Patrick Watkins (sailor)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Graeme Bartlett (talk | contribs) at 11:19, 1 September 2018 (clean up, replaced: novellist → novelist). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Patrick Watkins was an Irish sailor who was marooned on Floreana, an island of the Galápagos Islands, from 1807 to 1809.[1] He was the first resident of the Galapagos.[2] According to later accounts,[3] Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables, and trading with visiting whalers, before finally stealing an open boat and navigating to Guayaquil, Ecuador.[2]

Popular culture

Spanish novelist Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa based his 1982 novel Iguana on the case of Watkins. Later, the novel was cinematized by American director Monte Hellman in 1988.[4]

References

  1. ^ Ira Basen, Jane Farrow, Amy Wallace, and David Wallechinsky, "9 ORDINARY MEN WHO PLAYED KING," The Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information, Canadian Edition (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2005), 270.
  2. ^ a b Heinzel, Hermann; Hall, Barnaby (2000). Galapagos Diary : A Complete Guide to the Archipelago's Birdlife. University of California Press. p. 119. ISBN 978-0-520-22836-8.
  3. ^ John Coulter retails a hearsay story about Pat in Adventures in the Pacific (Dublin, 1845; facsimile ed., New Delhi, Isha Books, 2013), chap. V.
  4. ^ Iguana DVD Video Review