Storm Island Expedition

Eastern Islet

Deidre had gotten lost in the northeastern forest.
A few weeks of hiking due east only led her to the coast.
She was starting to feel like her little part of the expedition was going to be a total bust, with nothing to show for her effort but maps and drawings of trees, trees, and more trees.
At the coast, she noticed off in the distance a little islet.  She couldn't tell much of it from there, but figured if she was going to be out in the middle of nowhere, she should at least do something practical in her exploration.
Given the distance out to the Islet, she knew she was going to need some sort of boat.
A full day scouring the woods, she had found a number of suitable tree to make a wide enough canoe with supports.  Then she picked up a number of convenient vines to lash everything together.
After setting up a camp, she got to work making the canoe.
Three days of cutting, chiseling, and lashing, she finally had a suitable boat to cross.
She rested up one more day before starting her journey.

The next morning, she set out.
After setting out, she hadn't anticipated the currents to be so rough. What she thought would be a three hour trek, ended up taking until nightfall.
She barely had the energy to drag the canoe up onto the beach and toss some gear out.
Moments later, she collapsed from exhaustion.

She awoke mid-morning with almost all of her muscles still stiff.
A brief look about, the islet she was on was wider than she thought.  As she looked north or south, she could barely see the blue of the water.  Even to the east, where the islet was narrowest, she could tell it was a good distance to the water.

The Islet itself was rather unremarkable. Sand, rocks, barely a few gangly palm trees to provide the most basic shade.  She did find a few crabs skittering about, a bird or two, but apparently even the local wildlife didn't find the islet very interesting.
As she toured the coast, she found almost nothing washed ashore. The constant churning of the tide would quickly wash away whatever did manage to make it to shore.
Even as she tried to take one or two steps into the water to look for anywhere small groups of fish would get together, the currents would nearly knock her off her feet.

When she reached the southern tip of the islet, she found something that distressed her.
A makeshift camp.  The remains of a tent, old weathered ropes, and empty containers.
A closer inspection revealed two bodies, the bones bleached white, almost the same color as the sand.
She also found the remains of a journal.  It was fairly thick, but only a few pages were filled in.  The only passages of note were how the small party (five originally) got stranded there, as their small boat capsized. Within a few days, three died of dehydration.  No help was going to come in time.

The mood of the next few pages turned darker.  The final two had slowly descended into madness. References to the crabs watching them during the night, or how the palm tree was listening.
The last few lines were barely legible, but Deidre really didn't want to try and figure out their meaning.
She started back to her canoe as quickly as she could.  The only thought on her mind was getting off the islet.  If they had gotten trapped, she didn't want to join them.

To Deidre's horror, the canoe was no longer on the beach.
As she scanned about, she noticed a log out in the water a few hundred feet away and drifting south. Took her only a moment to realize it was her canoe, along with most of her supplies.  When she scanned the beach for anything else she might have left about, she found a spare bag with holes in it ... about the size of what a crab claw would cut.
She had no water, very little food.
Despondent, she went back to the remains of the previous owner's camp.

She set as large of a signal fire as she could muster from the wood she found.

As she stared into the fire, she began writing in her own journal.
She spent hours trying to think of what to really say, constantly scratching out lines.
Finally, she just left the line "I hope someone sees the fire."
The next day, she found a few more bits of driftwood, but the heat and exposure to the sun were already taking a toll.
She set one more fire.
She took another turn at writing in her journal, hoping it might keep her busy or sane.
The only lines again she could think of were how the fire looked so inviting.
Over the course of the day, she had a few "discussions" with the 2 skeletons.  She did think they were very good listeners, considering the rest of the company she was keeping.
The crabs that skittered about did seem to be plotting something.
By nightfall, her discussions with the 2 skeleton had grown very strange.  In the burning embers of the fire, she thought she saw the 2 figures motioning for her to join them.

The last thing she wrote was "maybe this islet won't be so bad after all."