Pedro Luis Serrano was a Spanish sailor who was supposed to have been

marooned Marooned may refer to: * Marooning, the intentional act of abandoning someone in an uninhabited area Film and television * ''Marooned'' (1933 film), a British drama film * ''Marooned'' (1969 film), an American science-fiction film * ''Marooned ...

for seven or eight years in the sixteenth century on a small

desert island A desert island, deserted island, or uninhabited island, is an island, islet or atoll that is not permanently populated by humans. Uninhabited islands are often depicted in films or stories about shipwrecked people, and are also used as stereot ...

. Details of the story differ, but the most common version has him shipwrecked on a small island in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

off the coast of

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...

in 1520s. He had no access to fresh water and lived off the blood and flesh of sea turtles and birds and was insane by the time he was rescued. The tale of Serrano may have been loosely based on the historical case of "Maestre Joan", who stranded on cay of what is now named

Serrana Bank Serrana Bank is a Colombian-administered atoll in the western Caribbean Sea. It is a mostly underwater reef about 50 km long and 13 km wide and has six cays, or islets, the largest of which is Southwest Cay. Geography The cays fro ...

in 1528, and was rescued eight years later.. The name Serrana Bank first appears on a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

map of 1545. Other versions place the events in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

off the coast of

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

as late as the 1540s. There is some doubt about the historicity of the tale. The earliest known source is Garcilaso de la Vega's ''

Comentarios Reales de los Incas The ''Comentarios Reales de los Incas'' is a book written by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the first published mestizo writer of Colonialism, colonial Andean South America. The ''Comentarios Reales de los Incas'' is considered by most to be the unqu ...

'' (1609).

References

External links

Trivia Library feature on Serrano
{{DEFAULTSORT:Serrano, Pedro Year of birth missing Year of death missing Castaways 16th-century Spanish people

Further reading

References

External links