Stories of Real Castaways Stranded on a Deserted Island

Could boater safety education have helped these people?

To many city dwellers, the idea of fending for ourselves sans Google, cell phones, and hot water is hardly even fathomable. The need to stretch our imaginations and physiques to learn how to tie knots, make rope, start fires with two sticks, or fend off bears is almost unimaginable. 

If we were ever trapped in an unknown environment, most of us would probably be found blowing our noses with poison ivy while devouring the deadliest of mushrooms.

This is why stories of real-life castaways never cease to amaze us. 

Today, we share a few of the many incredible (and real) stories of survival and people who defeated all odds and overcame the deadliest obstacles, alone stranded on an uninhabited land. We'll also talk about how you can be prepared to survive if you're ever stranded on a desert island. 

Alexander Selkirk

Survived: 4 years and 4 months

The story of Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish sailor who spent four years as a castaway, inspired Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. 

Selkirk was a sailor serving under Captain Thomas Stradling. In mid-expedition, the captain made a stop for more supplies. Selkirk voiced his concern about the security of the ship with the extra weight carried on it. He tried and failed to rally others not to continue on. 

Left Behind

Stradling then decided to leave Selkirk alone on the island of Juan Fernández. However, Selkirk turned out to be quite a skillful survivor. He lived in huts made of pimento trees.

At first, he remained where he felt safer along the shoreline. While waiting for someone to come to his rescue, the desperate castaway survived on oysters, shellfish, and anything he could catch. That is, until hungry sea lions wanted their territory back for mating season. 

This drove him deeper into the island's unknown depths. There, Selkirk was lucky enough to come across feral goats, which provided him with milk, meat, and clothing, as well as feral cats, which protected him against the ravenous rats that attacked him at night.

Four years and four months later, on February 1, 1709, he was finally rescued by a privateering ship. His story became a sensation, and Selkirk continued his life as a sailor, ending his career as a lieutenant aboard the Royal ship Weymouth.

Douglas Robertson and Family

Survived: 38 Days

Accompanied by his wife, daughter, son, and twin sons, Douglas Robertson was an experienced sailor from Scotland who purchased Lucette, the family boat, with the family's life savings. 

While sailing to the Galapagos Islands from Panama, their boat was sunk by a pod of killer whales.

Already being a close-knit group, the family demonstrated remarkable survival skills and survived 38 days on their small dinghy. They collected rain droplets for drinking water, caught turtles and flying fish for food, and sailed their way toward Central America to be rescued. 

On their 38th day at sea, they were sighted by a Japanese fishing trawler heading towards the Panama Canal. Robertson documented their adventure, which inspired his book Survive the Savage Sea.

Gerald Kingsland and Lucy Irvine

Survived: 1 Year

Tom Neale

Survived: 16 Years

Author of the popular autobiography An Island to Oneself, Tom Francis Neale was a New Zealander who spent 16 years of his life (in three sessions) living alone on Suwarrow Island in the Cook Islands.

His first time around, Neale caught a ride with a ship passing close to Suwarrow. They dropped him off with two cats, water tanks, a hut, and some books. There, he found remnants of what coast watchers had left behind during the Second World War: a damaged boat, wild pigs, and chickens. 

While there, he planted a garden, domesticated the chickens, and repaired the boat. Because the pigs were destroying all the vegetation, he hunted them over several months. 

After a serious back injury in 1954, which paralyzed him for four days, he was lucky enough to be discovered by a couple on a yacht who nursed him back to health. They promised they would send a ship out for him. Two weeks later, the Cook Islands government arrived to take him back to Rarotonga.

Neale waited for his back to heal before returning to his island. Though he married and had two children, in the spring of 1960, he returned to the island with enough provisions to last him three and a half years. Then, in January 1964, he left the island voluntarily, as pearl divers began invading the area.

Neale returned to the atoll one more time in June 1967 and stayed there until 1977. That year, another yacht found him ill. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer and taken to Rarotonga, where he died eight months later.

