by Les Stroud
One of the only people ever known to successfully drink salt water was Dr. Alain Bombard, a French biologist who sailed a small boat across the Atlantic in the 1950s. Bombard claims to have survived the trip by fishing, harvesting surface plankton, and drinking a limited amount of seawater for long periods. His claims were contested by some scientists, who believed Bombard had been secretly provided supplies during his voyage.
Of course, the alternative is to drink seawater, a practice overwhelmingly regarded as incompatible with life. Seawater is usually about three times saltier than blood, which makes it impossible to be safely metabolized by the human body. When you drink salt water, water flows out of your cells as your body tries to dilute the salt and cleanse the body. So the cells become more dehydrated, not less. If the process continues, it can result in seizures, unconsciousness, brain damage, and, ultimately, death.
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Day fourteen came with another gift from the sea. A second turtle bumped into the raft, and soon it was struggling in the bottom of the dinghy. Dougal was about to execute it when he heard Lyn tell him to save the blood for drinking. He gathered some in a plastic cup, set it to his lips, and was surprised that it was not salty at all. They passed the cup around, happy to have something—anything—to drink in the blazing South Pacific heat as their stores of water again reached dangerously low levels. It was a brilliant, lifesaving move on Lyn’s part, especially after the blood of the first turtle had been wasted.
Good luck came to them again, just as the situation was getting desperate. Day fifteen dawned cloudy and threatening, and soon rain was falling from the sky in copious amounts. They not only filled all their containers, but drank their fill of the glorious gift from the sky. It was yet another in a litany of smart moves by the Robertsons. In situations where dehydration is a real risk, it’s not enough to fill your containers. It’s as important—if not more so—to drink as much as you possibly can in that moment.
The bad weather was not all good news for the Robertsons. In the rough waters, the dinghy broke away from the raft and began drifting into the distance. When Dougal caught sight of the boat, it was already sixty yards away. Paying little heed to the danger posed by sharks, Dougal—who knew that losing the Ednamair meant losing a chance at survival—jumped in the water and started swimming for his life—literally.
Under normal circumstances, the Robertsons stayed out of the water at all costs, a wise decision. But these were not normal circumstances, and Dougal made the right choice. He could see two sharks circling below him as he swam, but they never attacked. I’ve had similar experiences. During my time in the water with a variety of sharks, I’ve found that they won’t lunge at you right away, but will take a few minutes to assess and make sure they want to mess with you. I have even jumped right into large schools of sharks after they have been baited in, and they still leave me alone. Sharks are not the bloodthirsty attacking machines that documentary television shows might have you believe. Another good strategy I’ve employed is to always keep them in my sight, since sharks don’t usually attack their prey head on. So, if you can get in the water wearing goggles and face the predator, you stand a good chance of not being attacked.
In the end, Dougal made it to the raft unharmed, then paddled it back, where it was reattached to the dinghy. He collapsed in the raft, ashen and drained from the monumental effort. It was one of those dire moments that are defined by adrenalin-driven superhuman effort, and Dougal was up to the task.
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Dealing with Sharks
If your survival situation finds you in a body of salt water, don’t create a lot of turbulence by thrashing around—sharks are attracted to this type of behavior. Never enter the water if you are actively bleeding, as a shark can detect even the smallest amount of blood in the water. Finally, do not throw entrails or garbage into the water, as this, too, may attract sharks. Look behind any cruise ship that throws its food refuse overboard, and you will see hundreds of sharks in the ship’s wake.
If you do have an encounter with a shark, your only option is to defend yourself—not an encouraging place to be. A shark’s most sensitive place is its nose; try to direct your blows there, if possible. Remember that sharks like to attack from behind, so try to face the shark at all times. Keep your back against a coral reef, or wreckage if there is any. Go back to back with your dive buddy and put any object you have between yourself and the shark, like your underwater video camera. Oh . . . and get out of the water!
