"I would love to find a couple of ladies who want to visit a couple of times a year.".
David Glasheen is a lot like Tom Hanks' character in Castaway, except his pal is a dog named Polly and not a volleyball named Wilson. Oh, and he actually wants to live on a desert island.
Once a gold-mining tycoon and property mogul, the 73-year-old lost a fortune of over $10 million in the 1987 stock market crash. In the years immediately after, Glasheen struggled to find tranquility amid a divorce and a sort of existential crisis.
Eventually, he found it on Restoration Island off the coast of Northeast Australia. And 20 years, Glasheen told The Sun he loves his little piece of "heaven on earth."
"I love it here because I have my safety, no matter how old and how tough you are you still want to go to bed knowing you are not going to be attacked," he said.
"I want to die here—where else would I? This is my heaven on earth."
He is able to stay self-sufficient with the help of solar panels and a back-up generator for electricity, and he travels to the town of Cairns once a year to pick up essentials like rice and cooking oil. But Glasheen does admit to one thing he misses.
"You do miss intelligent conversation and the physical contact of other people," he said. "I would love to find a partner who wants to live with me here, or a couple of ladies who want to come and visit a couple of times a year."