以阅读为中心
English-first · 逐句朗读
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Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island.
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We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines.
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Life there is simple and good.
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Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work.
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The other side of the picture is quite the opposite.
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Life on a desert island is wretched.
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You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes.
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Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.
- 09
Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island wished they had stayed there longer.
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They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired.
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During the journey, their boat began to sink.
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They quickly loaded a small rubber dinghy with food, matches, and cans of beer and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island.
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There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not prove to be a problem.
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The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy.
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As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat.
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They caught lobster and fish every day, and, as one of them put it ‘ate like kings’.
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When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave.