Marooned: A Field Guide

I'm perched on the edge of a simple thatched-roof shelter on the remote Indonesian island of Siroktabe, staring down an immaculate white beach as the sun dips westward into the Indian Ocean, shocking the sky a glorious orange-pink. I feel good. Great, in fact. I am the only human being for miles. I am supposedly here to be tested, to survive. But here, now, surrounded by the earths rich bounty, I think: This isn't surviving. This is living.

- Joe Keohane

BACK UP A COUPLE OF WEEKS. THERE IS A SMALL COMPANY IN HONG Kong, Docastaway, that specializes in dropping people on desert islands in Asia, Oceania, or Central America to survive by their own wits for as long as they want to, or can bear it. (They also offer “comfort” packages, featuring all of the seclusion and none, or at least far less, of the hardship.) Maxim thought I might like to give it a shot. Why me? Because I have essentially no survival skills whatsoever. That is, unless you count a ninja-like ability to ride 16 stops in a packed A train without physically touching another human. I’m a creature of the city. On the whole, nature in the raw holds little appeal for me. I just don’t really know what to do with it. I’m also a profoundly pale man, paler than the ass of an Irish ghost in January. And a ginger. My brother once said I look like a marshmallow topped with carrot shavings. Which means that in addition to my issues with nature, I also hate the beach. And seafood.

Still, the idea of coming here was appealing, as I’d imagine it would be to all men. Most of us suspect, and a few know with certainty, that if the shit really came down, we’d be able to summon some dormant primordial power, some untapped cunning and resourcefulness and grit, and conquer the situation, whatever it was. We’d show what we’re really made of. We’d tap into a vestigial wildness. We’d survive.