NONSUCH 



— two hundred yards southwest of my boat and 

 marked by a giant angle in the center of the 

 reef. 



Almost Island is in an exposed position, sepa- 

 rated from the open sea by only a few yards of 

 reefs and boilers. Swells coming in do not actually 

 break, but they swirl around the boilers and begin 

 to slow up and gain height at the friction of the 

 shallows. My first problem was to arrange for a 

 safe landing whenever the wind and sea permitted. 

 We tried throwing out an anchor to windward, 

 with the result that we usually lost the anchor or 

 had a difficult time freeing it, and often the stern 

 of the launch would swing in a quarter circle, chaf- 

 ing the metal ladder against the reef. A heavy piece 

 of iron and a chain, attached to a log buoy well to 

 windward helped, and finally another far out on 

 the sand made my island easy of access; the boat 

 was like a double-moored zeppelin over an inacces- 

 sible island above water. 



Proper islands are delineated by geographers and 

 the makers of maps with rulers and compasses, 

 squares and dividers. I was my own dividers in the 

 present instance. 



While my bit of land more than justified the name 

 of island by being surrounded with water, yet its 

 actual area was extremely personal and ungeo- 

 graphic. I estimate it to be roughly circular and 

 about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter. As 

 I say I was the measuring dividers — the pump on 

 the launch being the center, the hose the radial 



34 



