Desert Island Survival - At Tomo's Request

[RemyBolt 420]

In the "What else are you good at" thread I mentioned I lived on a desert island in the Cook Islands for 5 weeks for my 21st. TOMO said I should start a thread about that. Did consider starting a "What did you do on your 21st" thread, but thought that some people are not yet 21, and many will have drank so much that it resulted in the inability to remember their 21st, and the following week.

 

Instead I'm popping a post about what it was like and how it changed my life.

 

Well it came round to my 21st birthday and I was sat on a plane. Weird. No cake, no candle, just sat on a plane with a few friends who figured it would be a good experience to come along. Some were staying a week, others for 2 weeks. I was taking a year out from uni (I spent a long time in college as I didn't know what to study at uni). All in all my birthday lasted 24 hours. We went from Manchester to London. London to L.A. L.A. to Tahiti. Tahiti to Raratonga. Raratonga to Aitutaki. Aitutaki, a short boat journey to Motaraku (I'm 100% certain that's spelt wrong). The only part of the journey that was 'really tripy' was when we were shopping for machete's and things like that. The one item we all bad to buy was special sea sandles. These things were made with reinforced soles. I thought "Who cares? Just don't stand on coral and you'll be fine." Turns out that's not the issue. The issue is the stone fish. This thing is ugly as sin and has the weirdest self-defense system. If trodden on, a spine comes up out of it's back and inject a poison into your foot. Okay, this sounds like it sucks, but this is a really bad way to go! The poison doesn't act like snake venom. It causes excruciating pain so intense that your body cannot cope with it and you die. That's right, the poison doesn't kill you directly, you die from the pain it causes. The only way to survive this is to put your foot into boiling hot water and denature the poison. So really not much better. With a jellyfish sting, you get pissed on....not fun, but you survive. With a stonefish, your foot is forced into boiling water and you have to suck it up. You'll end up in hospital with burns all over your foot, or you get to die of heart stopping pain...win-win! haha. Damn right we all bought 2 or 3 pairs of these sea sandles.

 

We had a guide booked to teach us some basic survival skills, but he was coming over at the end of the first week. So we had to survive the first week solo.

 

When we arrived, it was breath taking! You know when you see postcards and think...wow, this place looks perfect. It's actually so much more amazing than the postcards make you believe. The only issue, there was a bit of rubbish here and there, that had been washed up. Plastic bottles and bits of string here and there. But there really was not that much. We did manage to come across some fishing gear, which ended up being very helpful.

 

We started off building a lean-to shelter using some bamboo that had been placed on the island for us. This stuff is strong. I remember watching videos from my Chinese friends about people using bamboo for scaffolding going up a good few stories, so I was happy that as much debris we build onto the shelter, the bamboo could cope with. We ended up with a full A-frame, after completing the basic lean-to in around 1 hour. So it wasn't too hard to add on a few more pegs and bits of ribbing to create a complete A-Frame with around a foot of roofing. All nicely tied into place. Over time we actually increased this to quite a nice building.

 

For things like rope, although we did have the initial scraps we found around the island, we actually had greater success making out own stuff. Get a palm leaf, and pound out the fibres in the middle of the stem. Use them to tie things up, but make sure you bunch them and then plat them. When they dry out in the sun, you have a perfectly strong and tightened rope. When it dries it shrinks a little, so any knots you've tied are tightened up.

 

There were a few chickens on the island, LOADS of coconuts, a hot chilli tree/plant just off from our camp, a few banana plants, with banana's just starting to yellow, and much more. The dominant part of the diet was coconuts. The reason being, None of us are particularly good at fishing, and in the time we were out there, we managed to TOTALLY forget about refraction, so objects you see from above the water are actually not located EXACTLY where you thought they were. The only time we had any sea-bound success was when Duncan speared a stingray near the end of the second week!

 

As for the coconuts, if you get them when they've set root with a stalk just coming off them, you can actually still eat them. This is the best time to do so! The inside has become a marshmallowy mush and it's properly sweet! No coconut milk, but that's not an issue.

