MAROONED THE ULTIMATE ISOLATION GETAWAY
Back up a couple of months — pre-coronavirus. There is a small company in Hong Kong, Docastaway, that specialises in dropping people on desert islands in Asia, Oceania or Central America to survive by their own wits for as long as they want to, or can bear it. (They also offer “comfort” packages, featuring all of the seclusion and none, or at least far less, of the hardship). MAXIM thought I might like to give it a shot. Why me? I essentially have no survival skills whatsoever. That is, unless you count a ninja-like ability to ride 16 stops in a packed train without physically touching another human. I’m a creature of the city. On the whole, nature in the raw holds little appeal for me. I just don’t really know what to do with it. I’m also a profoundly pale man, paler than the arse of an Irish ghost in January. And a ginger. My brother once said I look like a marshmallow topped with carrot shavings. Which means that in addition to my issues with nature, I also hate the beach. And seafood.
Still, the idea of coming here was appealing, as I’d imagine it would be to all men. Most of us suspect, and a few know with certainty, that if the shit really came down, we’d be able to summon some dormant primordial power, some untapped cunning and resourcefulness and grit, and conquer the situation, whatever it was. We’d show what we’re really made of. We’d tap into a vestigial wildness. We’d survive. But would we?
“WHEN I ASKED FOR SOME BASIC SURVIVAL TIPS, THE TRAVEL COMPANY’S CO-FOUNDER SAID IT WAS BEST THAT I SUFFER. ‘OTHERWISE IT’S A VACATION.’”
The plan was this: I would travel from New York to Dubai to Jakarta and then take two more planes, followed by a car ride to a small fishing village, where I’d hand over a brick of Indonesian cash to pay for the experience, and then be ferried, finally, to a location I am contractually prohibited from revealing. (Docastaway generally rents publicly owned but little-known islands from governments, navies, or locals, and doesn’t want to broadcast their locations to
