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Alexander Selkirk -

Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish privateer who, after a dispute, was asked to be marooned at Más a Tierra island (now known as Robinson Crusoe Island) in the Juan Fernández archipelago, off the coast of Chile. Pictured is the cave in which Alexander Selkirk lived.

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Alexander Selkirk -

In 1704, Selkirk gathered a few supplies, including food, clothes, a musket, and a Bible, and abandoned the Cinque Ports ship.

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Alexander Selkirk -

Alexander Selkirk was not rescued until February 1709, when Captain Woodes Rogers and group of privateers landed on the island. Alexander Selkirk's story inspired Daniel Defoe's famous castaway character in the 1719 novel 'Robinson Crusoe.'

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Narcisse Pelletier -

In 1858, at the age of 14, the French cabin boy was abandoned on the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Narcisse Pelletier was taken in by an Aboriginal group, the Uutaalnganu, and raised as one of their own.

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Narcisse Pelletier -

In 1875, Pelletier was taken back to France against his will 17 years later, after the crew of the passing ship John Bell spotted him.

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Juana Maria -

Juana Maria was the name given to a Native American woman, also known as the "Lone Woman of San Nicolas." After her tribe, the Nicoleño, was slaughtered, Juana Maria spent 18 years stranded on San Nicolas Island off the coast of California.

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Juana Maria -

In 1853, Juana Maria was discovered by American Captain George Nidever, who took her to Santa Barbara. Juana Maria died of dysentery just two months after.

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Marguerite de La Rocque -

Marguerite de La Rocque was a French noblewoman who spent two years marooned on the Isle of Demons, near the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, off the coast of Quebec, circa 1542.

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Marguerite de La Rocque -

Marguerite de La Rocque was said to be on her way to a colony in Canada, when she got involved with a fellow passenger. The ship's captain then cast them and a servant on the island. According to the story, Marguerite de La Rocque became pregnant and survived the birth, but not long after her lover and her servant died. De La Rocque was rescued by fishermen and returned to Europe.

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James Riley -

In 1815, American Captain James Riley was shipwrecked off the coast of present-day Western Sahara. Together with his crew, he ventured through the Sahara Desert, but ended up being captured by Sahrawi natives and kept as a slave. The story was published in his 1817 memoir 'Sufferings in Africa.'

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Ada Blackjack -

In 1921, Ada Blackjack was sent on an expedition to Wrangel Island (in the Arctic Ocean, modern-day Russian territory). The Iñupiat woman was joined by a small team of settlers.

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Ada Blackjack -

Bad weather and lack of food led some members of the team to leave to search for help. Blackjack stayed with another person, who eventually died. Ada Blackjack survived alone for eight months, until she was rescued on August 19, 1923.

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Fernão Lopes -

Fernão Lopes was a Portuguese soldier who sided with the Muslims in India. The defector was captured and voluntary exiled on Saint Helena, where he ended up staying alone for over 30 years.

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Fernão Lopes -

After 10 years on Saint Helena, Lopes returned to Portugal to see his family and was pardoned by the king. He then went to Rome, where he was absolved of the sin of apostasy by Pope Clement VII. Fernão Lopes then asked to return to the island he called home, where he died in 1545.

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James Morrill -

English sailor James Morrill was shipwrecked off the coast of Australia in 1846. He made it to the mainland in a makeshift raft and lived with a clan of Aboriginal Australians for 17 years.

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Poon Lim -

Poon Lim was a Chinese sailor. In 1942, the British cargo ship he was in was torpedoed by a Nazi U-boat in the South Atlantic. Lim survived for 133 days alone on a wooden raft. He was rescued in 1943 off the coast of Brazil.

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Poon Lim -

Pictured is a reconstruction of Poon Lim on his draft, made on request for US Navy survival training. Lim's story also features in the Royal Navy survival manuals.

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Philip Ashton -

Philip Ashton was a fisherman from Massachusetts who was captured by pirate Edward Low off the coast of Nova Scotia and kept as a slave for nine months. Ashton managed to escape in March 1723, when they landed in a small island off the coast of Honduras.

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Philip Ashton -

The island was Ruatán. There Ashton built a shelter and survived on a diet of fruit and raw turtle eggs. Philip Ashton was rescued by a British ship in June 1724. He went on to write a book about his experience as a castaway.

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The Ross Sea party -

The goal of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was to leave a series of supplies across the Great Ice Barrier for a second group that would use the supplies during the second leg of the expedition.

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The Ross Sea Party -

The crew ended up stranded in January 1915 and everything went downhill from there. The survivors were not rescued until January 1917. As for the  second part of the expedition, things didn't work out quite as planned either.

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Trans-Antarctic expedition -

In 1916, 22 men of the Trans-Antarctic expedition led by explorer Ernest Shackleton were stranded on Elephant Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, for four months.

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Leendert Hasenbosch -

Leendert Hasenbosch was a Dutch ship's officer who in 1725 was sent to Ascension Island as punishment for sodomy. Hasenbosch's diary was found in 1726 by British mariners who brought it  back home. The diary was then published under the title 'Sodomy Punish'd.'

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Otokichi -

Otokichi was a Japanese boy who was adrift for 14 months until he reached Washington's Olympic Peninsula in 1834. The boy was enslaved by a Native tribe and then handed over to John McLoughlin of the Hudson's Bay Company. Otokichi was eventually taken to Macau, where he worked for the British, first as a translator, and later as a crewman.

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Nakahama Manjirō -

As a young boy, Japanese samurai Nakahama Manjirō was shipwrecked on Torishima (an island in the Pacific) in 1841. Manjirō was rescued by an American ship and taken to the US, where he studied English and navigation. He went on to become an important figure in the relationship between the two countries.

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Jan Pelgrom de Bye and Wouter Loos -

In 1629, Dutch soldier Wouter Loos and cabin boy Jan Pelgrom de Bye van Bemel were aboard the Batavia (replica pictured), when the ship was wrecked on Morning Reef near Beacon Island, off the coast of Australia.

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Jan Pelgrom de Bye and Wouter Loos -

The survivors eventually fought among themselves, leading to a massacre. Jan Pelgrom and Wouter Loos, however, managed to survive because they were marooned on the Australian mainland. Unfortunately, the search missions never sailed south enough to rescue them.

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Mutiny on the Bounty -

The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty took place in the South Pacific Ocean in April 1789, when 19 crewmen were set adrift. Some settled in Tahiti, and others on Pitcairn Island. One group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808.

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Jeannette expedition -

The goal of the Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, led by George W. De Long, was to reach the North Pole through the Bering Strait. Things went horribly wrong. After being frozen in pack ice and spending 16 months adrift, the crew of 33 men was reduced to just 13 survivors.

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The Tongan castaways -

In 1965, a group of teenage boys escaped from  school, stole a boat, and ended up shipwrecked on the uninhabited island of ʻAta after being hit by a storm. The boys survived for 15 months. William Golding's 1954 novel 'Lord of the Flies' is based on their story.

Sources: (History) (Docastaway)

See also: Stunning and lesser-known Greek islands for escaping the crowds

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