A man who survived alone for three days on an isolated, uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean has said that the experience made him realise ‘just how lucky we are’.
Paul Bowness, 45, swapped his home comforts in Wallasey, UK, for a tiny island 95km off the coast of Panama, Central America, on a ‘bucket list’ survivalist retreat that left him thirsty, hungry and exhausted as temperatures soared to more than 30C.
Left alone on the island with nothing but some rudimentary tools and a walkie talkie for emergencies, Bowness – who works as a consultant in his regular life – had to catch fish and forage for food, drink water from fallen coconuts, and build a shelter out of anything he could find on the beach that was his home.
While the experience was ‘much more difficult than (he) thought’, with the isolation affecting him more than he expected, Bowness raised £2,368 (BD1,200) for the charity SOS Children’s Villages – which works around the world to support children and young people who don’t have, or are at risk of losing parental care – and said the experience made him ‘really realise how lucky we’ve got it’ at home in the UK.
“You take things for granted – if you’re hungry, for us, we just go to the fridge and get some food. On that island, when I was hungry, I got up early, started fishing at 9am, caught the fish, had to gut the fish, scale the fish, prepare the fish, make a fire… It’s like five hours, just for a fish,” Bowness said.
“Life is not easy for a lot of people, and we take a lot for granted – I certainly realised that on the island.”
In February 2026, Bowness set off for Panama’s Pearl Islands, off the coast of the Central American country, to a tiny 3km by 1km island that was to be his home.
He had planned the trip through Desert Island Survival, a company he had come across on social media when an advert ‘popped up at a time that was pretty right for me – I was really stressed with work, life got a bit tough, and I remember thinking: I just need a new adventure’.
Bowness met a group of fellow adventurers for five days of training on the island where ‘there’s no phone signal, there’s no electricity, nothing on there at all’, and was taught essential skills like building shelter and catching fish.
He also learned about the dangers of the island wilderness: ‘There are sharks in the sea, you have to shuffle to get into the sea so you don’t get stung by a sting ray. There’s deadly snakes, there’s poisonous spiders, there’s an apple tree that grows all over the island that’s poisonous, deadly’.
Then it was time for Bowness to go it alone – he was transported to a remote part of the island which was completely ‘isolated’ once the tide came in – ‘unless you want to get your machete and trek through a jungle,’ he said.
He didn’t take any extra water, a sleeping bag or other comforts, just minimal essentials like a knife and a first aid kit.
“And that’s it. You’re on your own, you’ve got to build your shelter, find water, make fire, get food, and do all that for three days,” he said.
“It was much more difficult than I thought, to be honest,” Bowness added.
“When things go wrong, you realise: ‘I am on my own. I’ve got no one to talk to’.”
Bowness’s first job on arrival was to build a shelter, using a wide branch as the supporting beam and sea hibiscus to secure it before hacking down palm leaves and using those for coverage from the sun.
The only drinking water available was coconut water, so Bowness needed to go and collect some coconuts to drink from before heading to the sea to try and catch some food. He only managed to catch one fish on the first day, leaving him hungry at dinner time. Desperate, Bowness cooked some limpets he’d foraged for fishing bait and had “five limpets for dinner – horrible”.
However, the second day on the island brought all manner of challenges.
Bowness had gone out foraging, both for coconuts and tools – ‘you wouldn’t believe how much rubbish is washed up on shores, but for survival, that’s good, because you find things that you need’, he explained – but he returned to his camp to find disaster had struck.
He said: “The tide had come up, and got up to where my sand bank was and washed away my big supporting pole. My whole house collapsed.”
To make matters worse, Bowness ‘didn’t catch any food on day two, so I hadn’t eaten anything. And then trying to sleep was awful’.
At these challenging times, when even the basic essentials needed for survival are lost, Bowness really recognised how difficult it was ‘being alone and trying to keep yourself motivated’ – especially when he was hungry, thirsty and tired.
It was a moment for him to reflect on the privilege he experienced at home in the UK, where houses are stable, food readily available, drinking water able to be poured directly from a clean tap.
“You just really realise how lucky we’ve got it,” he said.
By the third day, however, Bowness was settling into island life – he rebuilt his shelter, made himself some ‘coconut popcorn’ by roasting coconut on the fire, and caught two fish for a delicious dinner.
Soon enough, it was time for the rescue boats to collect him on the fourth day of his solo survival mission and he returned – more aware of how much ‘we take life for granted’.
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