Survival of the fittest
Post categories: survival
| 15:29 UK time, Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Just spotted this story on News Online about a taking place on Flatholm Island and it brought back a few memories.
I was given a two day castaway adventure with courtesy of my wife for my birthday a couple of years ago. I think she probably wanted a couple of days of peace and quiet!
I'd actually wanted to do a course for years though and have always enjoyed watching survival programmes from the likes of Ray Mears, Les Hiddins (the Aussie with the funny shaped hat) and Mr Bear Grylls.
I can never work out how Ray stays so plump though, when he spends his entire life walking around, existing on meagre handfuls of grubs and plants?
He's either a very good forager or makes up for his lack of food, in between expeditions...
My castaway adventure was meant to begin on a boat off Gower but sadly the weather intervened - sad but true.
The sea was too rough (try telling that to a real life castaway whose ship is going down) so we couldn't land on the remote beach, ear marked for our course.
Instead we met up at the on Gower and hiked to our make shift camp, a few miles away in the woods.
I say camp - we had to build our own shelters for the course and it took me straight back to my childhood - spending hours out in the woods, building traps and dens and eating burnt sausages over camp fires with friends.
I'm not sure kids do this any more - do they? They're definitely missing out.
Our shelters however, had to be weather proof as we were sleeping in them. And it even rained, so I was glad I added that extra layer of leaves on top. I now know how a hedgehog feels in winter time.
My home from home:
During the course we were taught the basics of survival and bushcraft - what we could eat as far as local plant life was concerned, foraging techniques, whittling tools (I made a very sorry excuse for a spoon), knife handling and making rope from nettle fibres.
Most people are familiar with nettle tea - it tastes pretty horrible and is painful to collect. But making rope on the other hand gives nettles a whole new use.
It's amazingly strong stuff - so much so that our instructor informed us that he'd once been asked to fashion a length of nettle rope, around 6ft long to hang from, over water for a film shoot - to see how strong it was, compared to modern fibres.
However, despite repeated efforts, the damn stuff refused to break so he ended up having to cut through it!
Some nettle fibres drying out by the fire, ready to be weaved into rope:
Ìý
The highlight for me though was learning to make fire, using a friction fire lighting technique.
There's something very primeval about making fire. It's why we jumped down from the trees all those years ago and began cooking steaks - leaving the apes to their bananas. It's what makes us human.
Fire provided our ancient ancestors with warmth, protection, a means to cook food, dry out animal skins, create charcoal for cave art, land clearance for farming etc.
I hadn't however realised how hard it would be! The first thing to do was to assemble a fire kit:
This is achieved by carefully pushing and pulling your bow string back and forth - with your piece of hazel wood, looped in vertically through the middle of your bow string.
It's a bit like playing a violin on it's side and difficult to explain in words...
The movement of the bow and string causes the hazel wood to rotate and drill into the hard wood base below to produce charcoal powder.
The limpet shell goes on top of the upright hazel stick and your hand sits firmly on this to keep it all in position. Without the shell, you'd end up with a nasty blister on the palm of your hand.
Image of a bow drill by :
Ìý
You then need to step it a gear on the bow in order to produce a tiny, glowing ember - barely visible to the naked eye. This is where it gets interesting...
Carefully, (as if your life depends on it) place your charcoal and (hopefully still glowing) ember onto dried grass or some other tinderling (wool, wood shavings, dried fungi, old bracken etc) and gently bring it to life with a few breaths of air.
I grew a beard to keep warm - just in case the fire lighting didn't work out:
It's at this point that you will either achieve the impossible or fail miserably. A gust of wind now, can reduce a man to tears.
When that first flame finally licks the air though, it's a special feeling and you're filled with an enormous sense of pride.
Yes, a match would have been easier and half an hour quicker!
But I now know that if ever on a plane that goes down and I survive the impact, sharks, long swim to shore and bears...I could, after a few hours of swearing and bleeding - possibly light a fire before dark.
As for the slug - that was used as a lubricant between the limpet shell and wood! You could always use moss or mud if you prefer ;)
Gull
Read An article about Flatholm Island on the 91Èȱ¬ Wales Nature & Outdoors portal
I was given a two day castaway adventure with courtesy of my wife for my birthday a couple of years ago. I think she probably wanted a couple of days of peace and quiet!
