Naked and Marooned

by Ed Stafford

  Not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket, I decided I would cook the legs in an underground oven. I was bored with cutting up strips of meat and if that didn’t work it would be pretty disastrous if I’d cured the entire animal to no avail. So, on my hands and knees, I dug a pit the diameter of a large dustbin lid and collected non-porous, apple-sized stones with which to line it. I knew that to heat the rocks to glowing red hot I had to have a fire that was roaring and long-lasting so I also collected a huge amount of firewood. By mid-afternoon it was raining and my pit was filling with water. I couldn’t have dug it under the shelter as the fire that I was planning to light would have been too big and I would have risked burning the whole thing down.

  My worry was that the legs would go off before I cooked them but I did the maths and worked out that I had to wait until morning now anyway, unless I wanted to be roasting in the dark. With a bit of luck the morning would be dry.

  That afternoon I also found a sea snake. I chucked a rock at it and, amazingly, killed it with one blow. I threw it in the basket as an appetiser before supper.

  My plan for tomorrow was strict. I wanted to eat the slow-cooked goat legs at 4 p.m. so, allowing four hours of a roaring fire to heat the rocks and a further four hours of cooking, I had to have a fire going by 8 a.m. Everything in my control was accounted for. Now I just needed the rain to stop.

  I lay in bed slightly worried that the legs would already have gone off. But then I considered that all over the world meat was hung to make it more tender and this had been hanging in smoke for the whole day so it had no flies on it. I also comforted myself with the fact that the first strips of jerky were drying well and tasted fantastic and crisp. I had done well and should relax − the legs would be cooked just fine, too.

  Breakfast, as if I need to say it, was the second rack of ribs. I had to admit that it was a bit gamey and I worried that the legs might be, too. I was enjoying gorging myself on goat meat and my body was absorbing absolutely everything. I felt amazing but, strangely, I was doing smaller poos than I had on coconut and snails. My body seemed to know that none of these nutrients should go to waste.

  The jerky was now dry to the touch on the outside after a day of hanging, but I still wasn’t totally convinced it had worked. It was my first attempt at curing meat without a big bag of salt.

  Outside, the air was crisp and the morning was, thankfully, dry. I transferred embers from my fire and then emptied the cave of my emergency firewood. Emergencies seemed a thing of the past right now. I then spent the next few hours collecting and adding huge pieces of wood to the growing bonfire. All morning I dragged log after log and kept the temperature very hot indeed.

  I loved that morning. Collecting firewood had become therapeutic so I just set myself the single challenge and brought back logs so big that I could hardly wrap both arms around them. Vast chunks of wood burned long and hot. It was great fun and I was achieving a furiously hot fire. Then, for the last hour of burning, I allowed the fire to burn down and turn into a red bed of embers.

  While collecting driftwood, I also found a section of plastic piping. I immediately realised that I could employ this and a short section of bamboo in order to utilise the huge surface area of the roof for rain collection. I also found another flip-flop so I now had two working (but odd) pairs. ‘One for Sunday best!’ I laughed and reflected on how much of what I was using was actually man-made stuff that had been dropped or washed up on the beach. Plastic bottles were so abundant that I’d stopped picking them up now. I had forty litres of reservoir capacity and I simply didn’t need any more.

  By lunch the jerky had further dried out. If there were bits that had a ‘belly’ on them (i.e. they were too fat and not drying out inside) I just took them down and split the thicker meat with the knife to allow the smoke to carbonise the internal, wetter bit.

  The waste pile was decomposing at an astonishing rate. The neck of the goat was a sea of writhing maggots but the flies had largely disappeared as it seemed to have gone beyond that stage. The difference between my cured meat and this unprotected pile was astounding. I would not feed this meat to my worst enemy’s dog. I was so chuffed considering I had no prepared salt and no refrigeration. My meat was curing really well.

