The Islander

The extraordinary adventures of the man who wanted to be Robinson Crusoe

Everyone dreams of life on a desert island: Gerald Kingsland dared to go and find one. Over the last seven years, he has tried three times to live as Robinson Crusoe once lived: on a tropical island, self-sufficiently, with at most one companion.
His first attempt was Cocos Island, three hundred miles north of the Galapagos Islands in the mid-Pacific. Forced by the government of Costa Rica to live with their official police patrol, and later to help with a budding tourist industry, he was nevertheless able to taste the joys and dangers of island life. Accompanied for part of the time by his three young sons, he explored an island which offered ghosts, buried treasure, tropical disease and high adventure.
His next island was Robinson Crusoe
Island, off Chile in the South Pacific. Accompanied this time by a young Girl Friday, Ann Conroy, Kingsland spent frustrating months trying to get to uninhabited Alexander Selkirk Island while retracing the steps of the real Robinson Crusoe on the island named after him, helped by the friendly Chilean islanders.
His third island was Tuin in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Completely uninhabited and much smaller than the other islands, Tuin also turned out to be desperately short of water. Kingsland and his wife Lucy Irvine nearly died and were dramatically rescued by nearby islanders from Badu, where Kingsland soon became a much-respected member of the community.
Lucy Irvine published her bestselling account of their life on Tuin, Castaway, in 1983. Gerald Kingsland has written an altogether different story about his remarkable life as an islander.

He was a successful journalist and publisher in England, then a wine grower in Italy. In the wake of a severe personal crisis, Kingsland set out to become a modern Robinson Crusoe; he sought a remote tropical island where he could be self-sufficient, as well as a suitablecompanion (young, female and willing). Neither requirement was easy to findKingsland tried three islands in seven years and selected his companions by advertising in newspapers. First, there was Cocos Island, in the mid-Pacific,his three young sons joined him there for a time. With a 21-year-old "GirlFriday" he went to Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast of Chile, trying without success to reach Selkirk Island. On the third try, Kingsland advertised fora wife and drew Lucy Irvine, age 24. They went to Tuin, in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea, uninhabited and lacking a dependable water supply. Theirs was a tempestuous relationship (Irvine published her version of life on Tuin in Castaway; they nearly perished, but were saved by Badu Islanders. If there is a moral to this rollicking tale, it is that a Crusoe-type existence is improbable. Readers who like exotic adventure will enjoy Kingsland's. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.