Patrick Watkins (sailor)

Patrick Watkins was an Irish sailor who was marooned on Floreana, an island of the Galápagos Islands, from 1805 to 1809. He is the first known permanent resident of the Galapagos. According to later accounts, Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables, and trading with visiting whalers, before finally stealing an longboat from a whaling ship, impressing five of its crew as his "slaves", and navigating to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Watkins was the only one of the six to survive the journey.

Legacy
Spanish novelist Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa based his 1982 novel Iguana on the case of Watkins. Later, the novel was cinematized by American director Monte Hellman in 1988.