Cactus tastes like warm stomach bile.
Perhaps some day when I have boatloads of extra time I will write more about my experience from Cinco De Mayo weekend of 1995. My cousin Mark and I were shipwrecked on this deserted desert island, Isla Ángel de la Guarda, in the middle of the Sea of Cortez with no food and no water for 4 days. Fun stuff, that hypothermia, starvation, dehydration, delirium, and hallucinations.
In the meantime you can learn more in a few other places:
- The story was dramatized for television in the episode, Shipwrecked, of the Discovery Channel series, I Shouldn’t Be Alive.
- On IMDB: Shipwrecked — here’s my itty-bitty profile on IMDB: Me on IMDB
- Watch the full episode on YouTube (while it lasts)
- Watch the full episode on Vimeo (also see below).
- It was also released in Britain on Channel 4 as episode Desert Island Shipwreck of the show Alive. Theirs is perhaps the best written description.
- It’s barely mentioned on WikiPedia: Shipwrecked
- The incident was covered briefly in the LA Times as part of an article about several Baja California shipwrecks: Baja Adventurers Often Led Astray by Ill Winds
Until then, may your sails arch full and your compass point true.
