A Grain of Sand (2009) DOCUMENTARY from Wandering Eye on Vimeo.
Any documentary that starts with a quotation from Cavafy's "Ithaca" can't be all bad and, as it turned out, Brendon Grimshaw's story of one man and an island is a good one.
Millions dream of owning a desert island and getting away from it all. Brendon Grimshaw is one of the rare few to make the dream a reality. For more than a quarter of a century he lived alone on the tiny, palm-covered tropical island of Moyenne in the Seychelles.
Brendon Grimshaw was a successful newspaper editor at some of the most important newspapers in Africa when he decided to buy an island. Not so that he could brag about it to his rich friends back home, but because he loved nature and was ready to try something different.
So at the ripe age of 49, when most mortals are thinking retirement, he traded in the drive to work, the office, the responsibility, and the success, for a primitive life of uncertainty on Moyenne Island, which he purchased in 1964 for $20,000.
He moved to the island in 1973 and lived on it ever since. But the amazing part of the story isn’t the Robinson Crusoe headline. Beneath that bold print is the tale of a man who has unknowingly become a symbol for something far greater, far more relevant.
Since his arrival on the island, he completely restored the island’s habitat, planting over 16,000 trees, palms and shrubs. He has also brought and bred 109 free-roaming giant tortoises and over 2000 wild birds. His island now holds more than two thirds of all endemic plants to the Seychelles and has become a symbol of conservation.
Brendon was offered 45 million dollars for his island a few years before his death, but said no. His dying wish was that Moyenne Island become a national park for the people to enjoy, not just millionaires on vacation.
Brendon Grimshaw died in Victoria, the capital city of the Seychelles archipelago on Mahé Island, in July 2012, aged 87.