 

One of the largest problems we came across was actually staying clean. We had purchased a LOAD of toilet paper and we all worked together to dig a few massive holes in the ground. Toilets. We worked the system of eco-toilet-biodegradeable-minging! It worked, but it was minging. The worst experience I had, even apart from the loneliness of the final 3 weeks, was due to a longdrop toilet. No, I didn't fall in it. WORSE! I managed to get an insect bite....well, let's just say that pooing and then wiping was 'an experience' due to the location of the bite. Yes, right on the ring! It swelled up like a golf-ball!

 

After the first week, Steve and his misses Lou had to leave and get back to work in the UK. Losing them sucked, because Lou was able to cook food and make it taste good and Steve was a guitar beast. Great for around the campfire. Thankfully Lou was there for the 1 time we managed to catch a chicken. Chopped off the head, and we all enjoyed BBQ chicken. Thanks to the fire we would always sit around and cook over, I am now a masterchef with the open flame. I still can't work a normal oven properly, but give me a naked flame and we'll eat like kings...kings that like food cooked by fire at least. 2 meals a day, cooked over a fire (or embers), for 5 weeks. You can learn a lot in that time.

 

One of the most worrying phenomena was the sun. It was clearly as hot here as it was in Australian deserts, with the sun beating down on us. The weirdest part was, it NEVER felt too hot. There was a constant sea breeze that kept you feeling nice and cool. Around midday a small nap, like in Spain, was the norm. We were all in and out of the sea, into the shade, relaxing. Plenty of spare time to have fun. Without question, group survival was the way to go. If the zombie apocalypse happened, we'd have been sitting pretty. Everyone worked hard about 1.5-2hours on certain roles, and the rest of the day was to relax and have fun. Now and again tensions would run high, but in general it was all easy going, relaxed, and fun. Evenings around the campfire looking up at the stars, chatting away and being total beach bums. Over time, tensions would rise a little higher than comfortable; "I have to work harder than X because they just ABC...." or "G isn't doing their job properly, they just STUV all day" and things like that. So now and again the group dynamic would be under pressure. I can see how 'The Lord of The Flies' would be possible even in adult society.

 

The last half of the second week it started to rain, and the sea seemed to rise up a fair bit. We spent a lot of time in the sea because the options were "Stay in the shelter and sleep", "Walk around and get wet", or "Swim in the ocean and get wet, but still enjoy yourself." We nearly all went for option C. It was here that we figured you can open your eyes in the sea and it doesn't sting like a beast. The reason was that the water was really clear and pure. Yes it was salty, but it really didn't sting your eyes. Here in the UK it stings pretty bad, and that's because of the pollution. Thanks to this find, we had fish! Only the once though. But Lou had gone and it ended up tasting like crap. We were worried about bugs, food poisoning, mercury poisoning, and the alike, so it became somewhat similar in outward appearance to charcoal.

 

The largest frustration was the chickens. you could hear them, but at night, even with the milkyway above, you couldn't see clearly enough to hunt them. In the day, they were always ahead of us. The one time I managed to sneak up on one, I found out I was a rubbish machete thrower. In the one day that the guide was there, he had managed to kill a boobie (it's a kind of bird) by throwing a machete at it. Clean head shot. It didn't chop the head off like in a movie, but the machete struck it, and put it down. Broken neck. My chicken attempt proved to be less than fruitful. The stupid thing just stood there as my machete flew inches over it's head. That was the last time I tried to take out a chicken. I lost all desire to catch one after that. One note, I had tried for a long time. We all had. But for me that was the final morale killer for chicken hunting.

 

At the end of the 2 week 'companion' period, I was stood on the beach waving goodbye to my friends as they disappeared off in a boat. I think if we had all stayed together, it would have been too much. Better to end a trip than to lose friends. So the timing could not have been better. The captain of the boat was my best friend at this point. Not because he was taking everyone else away, but instead because he delivered a couple of shoe boxes to me while on shore picking up my friends, he also swapped the Sat-Phone for a new one that was fully charged. This made me very happy. These shoe boxes contained tins of food, a bag of flower, a small pot of oil, a few other things but notably...more water purification tablets! Best friend in the world at that moment!!!

 

When everyone else had vanished off, I sat in the shelter and just lay there relaxing. Big mistake. Previously, we would work together to sort everything out. Water collection was easy enough with all the rain going on. We did have a big 25litre bottle that we kept as full as possible. The first week we boiled sea water and collected the steam. Plus we had a lot of coconuts everywhere. So it was never an issue. With everyone gone, and less clothing to use to catch the water to squeeze into the big bottle...problem. Then firewood collection, storage, and the alike, plus cooking, cleaning the pots and pans, etc...when you become a 1 man survival team, everything is down to you.

 

By the start of week 4 I was into the swing of things. Upturned coconut shells everywhere to catch water, ripe bananas waiting to be eaten, and most importantly....CONDENSED MILK + Flour + Hot Cooking Oil...DONUTS! Survival food never tasted so good. Being sat there with a pathetic excuse of a donut, gently burning my fingers, sat in a dry shelter, with a smoldering fire keeping the mozzies away, I just broke down and cried. I have no reason why I did. I was sat there, happy as can be, loving the purity of the location, proud of my ability to survive so well alone, as happy as can be. But something inside me just opened up and I cried like a child. The next day I was back to my normal happy self. Running around, getting everything ready. Sourcing what I needed, squeezing water from towels and tshirts, washing in the rain, collecting coconuts and bananas. I'm not pretending I'm superman and a survival expert, but the hardest part of survival is when something completely unexpected throws you right off. Like the crazy intermittent weather. Turns out August and September are not lovely sunny months. They're more like the rainy season. But it was still warm. The only problem was when it rained for a few days at a time. That was a morale hitter.

 

Week 5 was much like week 4 really, just kept myself busy, survived well, felt sick of bananas and coconuts, my tolerance for the chillies was not where I wanted it, but at least my bumhole insect bite had subsided! The one thing that was properly minging, but when you got used to it, was actually very tasty eating...ant burgers! Catch a load of ants by disturbing their nest, getting them on a stick, then flicking them into a metal pan or bowl with a little water in. You'll be amazed how quickly you can build up a nice patty. Then fry it up in a bit of oil. The first time I made one I thought it was minging, by my third bite...I was hooked! There were things like grass hoppers here and there, but they were hard too catch. There were lizards around, which were really unappealing to eat, but when they ran across your face in the night, you would certainly want to kill them.

 

The single scariest part of the whole experience, going to bed alone. If you go wild camping and stay in the middle of nowhere all by yourself, then you will know exactly what I'm on about. Your head starts to play tricks on you. Properly freaky stuff.

 

The hardest parts, there were 3.

1. Maintaining group dynamic.

2. When alone, stopping yourself becoming lazy. It was very easy to just lay there and do nothing, only to suddenly realise you were out of dry wood, or your water storage was running low!

3. Being alone. Although the first few days alone was bliss. Once I had established that I could survive in that circumstance, it was very odd being solo all the time. You would find yourself talking to the animals you could hear but not see. I remember just walking around as if I was narrating my activities "As RemyBolt walks down the path to the sea, he looks out and wonders whether the rain will stop by the time he has managed to swim around the island three times....At this point in the swim he is considering slowing down as he has just one more lap to go, and the rain does not look to be slowing down....RemyBolt feels weird sitting at the campfire on the beach alone, with the 3 remaining log-seats around. He is considering using them for fire wood. Clearly he likes this thought...

 

When I got back to the UK, when in the L.A. airport, I put on the TV and my jaw dropped. I was in a book shop at the airport and on the TV in front of me was the news broadcast about that hurricane that smashed New Orleans. What a way to come back to reality.

 

I was unable to sleep in my bed when I got home. No, it was not occupied by someone else, neither had it been sold on ebay. It was too soft. I was completely unable to get comfortable. I ended up laying on the floor in my sleeping bag. It took me about a week to be able to get comfortable in my bed again and be able to sleep.

 

Would I recommend survival skills as being a useful skill? Not if you're an accountant and don't go anywhere. However, if you adventure a lot and are into outdoor living, I'd definitely recommend it.

 

Staying on a desert island....did not change my life...as far as I can tell. No epiphany, no enlightenment, nothing like that. An awesome holiday that I'll never forget, and a hell of a story to be able to tell friends and family, but no Buddha like experience. Having said that, if I had not been on the desert island, and had I done something different, I may have become a different person. Who knows?!

