I know a guy who ran out of fuel on the way to Rottnest. Well, actually he ran out of fuel about 20miles behind Rottnest. Which is impressive, given that from Freo Rottnest is only 12miles and you can see the island from Freo. Even on unclear days you pick up the island within about 5mins.
Somehow (don't ask me how) he missed the island, and carried on...until he ran out of fuel. He mentioned after words he 'thought' the trip was taking a long time. Evidently he couldn't read his GPS.
Admittedly I have also missed Freo by about 30miles coming back from a fishing trip. I navigate off a compass (didn't have a gps back then) and my friend put his mobile next to the compass moving the baring significantly.
I had to use fish blood on the deck, to recalculate our position to figure out where the hell we were. Got back in the end with what we estimate to be about 10l of fuel left. Was a long day. Its harder navigating at sea though, as there are no land marks.
But to miss mountains by 1200kms... well... what do you say?
Blacky