Patrick Watkins was an Irish sailor who was marooned on Floreana, an island of the Galápagos Islands, from 1805 to 1809.^[1] He is the first known permanent resident of the Galapagos.^[2] According to later accounts,^[3] Watkins managed to survive by hunting, growing vegetables, and trading with visiting whalers,^[2] before finally stealing an longboat from a whaling ship, impressing five of its crew as his "slaves", and navigating to Guayaquil, Ecuador.^[4] Watkins was the only one of the six to survive the journey.^[4]

Spanish novelist Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa based his 1982 novel Iguana on the case of Watkins. Later, the novel was cinematized by American director Monte Hellman in 1988.^[5]