[Note: A version without pictures was posted at 5:14pm Central-DST, on 3/18/10. This version was posted at 5:28pm CDST, on 3/18/10.]
[3/19/10, 10:38am Update: I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering about this possibility, relating to how the Black Rock landed inland on the island. We all saw the ship looming on the horizon while Jacob and MIB were basking on the beach in the Season 5 finale. Given the 'magical' effects we've observed on the island to date, I'm wondering if it is possible for them to lower the island in the water, just enough to have the ship sail up into an inviting cove-- or up a stream-- and lay anchor, then raise the island back up, stranding the ship and crew on the island, for another round in the game....]
GAIA/VALIS/ISLANDMIND REDUX:
A VILE VORTEXTUAL NEURAL WEB,
WORMHOLING THE BLACK ROCK
TO THE ISLAND?
Yes, it's time for some beneficial REANIMATION of an old Lost theory, dealing with the Vile Vortices (VV) purported to be equidistantly located around the world, sites of weird electromagnetic activity and disappearances. I and others have surmised about the relevance of the VV for Lost, over the years....
In several of my prior postings (see the links at the end of this update), I proposed the theory that not only might the island be serving as a GAIA/VALIS-like brain on Earth, but that the VV might just well be serving as NEURAL NODES in this globe-spanning islandmind. I went further to discuss the possibility of an even larger, 
universe-spanning GAIA/VALIS-mind, with nodes distributed throughout the whole of 'reality', providing not only a universe-al mind, but also affording a Wormhole-related transit system for traversing the host planets and the broader universe of connected neural nodes.
The reanimation of VV-related Lost theory comes at a time in which we are facing an upcoming episode (AB AETERNO) in which it appears that the BLACK ROCK slave ship is traversing an area in the Atlantic, not the Pacific Ocean, so of course we are wondering how the ship got to the island, if the latter was located in the Pacific at that time.
Here are some possibilities arising from VV-related Lost Theory:
1. The island was located in the Pacific Ocean, tracing arcs in this area, at the time of the Black Rock's sailing and subsequent deposition on the island. What happened is that the Black Rock crossed into a 'Stormy' Event-Horizon-like VV boundary located at some other part of the world-- Madagascar? Bermuda? The site east of South America? Or?-- and through the wormhole system connecting the VV, the ship was transported to the island, the home node in the VV-based GAIA/VALIS-neural node Islandmind.
2. The island itself is able to move around the world, using the VV wormhole system to teleport among the Vile Vortices. Hence, the island may have been present at a non-Pacific Ocean location on the VV grid, intercepting the Black Rock as it moved through one of the nodes on the VV grid.
3. The Black Rock was really sailing in the Pacific Ocean, perhaps having recently crossed the tip of South America and subsequently hitting the VV node west of South America. Another possibility in this vein is that the ship touched aground on the western side of South America, Central America, Mexico and/or the southwestern portion of what would later become a part of the U.S., then sailed with a complement of slaves and mining equipment (prior to, during, or after the Gold rush era, California?), in search of some lost mineralogical treasure, only to hit one of the VV nodes located in the Pacific Ocean. [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vile_Vortices]
Any of these approaches could readily explain how the Black Rock got to where Jacob and MIB could see it, approaching the island, looming on the horizon. Of course, the intriguing remaining issue is how the ship got from the horizon to its inland location, in the middle of the jungle.
One weird science fictional possibility is that the island did not hit the right angle of attack on the island's surrounding boundary, and it was somehow 'bounced' or teleported inland. Another more mundane but far more strenuous possibility is that Magnus Hanso (or his MIB-loopholed FHanso version) is used to 'riff' on Herzog's 'Fitzcarraldo' , only this time the slaves were deployed to pull the ship inland in search of mineralogical treasures, instead of rubber trees....
In any event, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the upcoming AB AETERNO episode. Will the solution to the mystery of how the Black Rock got to the island, and how it ended up inland, lend further support to a VV-related interpretation of the Island and Lost?
Time will tell....
Dr. Todd J. Hostager
Please see the following prior postings regarding the GAIA/VALIS/Islandmind, Vile Vortices, wormhole approach to Lost:
2/15/08- The Economist. In particular, please see the later sections relating to my OPGUN theory and the notion of Quantumly Entangled neural nodes-