 

All in all, if you get an opportunity to go to the Cook Islands...DO IT!!! You'll not have a holiday like it ever again! Paradise, even if you end up abandoned on a desert island. As long as you know what you're doing, you'll have a great time!

[Brewman 1,192]

As you said it didn't change your life or give you an epiphany but has it changed your appreciation for anything or taking things for granted?

 

Cracking read by the way.

[TOMO 26,583]

Great read mate,,, love stuff like this

 

Can I ask ,,,,how you got to go to that island,,,,what I mean is,,,did you just say to a local boat skipper,,,go and drop us off on that island over there,,,,,or is it advertised as a survival island ,,and you pay to stay there?

[Mr Wilkes 3,036]

Brilliant that.. if only i was 30yrs younger. A lad who i work with has passed all the tests and is waiting for a interview to go on the "Bear Grills" desert island program..jammy b*****d..

[Lid 194]

Great read - thanks. Yes I am interested in how you put the trip together and whether you had to pay to be there ?

[Mister Gain 1,764]

Thoroughly enjoyed reading that. nice one

[toby63 1,236]

bear griills is not a patch on you ??

[Buttons 140]

I knew a prince of the Cook Island very well in the mid s his name was max lived in a caravan on the Gold Coast he was a bricklayer

[RemyBolt 420]

Great read mate,,, love stuff like this

 

Can I ask ,,,,how you got to go to that island,,,,what I mean is,,,did you just say to a local boat skipper,,,go and drop us off on that island over there,,,,,or is it advertised as a survival island ,,and you pay to stay there?

It was a present from my parents. They organised the whole thing. When we landed on Aitutaki we met a guy holding a sign who took us to the shops and advised us on what to purchase, e.g. machetes, metal file to sharpen the machetes, metal pots and pans, etc.

 

We took basic camping gear, but most of that was taken off us. No tents or anything allowed. Not even a tarp That would have been so much easier for water storage and shelter.

 

As for Bear Grylls. Respect the guy, but as an entertainer more than anything. The stuff he teaches is very likely to get you killed if you try it. The thing is, survival skills are perishable skills. So you need to practice as much as you can. Also, if you do not practice what is taught, you're 99% likely to do it wrong. Going into a survival situation if you've never had any training or experience, it's the same as going shooting when you have to build a gun that you've never shot, from scratch, without instructions, and your life depends on you getting it right very quickly. So watching the programs is entertaining, but the actual survival experience is massively different.

 

 

As you said it didn't change your life or give you an epiphany but has it changed your appreciation for anything or taking things for granted?

 

Cracking read by the way.

I remember thinking the most amazing thing in the world was glass. In the UK I remember standing there looking out at the rain and being amazed that I was so wonderfully dry. It was mind-blowing.

 

I guess, thinking about it, greater appreciation for the ease of getting food. A take away window would be my view of heaven when it was raining heavily and I was not in the mood for what was available.

[Rake aboot 4,936]

Ray Mears is the man, not Bear.

 

Nice piece that Remybolt. You`re quite a narrator.

 

 

 

More importantly, did you take drugs with you.? No point in seclusion without getting ripped.

[TOMO 26,583]

Lol at rake,,,

 

And your right he is quite the narrator,,,would have been nice to take some pics

[Waz 4,266]

Nice one Remy, enjoyed the read.

[jack68 628]

Fecking brilliant would of loved to do something like that..atb

[RemyBolt 420]

Ray Mears is the man, not Bear.

 

Nice piece that Remybolt. You`re quite a narrator.

 

 

 

More importantly, did you take drugs with you.? No point in seclusion without getting ripped.

I'm boring when it comes to drugs. Sorry. Only drugs I've taken are steroids and performance/physique enhancers (when I was into bodybuilding) and prescription.

 

Never tried any other drugs. Like TV it's not that I'm against it, it's just not my thing, that's all.

 

What about cigars? Would they count as drugs in your eyes Rake? Nicotine in there!

Edited September 29, 2014 by RemyBolt

[bird 9,969]

good read that