Uncharted Read Free Page B

paper that I recognized as one of the emails I’d sent to him.
    The first item was an Iridium satellite phone. He’d informed me that my regular cell phone wouldn’t work because the island was too remote. “My number is already programmed into it, so if you get in trouble, or you need me, all you have to do is push this button,” he said, pointing to it and handing the phone to me. He leaned in and pointed to another button. “If for some reason I don’t answer, call this number. It’s the airport. The battery should last for months if you don’t start calling people when you get lonely.”
    “I’m not going to call anybody,” I said. There wasn’t a single person I’d left behind that I wanted to talk to.
    He reached for the next item, a large backpack resting on the sand. It was the kind that serious hikers used when they wanted to go backcountry camping and not be dependent on anyone else to carry in their supplies. The last time I’d used a backpack like this was when I was twelve years old. For my birthday I’d asked my dad to sign me up for a week-long backpacking and rock-climbing expedition in the Sierra Nevada mountains through Outward Bound. My dad and I loved to camp, and he’d been taking me with him for as long as I could remember. My mom wasn’t interested and neither was my sister, but I never felt happier than when I was outdoors, and the more remote the location, the better. When my dad brought the Outward Bound brochure home and we read through it together, I knew right away that I was up for the challenge.
    The seven days I spent in the wilderness was everything I had hoped for, and it changed me in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time. But my dad died of a brain aneurysm two days after I got back from my Outward Bound expedition, and I hadn’t been camping since.
    Now, standing on the beach, I wondered if my desire to live on the island, alone and in such a desolate place, was my attempt to re-create the way I felt on that expedition. I was too young back then to experience a true epiphany, but I’d sensed that something larger existed. Some sort of awakening that could be achieved only by living in a place virtually untouched by other humans, in total solitude.
    I unzipped the backpack and pulled out the contents: sleeping bag, ground mat, and tent. I didn’t necessarily need the backpack, but it kept everything contained and made it easier to transport the items from the seaplane to the beach. It might come in handy when I explored the island.
    He picked up the list and made a checkmark as I sifted through the contents of a large cardboard box and said them out loud. “Camp stove, fuel, knife, lighter, flashlight, fishing pole, tackle box, a pot and pan, first-aid kit, utensils, insect repellant, sunscreen, solar shower, shovel, large, wide-mouth plastic container, toilet paper, and garbage bags.”
    The nonperishable food was next. Everything was dehydrated and vacuum-packed or in a can with a metal pull tab. There were plenty of nuts, dried cereal and fruit, beef jerky, and a powdered drink mix I could add water to. Cans of green beans and corn. “The lagoon is full of fish. There’s coconuts and breadfruit. You’ll have plenty to eat.”
    He pointed to the three seven-gallon containers that contained drinking water. “Keep those in the shade,” he said. “The water won’t be cold, but it’ll stay a bit fresher. It’s not enough to last you for thirty days, but if you collect rain water in this—he held up the plastic container—you’ll be fine.”
    “Okay,” I said. Making sure I had enough water made me nervous. When I first started corresponding with him, and explained what I wanted to do, he said that lack of fresh water was the biggest obstacle to living on an uninhabited island.
    “Make sure you put everything that can’t be burned in one of the garbage bags. You’ll bring it back with you so we can dispose of it.”
    I planned on treating the island