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spelchek
23-01-2009, 02:21 PM
The recent news article(s) and subsequesnt thread here about the '25 day sin an esky guys' reminded me I was going to post this tidbit for the boaters here to ponder. We all know the old adage 'don't drink sea water - ever' - BUT it appears that in a survival situation you can in fact survive on sea water. A french scientist has done a fair bit of experimenting (mad bugger that he must be) and has found that if you do it right - yuou can survive without fresh water.

Anyway - I'm just posting this here in the odd chance that one of us (God forbid) finds him/herself in the situation where the old briney is looking pretty damn good.


Drinking sea water

Everybody who has accidentally swallowed a bit of sea water knows that drinking a glass of it isn’t possible. Drinking sea water is dangerous and will result kidney failure. This is what everybody thought until Dr. Bombard proved that people could survive on sea water (we are talking about staying alive, not healthy). Many experts still disagree with Bombard’s theory, but the fact that he has survived 63 days on drifting raft without any other food and water than what the ocean could provide him gives a lot of credit to his research on sea survival. Bombard doesn’t disregard the danger of drinking sea water. During his testing periods he got sick when he tried to drink more than 32oz of sea water per day for more than five days. After numerous tests and various castaway experimentation (drifting at sea for weeks), he came to the conclusion that people could safely drink sea water in quantities not exceeding 32oz per day. Safely here doesn’t imply healthy, it is rather the maximum amount of sea water a man could drink without experiencing major health complication or life threatening conditions. Of course all his tests were limited on himself (although many other people like the crew of La Balsa expedition and the Incas themselves were known to regularly drink sea water). If you must drink sea water, follow Dr. Bombard ‘s advice.

DRINK MAXIMUM 32oz PER DAY and start as soon as possible (don’t wait to be dehydrated). Of course adding fresh water would improve your physical condition.


I found this quote from http://www.caske2000.org/survival/survivesea.htm#Drinking%20sea%20waterthis website.

oldboot
23-01-2009, 05:53 PM
So that works out to be about 800mL.

I gather you would want to drink it very slowly

A very interesting page, well worth the look.

cheers

struktcha_man
23-01-2009, 06:09 PM
gota taste better than drinking you own urine

cheers

finga
23-01-2009, 06:26 PM
gota taste better than drinking you own urine

cheers
Especially hard if you suffer from stage fright :-[


Well there's 2 experiments I don't want to do ::)

tailorboi99
23-01-2009, 08:07 PM
I believe this thing was a load of cr@p, it's basically living off 16mL of water a day each if they had 800mL's altogether. Also it's a bit like that secret warship that got torpedoed in WW2, most of them died from thirst and only a small portion from sharks. The survivors were near death on their fourth day. This is my opinion anyway,

Tom

jtpython
23-01-2009, 09:04 PM
You would definatly have the runs for sure
Good way to flush your system is to drink saltwater solution
JT

oldboot
23-01-2009, 10:32 PM
I think the important thing to understand is that If it is posible to drink salt water you would have to do so very slowly.

and if you read the whole text, you can understand that you can get very crook very quickly from a variety of sources when adrift.

exposure alone with a good water supply could kill you in a couple of days, even in a warm climate

In the short term there are far more important things than drinking water....it is well known that a healty human can survive quite a number of days without any water.

The nomadic arabs are known to walk with camels indefinitely on two cups of water a day 500ml, and for shorter periods on 1 cup of water a day 250ml.

Once the body shuts down ito water saving mode and reduces sweat production and you havent pissed for a couple of days, the human body can survive on very little water.

as for the salt as long as your body has time to process it and piss it out...( one of the problems) and your kidneys don't overload ( thats what kills you).

I don't want to find out myself..... but the dude who rote the articles has tried it.

cheers

yellowbeard
25-01-2009, 03:46 AM
32 ounces per day of a salty liquid -- so how many margaritas would that equate to?

Chris Ryan
25-01-2009, 08:26 AM
dunno yellowbeard, but I am willing to try for science sake :)

dnej
28-01-2009, 08:55 PM
Chris,
there would need to be two in that group, otherwise the experiment would be invalid( LOL)
I could probably get a leave pass.
David

trueblue
28-01-2009, 09:11 PM
Once the body shuts down ito water saving mode and reduces sweat production and you havent pissed for a couple of days, the human body can survive on very little water.

how does that work?

once you stop sweating, the body can no longer regulate core temperature, and the individual will quickly overheat.