* * *
Although their water stores were again in reasonable shape, they decided to conserve as much as possible, this time without wasting a drop. With that in mind, they realized that the bottom of the dinghy had caught lots of rainwater, which was now mixed with turtle blood. Rather than drink what would otherwise be unpalatable, Lyn brilliantly suggested that the only other way to introduce the much-needed liquid to their bodies was with an enema. Now they needed some way to administer it. It wasn’t long before a device was rigged up with two pieces of rubber tubing and a plastic-bag funnel. Everyone (except Robin, who demurred) received one to two pints of water, much more than they would have been able to drink, given the shrunken state of their stomachs.
By day seventeen, the condition of the raft had worsened to the point where they could no longer put off the inevitable: they had to move to the dinghy. The walls of the raft had been eroded on the inside from the wear and tear of their bodies, and on the outside from the constant contact with salt water. It was leaking constantly and barely holding air; full-time effort was required to bail out the ever-increasing infiltration of seawater and keep the air chambers inflated. Thinking like true survivors, though, they did not simply set the raft adrift and wave a fond farewell. To the contrary, they used much of the raft to modify the dinghy. But not before casting aside much of what they now deemed superfluous, since the dinghy was much smaller than the raft. Dougal reluctantly threw away the two turtle shells he had meticulously cleaned, because they took up too much precious space. I wonder if he might have been able to find a way to strap the turtle shells to the side of the dinghy. They seem like little boats in their own right, and might have helped shed water and increase the dinghy’s buoyancy. Of course, they might have failed miserably in this regard, but in survival you should consider every option before tossing anything aside.
Yet for all the salvage of the raft and modifications to the dinghy, there was still quite a bit of raft material left when all was said and done. Rather than somehow finding a way to hold on to that valuable material, which could have been stripped into lashings or used as friction protection inside the dinghy, Dougal cast it away and let it sink—a foolish decision. Again, I don’t think the eldest Robertson was thinking of Plan B. He had one idea in his head, and that was it. There was no other way to go, no other scenario to anticipate—dangerous thinking in a survival situation.
Despite their fear that the dinghy would prove mercilessly uncomfortable, the group was happy to find quite the opposite, which comes as no surprise to me. The dinghy was smaller, yes, but it was also dry (so their boils could heal) and didn’t require constant inflating to stay afloat. The dinghy’s buoyancy was certainly helped by the flotation collar they made from the raft’s flotation chambers, but they would have been wise to have checked the comfort of the dinghy well before this third week at sea.
They weren’t on the Ednamair long before they caught their third turtle. Butchering it in the cramped quarters of the dinghy was tricky, but they managed without incident. With a new store of food on hand, they were able to discard some of the rotting meat from the previous turtle, which they threw to the storm petrels that kept them constant company. I can’t say I agree with the idea of casting food aside—no matter how bad it may be—but I also understand the need for a little bit of levity and fun in a survival situation. You can call it a psychological payoff that may be worth the food sacrifice. It also helped that the Robertsons seemed to have a fairly good supply of foo
d on hand, despite the fact that they were floating in the middle of the ocean.
Dougal and his son Douglas were the only two who knew how to pilot the dinghy, so they were forced to take turns at the back of the craft, operating the steering oar. I know Dougal was a control freak—an alarming trait that manifested itself again and again—but this was going too far. He had Robin (a twenty-two-year-old man) and Lyn (his ultra-capable wife) on board, too, not to mention the twelve-year-old twins. It’s ridiculous that Dougal didn’t take the time to teach everyone how to steer the dinghy. What if Dougal and Douglas fell ill or died—a very real possibility given the circumstances? But again, Dougal accepted the answer at hand and failed to explore the matter any further. He and Douglas could steer, so why bother teaching anyone else? His need to be in control, along with his one-track mind, was a potentially deadly combination. At one point, Dougal actually forbade eighteen-year-old Douglas from cleaning a fish for fear he might waste some of the meat. This may have been a possibility, but the benefits of everyone knowing how to perform such vital tasks far outweighed the risks of losing a bit of meat.