  I cleared away the burning logs and, with a stick, brushed aside the embers to reveal the rocks below. As it was midday, and the sun was bright, I could not see if they were glowing red but I could tell they were bloody hot. I laid the legs directly on to the rocks like sardines in a tin, alternately, head to toe, like Charlie’s four grandparents in bed together before they found Willie Wonka’s golden ticket. I covered them under blankets of coconut palm leaves twelve deep to keep in the moisture. Finally, I heaped back the excavated soil on top to further block any steam that tried to escape. There wasn’t enough soil to do this task well and so I ferried a further two bucketfuls of sand from the beach and dumped it on top for good measure. As I stood back, my gut instinct told that this was going to work. By the time the sun got low in the sky I would excavate the roasting parcel and see what we had.

  My only concerns were, first, that the meat was a bit gamey and, second, whether or not I should have put a couple of leaves on the rocks before I laid the legs on them. I hoped the bottom side wouldn’t be burned.

  Dark Stripe’s stunning rawhide had been submerged in seawater and brains. It was soft and wet but needed a thorough clean in the shallows. I soon realised that the skin wouldn’t be as clean as a piece of clothing might be. The membrane and bits of fat were too firmly attached to remove and so I set about mounting it on a frame to dry. I began by envisaging a square frame and then realised that a square has a tendency to skew and go out of shape. A triangle wouldn’t do that – I rationalised – and it would be much stronger.

  And so I laid my wet goatskin on the forest floor and found three of the longest of the various boat poles that I’d brought back to camp. As well as being a good length, they were also clean – but not massively strong, as I’d learned from the goat trap – but for this non-contact sport they would work just fine. I lashed the ends together around the skin, leaving a nice gap around the hide – my triangular frame must have been about twice the surface area of my soon-to-be blanket.

  Then, using only the offcuts from earlier hibiscus string making, I began to tie the skin to the frame. I would make a small incision using my knife and then thread the string through the hole and attach it to the frame with a clove hitch. Then I’d go for the diametrically opposite side of the skin and attach that. Slowly the hide began to get tighter and more taut as it began to resemble the skin of a drum. The result of my first ever hide stretch was very rewarding. The skin was now taut enough for me to work on it with the blade and to remove any membrane, fat or even small patches of flesh that were still attached.

  As the evening drew in I attached it to the underside of the shelter so that it sat flush with the thatch. It was above the wood pile rather than the fire as I did not want it to dry too quickly, but it was out of the rain and, in my eyes, a real success. I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth approvingly.

  After three and a half hours I uncovered the goat legs.

  ‘Oh, my God – I think these are going to be incredible!’ I spluttered as steam wafted out from the shallow pit.

  ‘We have success. All four legs are cooked to perfection!’ The sun cut through the palm trees, highlighting the wisps of smoke coming off the fire. I couldn’t stop laughing as I ate the meat. It was so tender that I could have bitten chunks off with my lips. ‘That is extraordinarily good. I have to say that is better than oven-roasted – anything! I never thought I’d be eating this well on the island.’

  Today I felt like I was living the dream. The birds were chirping and the waves were lapping the beach. I hung the slow-cooked goat legs above the fire to store. In the smoke they should last me about five days. What a beautiful day.

  �
��Day forty-five has made me come alive. What a day. What a day . . . ’

  My nose streamed in the morning smoke and, closing off one nostril with my finger, I fired the contents of my sinuses on to the floor like a bullet. The snot rocket − a wonderful evolution from the handkerchief.

  ‘The only problem with the legs is that they might not last five days because they taste really good and in the night I keep getting up and eating them!’ I admitted. ‘Do you know what? Every single bit of the edible meat is going to be eaten. I think that’s really cool.’ I was going to eat a leg a day but I decided to throw caution to the wind and make hay while the sun shone. No more silly rules and constraints − I would eat whatever I wanted until it was all gone. The meat was still utterly delicious thirty-six hours after killing the goat.

  ‘Today I am going to look for bamboo to drag back to a point where I will build a raft. Then I will be able to get off the island, into the reef, and try and fish.’

