Marooning

• 1520: Juan de Cartagena and Pedro Sánchez de la Reina • 1542: Marguerite de La Rocque, rescued in 1544 (two others died) • 1629: Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom de Bye, from Batavia • 1704: Alexander Selkirk, rescued in 1709, another source for Robinson Crusoe • 1725: Leendert Hasenbosch, a Dutch sailor, was marooned on the deserted Ascension Island in 1725 as a punishment for sodomy. He is believed to have died there of thirst later that year. In 1726, his tent and diary were discovered by passing British sailors, and his diary was later translated and published in London. • 1807: Robert Jeffery, rescued eight days later. Captain Warwick Lake of marooned an impressed seaman, Robert Jeffrey, on Sombrero island on 13 December 1807. Eight days later, a passing American vessel, the schooner Adams from Marblehead, Massachusetts, rescued him. A court martial later dismissed Lake from the Royal Navy. ==In literature==

Probably the most famous literary reference to marooning occurs in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in which Ben Gunn is left marooned on the island for three years. A famous real-life marooning, initially at his own request, was that of the sailor Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernández Island off the coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean. Selkirk, a sailor with the Dampier expedition, was worried about the unseaworthy condition of his ship, the Cinque Ports, and had argued with the captain until he left Selkirk ashore on the island where they had briefly stopped for water and food supplies. The Cinque Ports indeed later sank with the loss of most of her crew. Selkirk was not rescued until four years later, by Woodes Rogers. Selkirk's travails provided part of the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe. Today there are islands off the Chilean coast named Alejandro Selkirk Island and Robinson Crusoe Island. ==In television==

In 2012, Ed Stafford marooned himself on an uninhabited island off Fiji as an experiment for 60 days. He took with him no food, water, or equipment of any kind, except cameras to film the ordeal for Discovery Channel. Stafford completed the task and documents the psychological repercussions in his book Naked and Marooned. ==See also==