In 1989, Mauro Morandi set sail for Polynesia on a refurbished catamaran. He didn’t make it.
A failed engine washed the former physics teacher onto the shores of Budelli, a mile-square island off Sardinia’s coast famous for its pink sand. When he learned the island’s sole caretaker was preparing to retire, Morandi sold his boat on the spot, according to National Geographic in 2021.
He took the job and stayed 32 years, alone.
He lived in an old World War II shelter he rebuilt out of coral, granite, and shells, heated by a fireplace. In the 1990s, the national park banned walking on the pink beach or swimming off it, and Morandi enforced the ban with the day-trippers who came by boat. In truth, he cared less about rules than about getting people to slow down and look at the place. He read philosophy, carved driftwood, and took photographs. In winter, he could go 20 days without seeing anyone.
“I’m sort of in prison here,” he told National Geographic. “But it’s a prison that I chose for myself.”
His eventual removal started with a bankruptcy in 2013. Budelli was put up for sale, and a New Zealand businessman named Michael Harte bid about $4 million, saying he wanted to protect its ecosystem. The Italian government fought the sale, and after three years in court, a judge in Sardinia returned the island to the state. The national park took it over with plans to turn it into a site for environmental education.
This left Morandi without a clear reason to be there. The park’s president put it carefully in 2016, telling The Atlantic that “no one ignores his role in representing the historical memory of the place, but it’s hard to find a contractual arrangement for a person in his position.”
Pressure built for five years as a petition to let him stay drew tens of thousands of signatures, but it didn’t work. In April 2021, at 81, he packed up and moved to a one-bedroom apartment on La Maddalena.
“I became so used to the silence,” he said. “Now it’s continuous noise: music, motor scooters, people. It distracts you so much you don’t have time to think.”
He kept posting on Facebook, where he’d built a following of a few hundred thousand while living alone. After a bad fall left him with spinal injuries, he spent time in a care home in Sassari, then went back to Modena, where he was born. He died there on January 3, 2025, at 85. His friends said they’d scatter his ashes at sea.
