World Island Info

Usually I am derided by Canadians who mistakenly think I’ve called Vancouver Island “Victoria Island.” Here’s a refreshing bit of abuse from the world’s smallest continent. Or is it the world’s second-largest island, after Antarctica? Who can say…

What a moronic website – please – Australia IS an ISLAND to display the logic of it is also a continent does not preclude it from being an Island – quite retarded. Secondly your presumption that the continent is Austalia and not even consider the reality that the continent is more aptly termed OCEANIA or AUSTRALASIA – but not even mention these facts as they contrast with your preconceived opinions. So under any definition Australia is an Island – is also a rock, a country, MAYBE a continent, a former colony, part of the commonwealth etc,etc,etc but NONE of these preclude it from being an ISLAND. Moron.

Incidentally, “Oceania” and “Australasia” are terms for regions that include Australia, not the continent of Australia itself.

In any case, thank you for the funny comment.

An American Congressman recently spent a week alone on an island in the Marshall Islands.

Rep. Jeff Flake had himself marooned on Jabonwod, an islet in an atoll in the Marshall Islands. It was not exactly high adventure: he swam and fished, got lonely, and watched the sunsets.

My favorite aspect: he wrote numbers on crabs that passed through his campsite, till he had 126 trackable companions.

Flake was fairly well-equipped:

No food, just mask, fins and a pole-spear to obtain it. No water, only a manual desalination pump to create fresh water. No matches, only a magnifying glass. And a hammock, knife, hatchet, sunscreen, cooking pot and salt and pepper. Oh, and a satellite phone and Coast Guard beacon should I eat the wrong fish

I once spent a week alone on an uninhabited island. I brought food with me, but my island was big enough that people would not have known where I was, and I didn’t have a satellite phone; if I’d been injured, I was on my own with the bears and moose.

(Image courtesy mrlins, Flickr)