Ernest Shackleton and His Crew

Survived: 105 Days

The famous explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 28 men left England aboard the ship Endurance (pictured above) on August 8, 1914, to fulfill his dream of crossing the South Polar continent from sea to sea.

During the expedition, the ship got trapped in ice. Shackleton and his men found themselves marooned in the Antarctic for five months. They lived on top of floating ice, fed on seals, and kept warm by playing hockey and dog-sled racing. 

In April 1916, Shackleton and five of his men set off in three small lifeboats they had recovered to find help on Elephant Island. The six men spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean. They landed on an uninhabited part of the island, so their last hope was to cross 26 miles of treacherous mountains and glaciers until they finally reached a whaling station, where they found help.

Shackleton returned to rescue the men on Elephant Island, and amazingly, apart from some missing toes from frostbites, not one member of the 28-man crew was lost.

Juana Maria

Survived: 18 Years

The story that inspired Scott O'Dell's book Island of the Blue Dolphin was that of the last surviving member of the Nicoleño tribe, Juana Maria, better known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island. 

After Russian otter killers invaded the island and massacred most of her people in 1835, missionaries heard about the news and decided to sponsor a rescue operation. All remaining members of the tribe were gathered and shipped to San Pedro Bay to live at the San Gabriel Mission. All except Juana Maria.

In 1853, 18 years later, a sea otter hunter named George Nidever found her living in a hut made of whale bones, surviving on seal blubber, which she left out to dry. She was taken to the Santa Barbara Mission and reportedly was fascinated by everything surrounding her: the European people, the clothing, the food, and the horses. 

Nidever brought her home to live with him and his wife; however, it wasn't long before these new living conditions took their toll on the longtime castaway.

Just seven weeks after arriving on the mainland, she contracted dysentery (an inflammatory disorder of the intestine) and died. The Lone Woman was baptized with the Christian name Juana Maria (her native name is unknown).

Ada Blackjack

Survived: 2 Years

Ada Blackjack was an Inuit woman who lived as a castaway on an uninhabited island in Northern Siberia for two years. Ada had taken a job as a cook and seamstress to save money for her only son Bennett, who had chronic tuberculosis. She joined a team of explorers attempting to claim Wrangel Island for Canada. 

The team left on September 16, 1921, but they were inadequately prepared for the future that awaited them. They ate their way through much of the rations and did not hunt and store enough food to last them very long. 

Three of the men attempted to cross the frozen sea to seek help and more food to eat, leaving behind Ada and the scurvy-inflicted Lorne Knight. As expected, the men never returned, and Ada cared for both her and a rather ungrateful Knight right up until his death in April 1923.

Ada became a very resourceful survivor, learning how to set up traps to capture small wild animals such as Arctic foxes. She also became quite the skilled gunwoman, killing birds and seals and even fending off polar bears.

On August 19, 1923, she was rescued by a man hired by the former head of the expedition who had left her and Knight there, Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Ada used the money she saved to take her small son Bennett to Seattle to cure his tuberculosis and had another son, Billy. 

Eventually, Ada returned to the Arctic, where she lived until the age of 85.

Improve Your Chances of Surviving on the Water With Boater Education

It's probably not very likely you'll end up stranded on a desert island – unless you boat alone in remote places (or anger a ship's crew enough to leave you behind). However, it can't hurt to be prepared for anything when spending time on the water! 

We've shared a few real-life castaway stories and hope the same thing never happens to you. BOATERexam offers online boating safety courses that will help you understand how to avoid potential boating accidents or running aground. Plus, you'll also learn what to do if something does go wrong. 

Our courses are state-approved for boaters in the U.S. and Canada-approved for Canadian boaters. So before you hit the water this season, find the course for your state or choose the course for Canadians and get certified! 

Originally published May 26, 2011. Content updated August 24, 2023.