As the launch rounds the lower end of the island, groups of gannets with ash-grey plumage are descried bathing at the water edge and strutting the beach promenade. Perched on rocky minarets are lone birds that scan the sea like hired look-outs.
The Isle of Good Fortune was once inhabited by a certain Jerseyman, by name Captain Peter Duval, who during the Napoleonic war between France and England commanded a lugger-rigged privateer under license from the British king. The 100-ton Vulture with its four guns plundered the French coast from Normandy to the Pyrenees. It is related that Bayonne merchants fitted out a brig of 180 tons, armed it with four times four guns and went in pursuit. Her battery had been so well masked that the Vulture mistook the two-master for a merchantman and ran alongside. When suddenly the deck of the Bayonne vessel was cleared for action, the dashing captain perceived his error but drove in his craft so close that the shots of the Frenchmen went over, while he was able to deliver disastrous blows to the body of his antagonist. This manœuvre resulted in the slaying of half the French crew and the loss of but one on the Vulture. When still a young man the hero of this stratagem crossed the sea to Gaspé, forswore the ways of pirates and became a planter. In the cottage of his descendants is preserved the glass with which he was wont to scrutinise the