  Bamboo isn’t indigenous to the island but there were several lengths washed up above the high-tide mark. In fact, the tide was too high to collect bamboo so I headed inland. I decided instead to use the elevation of the rocky outcrop to plan where I was going to build my raft and determine the shortest distance out to the edge of the reef.

  From the top I examined the structure of the reef. It wasn’t a thin line circling the island; it was a large rough expanse that also filled much of the lagoon. It could provide potential fishing opportunities without my going all the way out to the edge of the deep Pacific Ocean.

  It was a sparkling sunny day and I recognised that I was comfortable in the direct sun and not getting burned any more. I had no need for clay and wondered whether the coconut oil in the food I ate was oiling and protecting my skin. As I gazed down into the lagoon I was conscious of the huge waves and the drop off beyond the reef. Sharks would surely be loitering around the spot where the ocean rises to the reef. I also spotted an area where, at low tide, I might be able to wade over the shallow reef all the way out to the ocean barrier.

  ‘I know there are lobsters out there.’ I salivated at the thought. ‘Octopuses, I’ve been told, hide in the holes in the reef, too. I can grab them by the top of the head! Turtles, too . . . ’ There would also be a lot of bigger fish. I debated where I should build the raft. It was high tide and I noticed schools of larger fish and small sharks in the pools below me. It was clearly time to harvest the ocean.

  The goat trap was still set and I decided I was going to leave it like that. If I got another goat that would be a dream come true. That said, I’d seen neither sight nor sound of a goat since my first catch. Up until then I’d been seeing them three or four times a day. It was strange − as if they now knew to stay away from me.

  The hide was definitely leaning towards being rawhide rather than buckskin. Maybe the goat hadn’t had sufficient brains. But I continued to clean and dry it on its rack each day. I didn’t know anything about this stage of processing but the hide looked great and, even if it was a tad stiff, would be a perfect warm rug to sleep on at night.

  One of the biggest success stories of the goat was the jerky. Every time I went anywhere I took with me a strip of pure protein. They were brilliant. Slightly salty, quite chewy, and full of smoky, fatty flavour.

  The waste, however, was now truly disgusting. As I passed the decomposing mess one eye socket was fluid with maggots contesting their prize.

  As my stock of meat began to diminish, I considered the hooves and the shins of the goat and decided that if chicken foot soup was regarded as a delicacy in some parts of the world, then there had to be more nutrients in a goat’s hoof. So I made up a big hoof stock for supper to get the bones soft enough to eat.

  The result was fatty and sticky like bone marrow and I could tell it had loads of goodness in it as I licked my sticky, fatty fingers. It also felt good not to be wasting a single morsel.

  In my now quite casual meanderings I returned to the headland in the afternoon to observe the scene at low tide. I specifically looked for pools in which fish might congregate. I looked down for ten minutes but there were no fish at all. Remarkably slowly I began to join up the dots. I finally worked out that I had to catch the fish that were coming in at high tide. That was when they were abundant. Might it be possible to make a rock corral that trapped some of these plentiful fish as the tide went out? That way they would be contained in a restricted pool and, importantly for me, would be accessible at low tide. I identified two rock pools at low tide that, from the high rock lookout, looked as if they would be damable. I waited and spotted some schools of fish coming in with the new tide, which confirmed my theory.

  I liked having time on the beach at sunset. I loved that time of day. I’d done my exercises, had a swim and a wash. Tomorrow I would make my raft. It was going to take me two days and no more.

  The evening brought a feather-cloud sky, purple and gold. I was at peace. For the moment.

  ‘Good morning. What an appalling night’s sleep,’ I moaned. It had been light for a while and I still hadn’t bothered to get out of bed. There was less than two weeks to go and I was dreaming of being at home. What breakfast cereal was I going to eat? All of them − every single one ever known to Kellogg’s.

  I spent all night thinking about TV ideas, buying a flat, spending time with the family. All night I had wallowed in the excitement of going back to my life.

  I was going to build a raft today. One straightforward task.

  ‘Let’s get some fish, Staffs.’ I brushed myself down. ‘Let’s get some fish.’

