well-toned and muscular, and her wet, transparent blouse, now that the life vest had been removed, revealed two large breasts supported by a lacy bra. She was the first woman I'd seen in, I don't know how many years, and the first since I'd become an adult. As I stared, to my surprise, my cock grew and pointed at her. I knew about procreation, as our parents had told us about it, and I'd seen animals mate before. But my cock had never reacted like this, and it took me momentarily by surprise.

"Oh!" I said, looking down at my erection. "It's not done that before!" I touched it. It was hard and soft at the same time, and when I pushed it down, it sprang up again, pointing at Agnetha once more.

Agnetha appeared worried and looked like she wanted to run off.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're the first woman I've seen in a long time. Um, I assume it will go down again soon? I don't want to mate with you, don't worry."

Nervously, Agnetha stood and stepped back while I picked up my rucksack.