[00:01.080]--- lesson 12 Life on a desert island
[00:07.280]--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:13.040]--- What was exceptional about the two men's stay on the desert island?
[00:19.960]Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island.
[00:25.880]We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines.
[00:33.160]Life there is simple and good.
[00:36.120]Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work.
[00:40.360]The other side of the picture is quite the opposite.
[00:43.760]Life on a desert island is wretched.
[00:47.120]You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, Waiting for a boat which never comes.
[00:54.840]Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures,
[00:58.960]but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.
[01:03.160]Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island wished they had stayed there longer.
[01:09.720]They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired.
[01:16.360]During the journey, their boat began to sink.
[01:19.880]They quickly loaded a small rubber dinghy with food, matches, and cans of beer
[01:25.400]and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island.
[01:32.080]There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not prove to be a problem.
[01:39.320]The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy.
[01:43.120]As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat.
[01:47.200]They caught lobster and fish every day，and, as one of them put it 'ate like kings'.
[01:53.680]When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave.^5