TWO MORNINGS LATER, a raptor perched on the branch of a large dead tree, near the breakfast log where I'd chew my daily cud of coconut. He seemed unconcerned when I crept within ten feet of him; he stood there for 30 minutes staring at the ocean, trying to figure out what the hell to do with his day. We had a lot in common.

I wasn't sure what kind of bird of prey he was, but he was handsome, well-groomed, and slightly aloof, so I named him after the guy I thought starred in the 1980s TV show Falcon Crest: Pierce Brosnan. (Only later would I realize it was Lorenzo Lamas—and the bird was a hawk.)

Pierce went fishing soon after the christening, and I followed suit. There was a stocked tide pool just up the point that looked like a great sushi bar. It was 8:30 A.M. and I was hungry, so I made a fish trap. I hadn't eaten in 20 hours. I cut the top off a two-liter plastic bottle, then jury-rigged it with some branches inside. With any luck, fish would swim into the bottle for the slime-nugget guts laid as bait, but wouldn't be able to swim back out—like a lobster trap.

After setting the trap, I scarfed down 18 nuggets. I was weak, tired, and lonely. In eight days, I'd made no progress with fire. Part of the problem (besides the lack of a lighter) was that I was sitting in the middle of a hardwood forest, and I needed softwood to make fire. I spent all my nights in darkness and ate every meal raw. That wasn't my only failure. I spent three days tying a fishing net that wouldn't have caught a basketball. It took me a day and a half to carve bone spearpoints, which were too short. I launched a sophisticated operation called Bait and Bash, lining a shallow pool with slime nuggets to attract fish that, in theory, I would then pound with a rock. I missed every time. I was failing, critically, and sometimes hourly, and I had no one to turn to.

Exhausted, I cracked a coconut and lay under a tree that seeped caustic sap. "I am the world's most pathetic human," I muttered. "I can't make fire, I don't have any fish. I should have gone into real estate." It degenerated. "Tomorrow will be harder than today, and today is the hardest it has ever been." It was only 11:30 in the morning.

Stroud had advised me that staying busy was the best way to stave off depression. There's just one problem with that: Staying busy hurt. Filling water bottles exhausted me. Opening coconuts left me drained.

And then, as quickly as it hit, the despair retreated, driven away by stubborn pragmatism. I checked my fish trap. No sushi tonight. I untangled part of a fishing-line heap that had washed up on shore and began tying a net. I went for a long swim, saw a three-foot moray eel, and navigated a tight swim-through. Back on shore I ate 15 more nuggets, got cleaned up, and began clearing a path from the beach to Monticello. As the sun set, I thought, Tomorrow may be harder than today, but today wasn't too bad.