THE CASTAWAYS
Location: The Castaways is the name of a privately owned island resort located on a tropical
island about 140 miles north of the Mauritas
Description: About three miles long and one mile wide, the tropical island is actually part of a dormant undersea volcano formed from coral and volcanic ash. The lush island has a cornucopia of coconut, palm, breadfruit, lemon, orange and grapefruit trees as well as a variety of natural wonders such as deposits of gold and lead and even a natural gas spring. Numerous caves dot the island which is populated by apes and tropical birds left behind by natives. The lower end of the island has a rather scenic lagoon enhanced by a waterfall while the northern part of the island reaches to a cliff. Numerous huts and bungalows today dot the island which has been converted into a resort. The native staple includes fish and lobster.
Ghostly Manifestations:
“It’s a beautiful lush island far removed from civilization with a great
natural beauty anyone can appreciate, but after dark, and after night has
fallen, and the jungle falls quiet, there are several places on the island I
would not want to venture into by myself.” Personal Journal of Skipper Jonas
Grumby, July 26, 1982.
For a long time an abandoned former Naval
post, and then a deserted tropical island, the resort isle known as the
Castaways has suddenly gained a lot of attention for its remoteness and as a
scenic getaway from the pressures of civilization. On September 22, 1964, a
small excursion boat known as the S.S. Minnow carrying passengers around
Honolulu was swept out to see by a sudden storm not reported on their radio. It
ended a few days later with the boat beached on this island and a shipwreck that
lasted almost fourteen years. In recent years, the island has been converted to
a resort for others to go through the “shipwrecked” experience. While the
seven people of the Minnow seemed to have survived, there are signs that there
was an earlier craft that was not as fortunate.
While the island today has become a year long
summer resort for vacationers, a few tourists have shared stories reported
between previous visitors. Guests with bungalows near and in the jungle have
reported the shadows and visages of other people moving through the palm trees
and drifting along the edge of the lagoon. At least one photo out of five made
on the island always has some extra blurred person existing just beyond the
distance in an otherwise perfect picture. The clientele who run The Castaways
don’t like to confirm the stories, but they do have to admit it keeps some
people returning for more.
At times, resort employees have had equipment
problems with strange messages calling for help, usually from uninhabited
bungalows on the island. Security has reported campfires and bonfires left
behind by careless campers on the far side of the island despite the fact that
open fires are not permitted. The sound of native drums wafting through the
trees from an indiscernible location has spooked just a few guests while others
attribute it to the Polynesian appeal.
“I’ve been up and down these islands while
I was in the war.” Retired Naval Captain Jonas Grumby remarked in an interview
before his death. “I saw a lot of weird things that at the time I couldn’t
explain and to this day I still can’t explain. But during all the years I was
shipwrecked here with my little buddy and the five passengers, I often thought
it was odd that we could never get rescued. It was almost as if some invisible
force was purposely putting out our fires, removing our provisions and foiling
our attempts to leave the island. It’s odd that we didn’t get rescued until
that storm swept out into the shipping lanes.”
One story that Grumby repeats when the topic
of the ghosts comes up involves a businessman who visited the resort shortly
after it opened. He was coming up the path to the lagoon when he looked ahead
and saw a dark female figure rising out of the water. He thought it was one of
the native girls who welcome the guests as he watched her rise up slowly out of
the water, but it wasn’t until he got within distance to touch her that he
realized she wasn’t of the human sort.
“I never heard a man scream like that
before.” Grumby adds with a jovial friendly laugh.
There is one other thing that most visitors
comment on and that’s the over-powering sense of dread in some parts of the
island where the palm trees completely black out the sun from hitting the
ground. In several of the sunny spots, you can always hear bird calls, apes and
animal sounds from the trees, but when you’re on the path for the bungalows,
everything falls quiet as if, as one visitor described: “You feel as if you
are the only person in the world.” At least one tourist had a panic attack in
1989 because he felt someone was watching him.
History: Before any known people
on the island, Native Maori and Papuan natives on the nearby islands shared
stories that the island was not intended for any living person. In fact, an
early primitive reference calls the island “Hina-nui-tai-poi” or “Land of
Unliving.” A few Polynesian totem poles, relics and stone carvings have been
found and excavated in and near the caves with the proviso that there is a curse
on whoever disturbs their resting places.
“To this day,” Professor Roy Hinkley today
leads walking tours of the island to the guests. “We often get objects mailed
back to us from people who left the island with something. We’ve received
rocks, old jewels and pieces of pottery from people claiming that they’ve had
bad luck since they left the island with the objects.”
Evidence that the island was a military base
during World War Two is also obvious. Rusted weapons and crates left in caves
have been continually found; old Quonset huts devoured by vegetation were
revealed after a tumultuous storm in 1978 and forgotten munitions pits are used
to store foodstuffs and rations. Although no records of the island’s use can
be found in any military records, an old landing field has turned up on the flat
end of the island. Between the late 1950s to the early 1960s, the island was in
the path of the military testing range, but that ended after natives were
discovered on some of the local neighboring islands.
Evidence has also appeared that the island has
been used as a hideout from time to time from criminals on the run from the law
since at least the 1920s. A parrot left behind from one of these visits is still
repeating snippets of their conversation after all this time.
The S.S. Minnow landed on the island on September 28, 1964 after leaving Honolulu harbor on September 22. Grumby was the skipper and his First Mate was a young ward named William “Buddy” Gilligan. The passengers consisted of wealthy industrialist and philanthropist Thurston Howell III, his socialite wife Eunice Lovee Howell, struggling actress Ginger Grant, a farm girl named Mary Ann Summers who had won a Hawaiian vacation and experienced survivalist and scoutmaster Professor Roy Hinkley. All of them became partners of the resort Howell built on the island in the late Seventies. Since his death, his son and heir, Thurston Howell IV, now manages The Castaways.
Identity of Ghosts: It is believed that some of the hauntings are the product of ancient voodoo practices left over from ancient rituals, but some references are made to another shipwreck that occurred on the island sometime in the 1930s when Silent Film director Ricardo Laughingwell, his wife Fifi LeFrance and a magician known as The Great Raftini among other party guests were stranded on the island with their crew. No one is quite sure what happened to them, but relics and ruined supplies have been discovered that belonged to them. No trace of any survivors has ever been found, but theories blame abduction by unfriendly natives and conditions too harsh for their survival.
Comments: Gilligan’s Island (1964-1967). Particularly the episodes: “The Ghost,” “Voodoo Something to Me” and “Castaway Pictures Presents.” Hauntings loosely based on Palmyra Island.