I'd actually wanted to do a course for years though and have always enjoyed watching survival programmes from the likes of Ray Mears, Les Hiddins (the Aussie with the funny shaped hat) and Mr Bear Grylls.
I can never work out how Ray stays so plump though, when he spends his entire life walking around, existing on meagre handfuls of grubs and plants?
He's either a very good forager or makes up for his lack of food, in between expeditions...
My castaway adventure was meant to begin on a boat off Gower but sadly the weather intervened - sad but true.
The sea was too rough (try telling that to a real life castaway whose ship is going down) so we couldn't land on the remote beach, ear marked for our course.
Instead we met up at the on Gower and hiked to our make shift camp, a few miles away in the woods.
I say camp - we had to build our own shelters for the course and it took me straight back to my childhood - spending hours out in the woods, building traps and dens and eating burnt sausages over camp fires with friends.
I'm not sure kids do this any more - do they? They're definitely missing out.
Our shelters however, had to be weather proof as we were sleeping in them. And it even rained, so I was glad I added that extra layer of leaves on top. I now know how a hedgehog feels in winter time.
My home from home:
During the course we were taught the basics of survival and bushcraft - what we could eat as far as local plant life was concerned, foraging techniques, whittling tools (I made a very sorry excuse for a spoon), knife handling and making rope from nettle fibres.
Most people are familiar with nettle tea - it tastes pretty horrible and is painful to collect. But making rope on the other hand gives nettles a whole new use.
It's amazingly strong stuff - so much so that our instructor informed us that he'd once been asked to fashion a length of nettle rope, around 6ft long to hang from, over water for a film shoot - to see how strong it was, compared to modern fibres.
However, despite repeated efforts, the damn stuff refused to break so he ended up having to cut through it!
Some nettle fibres drying out by the fire, ready to be weaved into rope:
ÌýThe highlight for me though was learning to make fire, using a friction fire lighting technique.
There's something very primeval about making fire. It's why we jumped down from the trees all those years ago and began cooking steaks - leaving the apes to their bananas. It's what makes us human.
Fire provided our ancient ancestors with warmth, protection, a means to cook food, dry out animal skins, create charcoal for cave art, land clearance for farming etc.
I hadn't however realised how hard it would be! The first thing to do was to assemble a fire kit:
- 1 piece of hardwood as a base.
- 1 piece of straight wood such as hazel with a carved tip on one end.
- 1 piece of preferably bent wood resembling a bow shape.
- 1 shoe lace for your bow string. You could always use your nettle rope instead!
- 1 limpet shell.
- 1 small slug - I'll come back to this
- A solid resolve
This is achieved by carefully pushing and pulling your bow string back and forth - with your piece of hazel wood, looped in vertically through the middle of your bow string.
It's a bit like playing a violin on it's side and difficult to explain in words...
The movement of the bow and string causes the hazel wood to rotate and drill into the hard wood base below to produce charcoal powder.
The limpet shell goes on top of the upright hazel stick and your hand sits firmly on this to keep it all in position. Without the shell, you'd end up with a nasty blister on the palm of your hand.
Image of a bow drill by :
Ìý
You then need to step it a gear on the bow in order to produce a tiny, glowing ember - barely visible to the naked eye. This is where it gets interesting...
Carefully, (as if your life depends on it) place your charcoal and (hopefully still glowing) ember onto dried grass or some other tinderling (wool, wood shavings, dried fungi, old bracken etc) and gently bring it to life with a few breaths of air.
I grew a beard to keep warm - just in case the fire lighting didn't work out:
It's at this point that you will either achieve the impossible or fail miserably. A gust of wind now, can reduce a man to tears.
When that first flame finally licks the air though, it's a special feeling and you're filled with an enormous sense of pride.
Yes, a match would have been easier and half an hour quicker!
But I now know that if ever on a plane that goes down and I survive the impact, sharks, long swim to shore and bears...I could, after a few hours of swearing and bleeding - possibly light a fire before dark.
As for the slug - that was used as a lubricant between the limpet shell and wood! You could always use moss or mud if you prefer ;)
Gull
Read An article about Flatholm Island on the 91Èȱ¬ Wales Nature & Outdoors portal
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