Three days on a sand cay
Eighty-nine crew and 10 prisoners survived the sinking. Four prisoners and 31 of the Pandora’s crew had perished. The 99 survivors made for a tiny sand cay about 4 km away in four open boats. They called this tiny island “Escape Cay”—it is one of four existing cays in the area now called Pandora Entrance, and most probably the one currently referred to as “Preservation Cay”.
The cay was a barren strip of sand without water or shade. According to prisoner James Morrison, it was “… scarcely 150 yards in circuit and not more than six feet from the (sea) level at high water.”
There was no hope of rescue. Crammed onto the cay, they took stock of their situation. Captain Edwards was faced with the daunting task of getting his crew and the prisoners back to England alive. He had only four of the ship’s boats and very little water and provisions had been saved. The prisoners were sent to one end of the cay, under guard, and ordered not to speak to anyone.
James Morrison (prisoner):
“… the sun took such an effect on us who had been cooped up for these five months that we had our skin flayed off, from head to foot, altho’ we kept ourselves covered in sand during the heat of the day …”
During the first night on the cay, one of the Pandora’s crew, James Connell, nearly went mad. Suffering from extreme thirst, he had drunk seawater. The survivors had only been allowed two small glasses of fresh water per day.
Shelters were made using sails from the ship’s boats. The prisoners were denied the use of an old sail to erect a shelter. Their only protection against the fierce sun was to bury themselves in the sand during the day. The exposure began to take effect.
Surgeon Hamilton:
“… the heat of the sun, and the reflection from the sand, was now excruciating; and our stomachs being filled with salt water … rendered our thirst most intolerable …” The day after the wreck, George Passmore, the Pandora’s Master, was sent back to the wreck in one of the boats to see if any useful flotsam could be salvaged. He returned with several pieces of the mast, some lighting chain and the ship’s cat, which he found sitting in the “crosstrees” (the mast top platform) protruding above the waves.