  Not surprisingly, as it had been high tide in the morning yesterday, and that had stopped me collecting bamboo for the raft, it was roughly the same time today, too, and so I had the same issue. Rethink needed.

  Instead I made my guttering, in order to make use of the huge surface area of my thatched roof. My longest section of bamboo was too strong and I couldn’t split it to create the ‘U’ that I needed. I placed it to one side to use on the raft. A smaller section broke more easily, however, and I knocked out the internal nodes between each partition to create one long natural channel.

  I used the fire to heat up another bent scrap of metal (presumably from the same outboard motor) to a temperature that could cut through plastic. I then used this hot metal to lop off the top off the second jerrycan and to split the circular black plastic tube into two U-shaped guttering sections. With patience, going back and forth to the fire using the green T-shirt to stop my fingers burning, the tasks were both completed efficiently and to a good standard.

  I lifted the palm thatching and tied the guttering directly on to the frame. Then, ensuring that the drip would be directly over the centre of the bamboo I ran along the entire length with my knife, cutting the thatch into a sharp fringe. The result was very professional and looked as close to a roof edge and guttering as I could ever have hoped. I poured some seawater on to the thatch and it dripped into the channel and ran into the decapitated jerrycan. It worked, but the real test would be when it rained properly for the first time. I then made repairs to the area below the guttering, which now had a few holes in it, with fresh green coconut leaves. ‘Job’s a good ’un,’ I admired smugly.

  By now the tide had gone out so my thoughts turned to building some sort of rock corral in which to trap fish. A rock corral is made simply by damming any holes in an existing rock pool to form a large cordoned-off area from which fish cannot escape when the tide recedes. Once in a contained area they can be clubbed, stoned or simply cornered and lifted out of the water.

  I would need to bait the area with chum (waste food, rotten fruit, etc.) and I immediately thought of my decaying pile of maggots. I wanted to bait the area in advance of building the actual corral so as to entice fish to the site. On dipping my hands into the seething mass of maggots I was struck by its warmth. I collected two full hair gel container pots, screwed the lids on tightly and
walked up the beach to the rock pools.

  I emptied the maggots into a prospective corral and watched the small fish swarm to the area. I added a mature coconut for good measure and decided that this was a possible success story in the making. The water was clear and fresh. Small colourful sprats nibbled at my maggots. I would come back and dam this pool.

  For now I returned to my original focus of the day as the tide was now lower. I would make my raft on Komo beach, the beach beyond Bravo Beach to the south that faced Komo. There was a lot of driftwood on this southern tip of the island and, once constructed, I would easily be able to paddle the raft around to where the coral was closest to the shore.

  I dragged back the five best bits of bamboo on the island. I could haul three at a time but they were heavy and so I wedged them under my arms and dragged the long lengths over the rocks and the sand. I listened to the different noises that the bamboo made over different surfaces as I plodded on. It’s amazing what grabs your attention when you’re totally alone.

  I opted for a conventional long thin raft with five parallel poles. I considered a triangle (following the success of my stretching rack for the goat hide) but decided it would not be manoeuvrable enough for a raft. With cross struts and diagonals my design would work just fine, I was sure. I chucked the bamboo into the trees above the high-tide line so that they would not be gone in the morning and went home for supper. Tomorrow I would lash it all together.

  I made myself ‘surf and turf’ for supper. Although I had one leg left I opted to eat all the little crabs that I’d found along the coast. I added a strip of jerky for a salty, smoky flavour. The result was fantastic and crunchy as I munched through the pot of whole crabs.

  So it had been a good day. Amazing weather. I had attached the guttering. I had collected all the poles to build a raft. I was in a really healthy, positive state of mind. And, for the first time on the island, it seemed stable and constant. I wasn’t having to check in at all. No panic, worries or calming myself down in the stone circle. The very fact that I’d decided to leave the stones in the cave rather than move them to the shelter showed that I was growing out of these armbands that had so successfully kept me afloat. Now I was simply living – brimming with ideas and enthusiasm.