Chapter 14 The First Month, Now that I had finished with my daily trips to and from the ship, I needed to build a more permanent shelter.
The most important part of my life now was making sure I could be safe from any wild animals or natives.
Would it be better to make a more permanent tent, I wondered?
Or would it be smarter to find a cave to live in?
I sat down on the beach and contemplated both options.
Hmm.
I think I need both a cave for storage and a better tent.
The beach where I had set up camp was both too hot and not close enough to drinking water.
It was important to be able to see the sea, too, to watch for passing ships.
Shippy and I took a long walk around the island.
After about three hours, we came upon a nice grassy plain on the side of a rising hill.
It looked perfect.
It took me several days to move all of my supplies to my new camp.
I didn't want to stay there until I had moved absolutely everything.
I left Shippy there most nights to guard my things until there was nothing left down at our first camp.
First, I built a fort around the area where I had planned to pitch my tent.
I took young trees from the forest and planted them all around a small cave I had found.
Then I built up walls just inside the line of trees.
Instead of building a door to get into my wall, I built a ladder.
You couldn't be too safe, or at least that's how I felt.
But Shippy needed to get in and out too, so I created a space in the wall for him to come and go as he pleased.
I hid it with palm leaves so no one could notice it.
When I was done, my fort offered me great protection and peace of mind.
Next, I made a more solid structure to hold up the canvas top.
I built my new home so it backed into the cave, which I used for cold storage.
The days were busy.
As each one went by, I became more hopeful about survival.
All of my supplies eventually became well organized.
My gunpowder was separated into many different parcels to keep it safe from lightning, and my food was safely stored so it wouldn't spoil.
In those first few weeks, I would head out with my dog and a gun to hunt for food each morning.
There were lots of wild goats on this island.
They became a central part of my diet.
All in all, I had done well.
Who knew that I could build a fort or hunt for food?
Who knew that I had the strength and will to survive?
I was lucky.
I had food, water, and shelter.
The basics were covered.
With life's necessities taken care of, I had more time to think.
The hardest part about being on the island was spending so much time alone.
My thoughts roamed to my family.
It was upsetting to think I would never see them again.
I remembered my fellow sailors, the ones who weren't as lucky as I was, the ones who drowned.
I spent time just sitting and crying.
With the small bit of paper and ink I saved from the boat, I started to keep a diary.
On the days where my heart ached with everything I had lost or given up, it helped to write.
It was now somewhere around the end of October.
I had been away from Brazil for two months.
Right after I landed, I had made a sort of calendar on a big tree by the beach.
I had marked each day with a straight line, then crossed them out one week at a time.
We left Brazil on September the 1st and I knew we were at sea for 30 days before we hit that sandbar.
The tree showed that I had been on the island for one month, so I created a new calendar starting on September 30th, the day I landed on my island.
That would become my anniversary.
Now I knew one day from the next Friday, from Sunday Monday, from Wednesday, and that also set my mind at rest.
