Castaways 3

Juan Fernández first discovered the archipelago on November 22, 1574, when he strayed on the way from Peru to Valparaíso. The boots of the pirates that first made landfall on Más a Tierra, were unable to find dirt, for the density of Juan Fernández seals underfoot. ‘We were forced to kill them to set our feet on shore.’ The maritime fur trade fixed that problem so perfectly that they, like the aromatic Santalum fernandezianum trees, and the rebellious convicts in the later penal colony that were hunted down after their escape back to mainland Chile, were thought to have become extinct. The colony of two hundred seals that were rediscovered in the mid-20th century, had multiplied back to a thunderous welcoming party, on the rocks near the long ramshackle wooden jetty, at the bottom of the steep switchback trail. The small black pups, with their short ears and stubby flippers and hairy manes and bulbous noses, had no memory of the previous tribal genocide, and approached us with playful curiosity and yelping fish breath, despite their mothers’ raucous warnings.
At uneven intervals, in the troughs between the churning foam swells on Bahía del Padre, we made out the shape of a determined small craft, heading towards us. One moment it was visible, the next submerged. The two crewmen carefully stayed away from crashing directly into the pier, and skillfully timing the rollers, for just the right moment for us to throw our packs, and then ourselves, into the hard bottom of their lobster boat. Once loaded, and deeper in the cauldron, they nudged us out between the two rock pincers of the cove entrance, on the hour-long trip around the massive jagged vertical cliffs of the northern coast, and the foamed chaos dancing at their feet.
Despite the absence of vital signs or vegetation, I could see why this fragile island would have been an ideal pirate hideout- There was fresh water in abundance from waterfalls and streams, seals for meat and lamp oil and clothing, an equitable climate, and no snakes or predators. It was far enough from the Spanish authorities, but close enough to the shipping lanes of their treasure-laden galleons, closer still to the wild goats they had released here.