As the Robertsons neared the end of their third week at sea, their clothes had disintegrated to virtually nothing. It wasn’t really a problem on warm, sunny days, as they could seek shelter under the canopy salvaged from the raft. When it rained, though, their near-nudity became much more acute, and they shivered under what sparse rain gear they had. And the rains did come with more frequency as they neared the Doldrums. The rainwater wasn’t easy to collect—they had to hold the catchment material high over their heads with aching limbs, and the rockered bottom of the dinghy was the cause of more than one accidental spill—but they managed.
Turtles continued to present themselves to the family, so food was not a problem, at least for the moment. Yet the wetter weather made it more difficult to dry and store the turtle meat, and mold had begun to form on some of it. With this in mind, the Robertsons would have been wise to harvest any kind of food they could get their hands on, just in case things went wrong. They didn’t, however. On one day, a young blue-footed booby landed on Douglas’s shoulder. Dougal considered grabbing it, but was dissuaded by the notion that sea birds were salty, stringy, and full of sea lice. It was foolish; there is no room for pickiness in survival. The Robertsons would have been wise to listen to young Neil, who cried out, “Pluck it! I’ll eat it!”
Their narrow-minded pickiness showed itself again when Dougal caught a suckerfish. Rather than butchering and eating it, they threw it back after deciding it wouldn’t taste good. In a survival situation, any food is worth eating, as long as it’s not poisonous. They also could have gathered food by constructing a strainer, dragging it behind the boat, and collecting plankton as they sailed along. And even though they had enough food to keep them alive, the Robertsons, like so many others in long-term survival situations, obsessed over food, despite the fact that they were far from starving. They entertained themselves almost daily by setting up a café they called Dougal’s Kitchen and planning the meals they would serve there. With raw turtle and fish as their staples, the thoughts of food such as minced beef pasties, lamb stew, roasted rabbit, and coddled-egg-and-cheese pasties were enchanting.
As their third week began, the Robertsons were beginning to feel like they could stay at sea indefinitely, as long as none of them got sick. Rain was falling regularly, turtles continued to present themselves, and flying fish occasionally flew into the boat. If anything, it seemed like the Robertsons’ greatest sources of risk were their own mistakes. One squally morning, as they passed around a jar of water, the boat tipped dangerously as the bright yellow float that helped keep the Ednamair above water broke away. It would take Douglas, the strongest oarsman on the craft, nearly an hour of desperate rowing to catch the runaway float. Again, they had failed to set up a strict, military-style regimen of checking things over, and it came back to bite them. Survival is work, first and foremost, and you’ve got to employ a regular work schedule to check on the things around you, whether it’s your shelter, animal traps, or the ropes holding a float to your boat. There is no room for complacency during a survival ordeal. But the Robertsons made more good decisions than bad ones, and they also had a fair bit of luck on their side, which often outweighed what foolish mistakes they might have made along the way.
Bad weather was scarce. In fact, in the many weeks they spent on the boat, it seems like they really only had to contend with one wicked thunderstorm that required that everyone play a part to keep the dinghy afloat. It seemed to be one of the few times the twins actually helped out with a chore or job, this time by bailing. I find it unforgivable that they were still being babied, to the point where Lyn even feared that they might fall asleep and drown in the few inches of water that occasionally filled the bottom of the raft.
The rain may have provided ample water, but the drawback was its effect on the food they left out to dry. Rather than become the jerky they had hoped for, it was now covered with a foul-tasting, slimy film. Dougal, worried that they would become ill by eating it, threw the turtle meat overboard. It’s a good idea to prevent sickness in a survival situation (the last thing you want to have to contend with is diarrhea or vomiting), but it would have been better to anticipate the spoiling of the meat and eat it before it got to that point.
As the calendar progressed, the Robertsons seemed to reach a comfortable state of equilibrium with the sea. Their great ingenuity saw them regularly employ new modifications that made their lives easier. Lyn had the brilliant idea of leaving the turtle fat out in the sun to render. Soon they had jars filled with beautiful turtle oil, which she not only administered as enemas to keep their intestinal tracts working, but also rubbed on their various skin lesions, which soon began to heal. For his part, Dougal was still driven by the idea of harvesting dorado from the sea, and he created numerous variations on a fishing spear. None proved fruitful, until day thirty-two, when Dougal finally realized that, instead of spearing the fish from above, he could fashion a gaff hook, snag dorado from their soft underbellies, and toss them into the boat.
