White Beach Part 1

I’m not writing this to prove anything or to convince anyone that what happened on the island really happened, I’m writing this to get it straight in my own head. It’s not for anything but my own sanity. This will be a full account but I can’t allow anyone to retrace my footsteps and find the island or those creatures so I’m withholding key information to prevent the island ever being found. My name, my career or my reasons for being at sea that night a storm cast me away on that hell-hole, cannot be given, so my account begins with me waking up on the beach the morning after the storm.

I woke up and looked around me. I was halfway up the beach from the sea, around 200 meters from woodland growing on the shoreline. To left and right, the beach stretched off into the distance. I was alone. I dragged myself up to the shade of the trees as the Sun was already beating down. I didn’t yet know if I was on an island or the shoreline of some larger landmass, the storm could have transported me hundreds of miles, if I had washed up in an inhabited area then I might have some hope of rescue. To find out I had to get high up. There was a stream near to where I awoke that ran down into the sea, and by looking upstream I could see it lead up to a high ridge that overlooked the surrounding woodland. It wasn’t quite a mountain but it seemed high enough to gain a good vantage point. I cupped some water from the stream in my hands and drank. It was the sweetest, purest water I have ever tasted. It revitalized me to begin my climb.

I walked up to the ridge along the bank as the vegetation wasn’t as thick as it was further into the woods. The rocks were slippery and I fell numerous times but eventually made it to the top where the forest thinned out and parted. I could see blue expanse in every direction from the pinnacle. I was on an island. And an almost perfectly circular island at that. The side of the island that I had climbed up was lush and verdant, being covered in trees, bushes and shrubs. The other side of the island had trees as well but they were sparser and in the gaps between the trees tall grasses sprouted up. The island seemed split down the side by the ridge I was now straddling. The sparser side ran down to a long, wide beach that was glistening white. The beach bordered a large deep blue, almost black, lake that lay in the centre of the island. It was obviously unfathomably deep and hemmed in from the sea by a band of rock and coral on the opposing side to the beach. The beach unnerved me. It was strange as all the other beaches fringing the island were a dusty yellow colour but this one was blindingly white to the point I almost had to shield my eyes despite the distance. Whilst scanning around from the top of the ridge, I happened to spot what appeared to be a ship, wrecked on the beach to the North (what I took to be North) of where I landed. It didn’t appear to be the vessel I had been on. I thought it might well be the means of my escape and even if this wasn’t the case, I supposed that there might be supplies on board or even a radio I could use to contact the outside world. The undergrowth was so tangled that I reasoned the best path to take to the ship would be back down the stream and along the beach.

I’ve included a simple map of the island. I feel drawing the map and following my own path across it keeps the experience real for me. Whether this is actually a positive or negative thing… Well I cannot decide. Perhaps in the telling of my story I will find out.

The black X indicates where I awoke on the beach.
The red X indicates the summit of the ridge I climbed and from where I surveyed the land and the blue X the position of the wrecked boat.

I retraced my steps along the stream. The woods on either side were repressive and I felt lucky to have found the stream which made the journey so much easier. There was bird song all around and I started to think about what other animals called the island home. Just as I was thinking this something rustled in the leaves to my right and burst out directly at me. I slipped and fell hard but luckily was only left with a few grazes. My attacker sprinted off and it was then I realized it was a small species of deer and not a tiger or leopard as my mind had begun to conjure up. At least there was some source of food if I found nothing in the boat though I had no idea of how I would go about catching such a swift meal. I picked myself up and once I had made it back to the beach, walked along the sand to the wrecked ship. Once I got closer I saw it was some form of yacht but I confess I’m not an expert when it comes to boats. It was rolling and listing with every wave that sped up the beach. I thought for a second it might still be sea-worthy and my escape route off the island but these hopes were dashed as I saw the gash ripped up the side of the boat like a crooked smile. It was high up enough that small waves couldn’t reach it but I knew that as soon as it hit open water the smallest swell would swamp it and it would be rolling around at the bottom of the ocean in the mud.

I got to its side and jumped up, grabbing onto the railing. As I hung on, my weight caused the boat to shift and for a nauseating second I thought it was going to tip and crush me into the sand but I hoisted myself up and it settled out. The whole boat was trashed. Various pieces of equipment, lifejackets and personal effects littered the deck. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Over everything hung the smell of rotting wood and corrosion from the sea spray. The boat had obviously been stranded for a while, going by the condition of the sofas down below that were crumbling apart and the general state of decay. I fished around in the cupboards and boxes but it seemed most of the contents of the ship had been emptied onto the floor by, I presumed, the action of the previous night’s storm. I guessed the storm was also responsible for dislodging it from wherever it had become stuck and lifting it up the beach. It couldn’t have originally been stuck on the beach as I was sure the high tide would have cast it adrift. The tide was still out at this point but it was slowly coming in, ready to take the ship out and into its depths.

Continuing to search, I came across an inflatable dingey that didn’t seem to have any holes but wouldn’t have been much use out on the open ocean, some cans that didn’t have any labels but seemed to have survived intact and un-rusted, some old clothes (two salt encrusted shirts and a pair of trousers that looked too large but were otherwise in good condition), a fairly sharp 3 inch knife and a flare gun with 4 rounds in an airtight metal box. The flare gun was in excellent condition and I thought about maybe firing off a shot right then and there but changed my mind; I had to conserve the rounds for if I actually saw a boat or ship nearby. I was in the middle of nowhere and even if the flare went up 300 or 400 feet no one was likely to see it. I found the radio in the wheel house, unfortunately it had not fared nearly as well as the flare gun. It was weeping salt water and the front was hanging on only by its own wires. Dead.

I inflated the dingey and dropped it over the side, then threw my new supplies onto it before following suit and landing in the hot sand. Using the dingey as a sled I dragged my new supplies up to the tree line and sat in the shade. The clothes I had gotten from the yacht were soaked through so I laid them out on the sand to dry. It was exceedingly hot and after the day’s exertions, I found myself nodding off. I must have slept for an hour and a half as when I finally groggily awoke the Sun was rapidly sinking. I looked around and saw the dingey still under the shade of the tree but the drying clothes were gone. I was perplexed. I got up and looked down the length of the beach in both directions thinking the wind had taken them but there was no sign of them anywhere. Then I noticed the footprint. It was the right foot, long and thin and was missing the second smallest toe. The other footprints had been filled in by the wind but this one had remained sheltered by some driftwood. I wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand this footprint showed I wasn’t alone on the island and help could be nearby, but on the other it showed I was not alone on the island and a dangerous individual could be nearby. I hadn’t seen any villages or any signs of habitation from the ridge so it was likely they were on their own. Were they a castaway like myself? How long had they been here? It was starting to get dark so I thought it best to try and construct some sort of shelter and then try and find my neighbour in the morning. I found some large, leafy branches which seemed to be further casualties of the storm and propped them up against a low, wide tree branch. My “shelter” was complete. I dragged the dingey closer and took out the knife and flare gun before covering it in branches to hide it. I sat in my shelter with the knife laid on my left side. I loaded the flare gun and laid it out on my right. Just in case. I watched the Sun set and the tide come in and again my eyes grew heavy, my head sagged and I fell asleep.