Real Survivor

Left on a tropical island with no food or water sounds like the stuff movies or (more recently) reality TV is made off.

In the seventies, when I was a student at Onderstepoort, I joined Exploratio (University of Pretoria) on a diving trip to Bazaruto. Two post grad students were in charge of the group of about 20. They had organized enough food for a three week stay for those who had booked in advance. At the last minute 4 extra students joined. The food supply was not increased as it was too late. We travelled by car to Vilanculos in Mozambique, My very tall boyfriend and I occupied the back seat of a very small saloon car driven by another student and his girlfriend. About halfway up the length of Mozambique, we stopped at a deserted beach to overnight. We took our sleeping bags quite a distance from the car to sleep on a dune overlooking the ocean. It was delightful until about midnight when a sudden thunderstorm drenched our sleeping bags and us to the bone, necessitating an emergency return to the car and a very cramped and wet night in the car.

Vilanculos was delightful. We had little time to explore as the working fishing boat which was taking us to the island, was almost ready to depart. It was a long trip, as he first headed north in the channel between the islands and the mainland, before swinging widely around the north end of Bazaruto to anchor in a bay on its eastern, ocean facing side. We had to wade through chest high water to the beach, passing our luggage along over our heads.

We camped on the beach, above the high water mark. There were two large tents, but we mostly slept under the stars. During the night one would often be woken up by a scratching sound under your sleeping bag. Upon lifting your bag, it would be a crab trying to dig its way out.

The weather was perfect, the ocean crystal clear. The bay where we disembarked was protected by a reef and the snorkelling, especially for a child of the Karoo, unbelievable. Initially the group got on very well. The fish speared by the serious divers who ventured behind the reef, were tasty and nutritious additions to our stock of cereals, canned and dried foods and bottled water and soft drinks.

One evening one of the group returned to camp to find another resting on his sleeping bag. He became very angry, saying amongst other things that his sleeping bag was like his tooth brush and he shared it with no one.

The following night someone angled for and caught a medium sized shark - about 1.5 meters in length. He hid it in the bushes. During the day, when the owner of the disputed sleeping bag was out diving, he placed it in his sleeping bag, with the guy's toothbrush between the shark's teeth. There was not enough water in the sea to wash that poor sleeping bag!

On the way to the island, the fisherman had told us about a shipwreck a distance from the island. A group of us decided to swim out to it. In spite of my Karoo upbringing, I was a strong swimmer and joined the group. My boyfriend came too, but got into difficulties and decide to swim back to the island just before we passed its northern point. The group tread water and waited for him to reach the beach safely before continuing. We swam for what felt like hours before deciding to turn back without finding the wreck. We were told later that if we had continued just a little further, we would most likely have hit a strong current which would have pulled us out to sea. The foolishness of youth!

After nearly three weeks our food and water supplies were running out. We eagerly awaited the boat which was due to collect us on the 21st day. In those days Bazaruto was not yet a tourist destination and was inhabited by a handful of indigenous Mozambicans  who fished and kept goats on the other side of the island. There was also a radio station manned by two Portuguese soldiers in the hills in the centre of the island.  Dirty water was to be found at a pond fed by a spring in the interior quite a long walk from our camp.
We were getting really bored of fish and of one another.

The boat did not appear even though we scoured the horizon for days! By now all we had was fish and dirty water! I don't know why it did not occur to us to swap a tent for a goat or just some meat! The fish that was speared most often was grouper, which was not particularly tasty and often overcooked. One day someone speared a small yellowtail and cooked it for himself. If this was the TV series, he would surely have been voted off! The water tasted brackish. We were afraid to go far from the camp in case the boat arrived. 7 days after the boat was due to arrive, there was an accident. A girl was speared through her thigh. She and her slightly built boyfriend assisted one another to load the speargun, one pulling on either side. Somehow one let go and the spear penetrated her thigh, luckily missing major blood vessels. She was brought back to camp, half-supported, half hobbling along with the spear sticking out of her thigh on both sides. The closest thing to a medic was a third year veterinary student. He scratched around in the first aid box and found some disinfectant and antihistamine, so that is what she got. At least the latter made her sleepy. Somehow they managed to pull the spear out.

Two guys hiked to the radio station to summon help. We packed up, expecting a boat to arrive soon. It was nearly a full day before a small motorboat arrived. It could only take the injured girl and her boyfriend. The rest of us had to stay a couple more days before the fishing boat that had brought us, arrived. They had beer and bokkems (salty, dried fish) on board. It tasted good!