Leave them there for six months and go back and see who's left. Sort of like a cannibalistic game of Survivor. I suspect that life would go on.
Speaking of islands, let's not dwell on it for too long, but some poor naval chap has failed navigation 101.
The rocks that the Navy's Royal barge (a clumsy name for a quite, in her own way, beautiful vessel) hit on Wednesday morning near Tutukaka are well known to locals.
"It's a bit of a shortcut," we're told. But only in the right conditions, at the right tide, I suspect.
The Navy experts are in good company - I have been in a boat that struck rocks near the Tutukaka Harbour entrance.
The "bang" and "thunk" of aluminum scraping the rocks was a frightening experience. We were trawling for kahawai and strayed too close to some barely submerged rocks. It was easy enough to do.
We got the hell out of there pretty quickly - no one was too worried we didn't catch any fish, we were alive.
It would seem, at first glance, that on Wednesday a piece of equipment has failed.
Time will tell whether the failure was a navigational aid or neurological.