I used to work with a bloke who was brain damaged from being severe dehydration and overheating. (he had an accident out bush and could not get himself back to water and had to wait till he was found 4 days later by a search party when he was nearly dead)

Mick

FNQCairns
28-01-2009, 09:35 PM
My dog drinks the pool water mostly, she is too lazy to walk double the distance to her bucket of fresh water, it's a little over 1/5 as salty as the ocean, but then again she also eats cane toads by the quarter dozen at a time, she is still kicking although sometimes it can be hard to tell.....


cheers fnq

Ozwald
29-01-2009, 03:40 PM
Many, many years ago I read a book about a family who's yacht was sunk by killer whales and they then spent a fairly long time in their life raft until picked up. I seem to recall one of the ways they kept themselves from getting too dehydrated was to give themselves (or each other is probably a better description) sea water enemas. The lower colon has evolved so that it re-absorbs water from the digestive system when required but doesnt absorb salts, etc. Fairly uncomfortable and very undignified but drastic measures for drastic times.
As I said I read the book a long time ago and its entirely possible too many XXXX stubbies have muddled the brain cells.......... anybody medical out there care to comment on this? Should the coastguard require all craft to carry a length of hose pipe and a funnel for emergencies?

cormorant
29-01-2009, 08:54 PM
Many, many years ago I read a book about a family who's yacht was sunk by killer whales and they then spent a fairly long time in their life raft until picked up. I seem to recall one of the ways they kept themselves from getting too dehydrated was to give themselves (or each other is probably a better description) sea water enemas. The lower colon has evolved so that it re-absorbs water from the digestive system when required but doesnt absorb salts, etc. Fairly uncomfortable and very undignified but drastic measures for drastic times.
As I said I read the book a long time ago and its entirely possible too many XXXX stubbies have muddled the brain cells.......... anybody medical out there care to comment on this? Should the coastguard require all craft to carry a length of hose pipe and a funnel for emergencies?


Les Hiddens wouldn't do it but those navy boys ----welll-------- Wonder if it is true??

FNQCairns
30-01-2009, 12:05 PM
Many, many years ago I read a book about a family who's yacht was sunk by killer whales and they then spent a fairly long time in their life raft until picked up. I seem to recall one of the ways they kept themselves from getting too dehydrated was to give themselves (or each other is probably a better description) sea water enemas. The lower colon has evolved so that it re-absorbs water from the digestive system when required but doesnt absorb salts, etc. Fairly uncomfortable and very undignified but drastic measures for drastic times.
As I said I read the book a long time ago and its entirely possible too many XXXX stubbies have muddled the brain cells.......... anybody medical out there care to comment on this? Should the coastguard require all craft to carry a length of hose pipe and a funnel for emergencies?

The visuals you have prompted I can do without, I understand that some do the enema thing for recreation but in the guise of some almost equally wacko heath status, but we all know it's recreation first.

Wonder if this process would reach the colon? Wouldn't it simply invade the bowl, if the bowl has the ability I wonder how many ML per hour:-/...I dunno and I guess i am equally happy to never know:P

cheers fnq

Noelm
30-01-2009, 12:51 PM
might have just stumbled across the first Human water maker! who needs membranes and osmosis and engines to make fresh water?, simple stick the deck hose up the rear, and out comes fresh water, not to mention the extra water ration you will have, after all, who would want to drink it or wash in it? might also take a week to wipe the smile off some peoples faces!

disorderly
31-01-2009, 01:35 PM
Many, many years ago I read a book about a family who's yacht was sunk by killer whales and they then spent a fairly long time in their life raft until picked up. I seem to recall one of the ways they kept themselves from getting too dehydrated was to give themselves (or each other is probably a better description) sea water enemas. The lower colon has evolved so that it re-absorbs water from the digestive system when required but doesnt absorb salts, etc. Fairly uncomfortable and very undignified but drastic measures for drastic times.
As I said I read the book a long time ago and its entirely possible too many XXXX stubbies have muddled the brain cells.......... anybody medical out there care to comment on this? Should the coastguard require all craft to carry a length of hose pipe and a funnel for emergencies?

The book you are referring to is called Survive the Savage Seas by Dougal Robertson and the event took place just east of The Galapagos Islands during 1968....On board were 2 parents,2 young children and a young male adult..

During there almost 40 days drifting in a liferaft and dinghy in tropical waters before rescue they survived on the odd flying fish,dolphin fish and turtle for food and an occasional rain shower and turtle blood to drink....the children were the ones that seemed to suffer the most from dehydration and the enema's were introduced to use the combination of salt and fresh water and turtle blood that accumulated in the bottom of the dinghy...it being to unpalatable to drink...


