A hurricane came unexpectedly....

So for the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice, longed for his old life and fixed his gaze on the sea, hoping to spot a rescue ship.

One day, as he was lying on the beach, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. It was a rowboat, and in it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. She rowed up to him. In disbelief, he asked her, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?"

"I rowed from the other side of the island," she said. "I landed here when my cruise ship sank."

"Amazing," he said. "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many are there? You were lucky to have a rowboat wash up with you."

"It's only me," she said, "And the rowboat didn't wash up; nothing did."

He was confused. "Then how did you get the rowboat?"

"Oh simple," replied the woman. "I made the rowboat out of the material that I found on the island. The oars were whittled from Gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from he palm branches and the sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."

"B-B-But that's impossible," stuttered the man. "You had no tools or hardware. How did you manage?"

"Oh, that was no problem," replied the woman. "On the other side of the island there is a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into a forgeable ductile iron. I used that for tools, and used the tools to make the hardware." But enough of that," she said. "Where do you live?"

Sheepishly, he confessed that he had been sleeping on the beach the whole time. "Well, let's row over to my place then," she said.

After a few minutes of rowing, she docked the boat at a small wharf. As the man looked to the shore, he nearly fell out of the boat. Before him was a stone walk leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. While the woman tied up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man could only stare ahead, dumbstruck.

As they walked into the house, she said casually, "It's not much, but I call it home.