Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness ... out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo." Richard Branson's "Extreme Tech Challenge" has been hosted annually at Necker Island since 2015. Described as one of the largest technology competitions in the
Petty Island by Swedish explorer Peter Lindestrom in 1654, and "Treaty Island," the latter likely named after the Penn Treaty by the Manderson Family, who in 1852 bought most of the land. The island was originally bought from local chiefs by Elizabeth Kinsey, a Quaker who had fled persecution in England. William Penn owned the island after Kinsey; John Petty, its namesake, bought it in 1732. The island was a hotbed for gambling and dueling in the 18th and 19th centuries, and acquired a reputation for lawlessness and danger; adding to this danger was the large number of shipwrecks which occurred around