They introduced about 0.5 to 1 litre at a time via a tube ..and the theory was it would absorb into the body through the bowel and intestinal lining and help delay dehydration....


The young guy who was with them refused the offer of a enema ..he survived also..so its difficult to ascertain the actual benefits but it sounds logical to me..

I'd have no hesitation in administering this method with the water that was too foul to drink,if ever in a similar situation...hell I've even seen Steve-o of Jackass fame do it with beer...interesting way to get pissed...;);D...


Its also an interesting perhaps lifesaving idea, the drinking of small amounts of seawater...I guess it could also be diluted with any fresh water available to make it last longer or be able to increase the amount drunk..I'd like to know more ,rather than just this one guys experience...

Scott

sandbankmagnet
31-01-2009, 02:30 PM
might have just stumbled across the first Human water maker! who needs membranes and osmosis and engines to make fresh water?, simple stick the deck hose up the rear, and out comes fresh water, not to mention the extra water ration you will have, after all, who would want to drink it or wash in it? might also take a week to wipe the smile off some peoples faces!

Shhh!!! If Anna hears this she'll work out some way to get it into our dams.

oldboot
31-01-2009, 02:56 PM
The salt water enema is a very dangerous thing...if the water is more salty that the bodily fluids it will result is rapid dehydration.

This is a findamental principle of dyalisis / osmosis......water travels across the membrane toward the more salty side.


fresh ware enemas are likley to be benificial, but this too is a very radical step.

Enemas are used in exposure cases in hospital to both restore body temperature and to rehydrate.....but you arely need to know what you are doing.

This issue id discussed in the source paper quoted in this thread.

cheers

disorderly
31-01-2009, 06:19 PM
The salt water enema is a very dangerous thing...if the water is more salty that the bodily fluids it will result is rapid dehydration.

This is a findamental principle of dyalisis / osmosis......water travels across the membrane toward the more salty side.


fresh ware enemas are likley to be benificial, but this too is a very radical step.

Enemas are used in exposure cases in hospital to both restore body temperature and to rehydrate.....but you arely need to know what you are doing.

This issue id discussed in the source paper quoted in this thread.

cheers

Old boot you sound as if you have some knowledge in this area....

What is your take on the ingestion of enough salt water to keep you alive but not enough to cause organ failure...?

It sounds like a fine line to tread and in the state of being a castaway, suffering greatly from thirst,the administering of such doses seems like it would be somewhat of a problem to effectively regulate given the conditions one would probably be under..

Its very interesting and quite amazing if true though...but I do wonder...

Scott

oldboot
31-01-2009, 07:08 PM
My wife is a Dyalisis nurse and deals with kidney failure patients on a daily basis... of course I get an ear full of kidney issues on a daily basis:( ;D :-X .

The kidneys and to a lesser extent the liver remove stuff from the blood stream and in the case of the kidneys excreet excess stuff as urine and the liver converts and metabolises other stuff.

It has been said if you dont eat you don't $#@T and if you dont $#@T you die... and there is some truth in that.

It is also tru that if you dont piss your kidneys fail (or shut down), after a while of kidney failure your liver goes out in sympathy.
Depending on the situation the kidneys may come back after treatment but once you liver is clagged you are stuffed.

Without the kidneys and liver functioning toxins build up in the body and the whole body is poisoned by the blood stream....very unpleasant......It is quite common for end stage kidney failure patients to cease treatment....it is a slow lingering death.

SO
What is important is to have sufficient water intake and a low enough salt intake such that the kidneys can cope with it.

This is why the text entions that if salt water is to be drunk it should start early while the kidneys are still helathy.
If you left it till you were in bad shape it would take very little to overcome the capacity of the already stressed kidneys.

I can see that if fresh water was on hand but restricted, this would be the point at this point to consume small ammounts of salt water to conserve the fresh.

you could then consume a quantity of fresh to flush the system.

From what I know and understand you would want to keep the salt water down to a small ammount and be drunk slowly.

I would be very interested in further reading.

I think the best outcome would be where there is a posibility of catching some fresh water.


There is no question you could get very sick very quickly drinking salt water......this would have to be a well considered survival method bassed on having good information to start with.......you would realy need to know your stuff.

