Fred

One day we were on a small island where there were no boats, no engines, no fuel, no fresh water, and no food sources (except pigs). Stranded on a tropical island, I suppose. Except that there are lots of people who live there quite comfortably. They canoe over to the mainland (which takes about 30 minutes) to work in their gardens, wash, and get drinking water. So we could have just settled down and made ourselves some canoes, but we kind of wanted to finish the survey, and the next island was too far to get to in a dugout canoe.

Well, I don't know what your preferred strategy is when you are stranded on a tropical island, but personally I prefer to find the nearest Dutchman and see if he has any brilliant ideas. So that's what we did. On the way back from visiting a school, two of my teammates "happened" to meet Fred, a Dutch sawmill overseer living nearby. He cooked us an absolutely fabulously deliciously scrumptious dinner of tortillas and spicy meat (gourmet luxury items during a survey!) and we spent a very enjoyable evening chatting with him, during which he told us that he owned a boat and he was planning to go to a town the very next day to buy fuel. He offered to give us enough fuel to get to the next island, and take us there in his own boat. Thank you, Fred, for unstranding us! And thanks, God, for sending Fred.