It was a fantastic idea, and one that finally proved effective. Eventually, Dougal became an expert at gaffing. This is a recurring theme in survival: when you try some type of activity over and over again, you will, in time, become expert at it. Dougal’s newfound fishing expertise was a boon for the Robertsons’ diet as well as their water intake, as rain had not fallen for many days and their supply was again getting desperately low.
The Robertsons certainly were motivated to collect as much food and water as possible: their plan was not to float to safety, but rather to paddle to it. Dougal estimated that, once they had floated past the Doldrums, they would need another couple of weeks of paddling to get them to the coast of Central America. They would need all the food they could get to keep the rowers fit and strong.
Day thirty-five came with cloudy, rainy weather, a welcome change from the hot sun that had been beating down upon them almost mercilessly for days. Here, for the first time in more than a month, they realized they could use their extra piece of sailcloth to collect water instead of the rubbery yellow catchment material of the raft. As the rain intensified, they were happy to see that the sail held the water long enough for it to be transferred to jars and plastic bags. It was a valuable insight, but one it shouldn’t have taken a month to figure out.
Though they had a fair supply of food on board the Ednamair, it did not stop them from becoming excited when yet another turtle bumped against the underside of the boat. Dougal called to switch places with Robin, who was in the front of the dinghy, but after more than a month at sea, Robin seemed to feel he was up to the task of pulling the turtle into the craft. He reached over the side of the boat, grabbed the turtle by its flippers, and felt it slide from his grasp. He was not strong enough to get it into the boat.
Dougal lost control. He slapped Robin in the face, then cursed and scolded him severely for what he called Robin’s stupidi
ty. Yet if anyone was acting foolishly and stupidly in this situation, it was Dougal. He was the one with the knowledge, but he refused to share it, just as he refused to teach the others how to steer the boat. Robin was larger than anyone else on the dinghy, and easily should have been as strong as Dougal. Teaching Robin (and Douglas, for that matter) how to catch turtles would have ensured the family’s survival had something happened to Dougal.
Day thirty-seven brought a discussion of the trip ahead. They now had an ample supply of food for the grueling paddle to the coast. The only thing left to do was fill up the new water bag they had fashioned out of the flotation collar that had once been wrapped around the bow of the boat. It had sprung so many holes that it was useless for its original purpose, but would hold as much as seven gallons of water in its new incarnation. The bag was almost full; paddling could not be far off. Dougal estimated they were approximately 350 miles away, a distance they could cover in a little more than two weeks.
Rains that evening brought the bag a little closer to full, and Dougal again set to the task of gaffing more dorado. He stuck the hook into the underbelly of a twenty-five-pounder, but as he tried to toss the fish into the boat, he was shocked to feel the lines snap and the gaff go limp in his hands. His last hook had snapped off, and there was little else he’d be able to do to catch fish. Yet, as disappointment began to wash over Dougal, he looked up and saw that the tiny Ednamair was laden with a rich store of dried meat. Even if they caught no more turtles, there was likely enough food to get them to the coast alive.
They would never find out. Late in the day, as twilight was beginning to settle across the horizon and they engaged in yet another lively discussion of Dougal’s Kitchen, Dougal’s expression went blank. “A ship,” he said. They all remembered the disappointment of their previous encounter with a ship, so when he stepped up on the center thwart with a flare in his hand, everyone held their breath. He lit the flare and waved it high over his head as long as he could bear the burning sensation in his fingers. When he could stand the pain no longer, he threw the flare as high and far as he could into the sea. He grabbed another flare and did the same. Was the ship altering course? Frantically, he reached for their last flare, their last chance at salvation, and pulled the striker. Nothing happened. The flare was a dud.