Brett Martin

It was obvious that they were, in a word, shipwrecked.

The hungover sailors sat down to decide what to do.

Roman and Glubachonsky were in favor of waiting to be rescued or for the tide to rise and pull them out again.

Meanwhile, Alex was formulating his own plan.

Beyond the island they were closest to lay another landmass, which Alex was sure led somewhere.

His idea was to swim to it, walk to civilization, catch a bus somewhere, and bring back help for his friends, who, as Alex remembers it, thought the plan was frankly idiotic.

These are islands, said Roman, who in truth had actually been out on the bay before and was in a position to know.

But Alex was sure that Roman was wrong.

So Alex stripped to his underwear.

He put what he thought he might need in a waterproof plastic mayonnaise jar.

He brought his MetroCard, for the bus he was gonna swim to, an expired passport, for ID, and his favorite Buddhist medallion, for luck.

He wrapped his clothes in a cellophane blanket and bid his friends farewell.

Roman watched him disappear into the surf.

I'm still not sure I understand why you left your friends, though.

Except he didn't.

Soon he realized that he was indeed on another island, with no way off except to swim back through the freezing water to rejoin his friends.

And he wasn't about to do that.

He was alone.

So Alex set about doing all the things a good castaway should do.

He wrote a giant help in the sand for the benefit of the planes landing at JFK.