Consider also that there is a great deal of variance in what different humans will tolerate.

cheers

oldboot
31-01-2009, 09:32 PM
Check out a couple of these links.

www.catalogs.com/info/gadgets/why-can't-humans-drink-saltwater.html (http://www.catalogs.com/info/gadgets/why-can't-humans-drink-saltwater.html)

www.straightdope.com/columns/read/213/what-would-hapen-to-you-if-you-drank-seawater (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/213/what-would-hapen-to-you-if-you-drank-seawater)

Now to add to the complications of this.

A persons tolerance of salt water may be reduced considerably by a number of common health conditions.

high blood preasure

various heart and circulatory conditions

salt intolerance

dehydration

results of various medications.

poor kidney function ( many people have poor kidney function and don't know it)

diabeeties

This whole drinking sea water thing, whilst plausable ( there are several documented cases.. aparantly) has so many complications and conditions under which it could all go pear shaped you would realy have to think twice about it.

If it went wrong it could just as easily kill you as save you.

I would expect for it to be benifoicial there would either have to be additional fresh water available at some point of sufficient reserves of water in your system.

then one asks the question would you be better off not drinking the salt water in the first place... as it could be argued that you would have to piss out the same amount of water or more than you drank.

consider that if you concerve energy and keep cool you can get away without drinking for a couple of days.


probably the best option given the situation is to heavily restrict water right from day1 so your body goes into water crisis mode and reduses its requirement for water... then maintain the restriction drinking small amount of you fresh water stores at the cool times of the day.

this is why the general safety obligation requiers us to carry suficient water.

From what I remember an acceptable ration of water for the GSO is 4.5l per person per day.


check the survival table here
www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-can-you-survive-without-water/ (http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-can-you-survive-without-water/)

the long term data on this table looks a bit screwy

and this
www.aircav.com/survival/asch13/asch13p02.html (http://www.aircav.com/survival/asch13/asch13p02.html)


other sources stste that the absolute minimum amout of water for continuous survival is 3l per day.

so much of this would depend on temperature, humidity and other factors.




The more I read, the more I ask and the more I think about this, the less atractive drinking salt water becomes.
You would have to have incredible physical and mental discipline and be in peak health... and know your salt tolerance.

I can see why it would generaly not be recommended.

I hope never to have to find out.

By far the best use for salt water would be to bathe to preserve body temperature which in an exposed situation in the tropics would be every bit as big a problem as drinking water

cheers

garman1
01-02-2009, 08:22 AM
I know that you do not drink salt water and have learned that you can in extreme situations but in small amounts only. But I have a silly question, can you absorb salt into the body simply from being immersed in it? Considering that if you are "lost" at sea, normally people are in the water......Or is the skin tough enough to stop any transfer through it??

yellowbeard
01-02-2009, 08:53 AM
Many, many years ago I read a book about a family who's yacht was sunk by killer whales and they then spent a fairly long time in their life raft until picked up. I seem to recall one of the ways they kept themselves from getting too dehydrated was to give themselves (or each other is probably a better description) sea water enemas. The lower colon has evolved so that it re-absorbs water from the digestive system when required but doesnt absorb salts, etc. Fairly uncomfortable and very undignified but drastic measures for drastic times.
As I said I read the book a long time ago and its entirely possible too many XXXX stubbies have muddled the brain cells.......... anybody medical out there care to comment on this? Should the coastguard require all craft to carry a length of hose pipe and a funnel for emergencies?

So you're out on a celebrity cruise, the boat goes down, and you end up adrift in a liferaft for 25 days with science guru Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and celebrity gossip guru Richard Reid.
Kruszelnicki's talking about drinking sea water in rations and Richard Reid is talking about enemas -- Who ya gonna believe? :o

oldboot
01-02-2009, 09:34 AM
from what I understand the body's normal level of salt is very close to but lower than seawater.....so it is unlikely that you would absorb salt or water by being immersed in sea water......however it is possible there may be a slight dehydrating effect.

Now consider this.....there will be a great difference in water needs and heat stress in different climates....check the tables in the links I posted earlier.

there are very big advantages to keeping your body at or close to normal tempearture....if the air temp is too hot and you will peerspire and there is a resultant water loss....too cold and you will suffer from hypothermia.

Consider at 45 degC you will need to drink up to 20 litres of water to compensate for perspiration.

So there may be considerable advantages to immersion in sea water for the purpose of keeping cool and thus reducing water loss thru perspiration.

This is also mentioned in the original referenced text.

Now....I've been thinking......concerning the original text....what climate was all this " experimenting" done in and most important how much fresh water or water from other sources was consumed.

regardless of the benifit, if only sea water was consumed it appears that there would be a significant dehydrating effect right from the start and a very good probability of organ damage.
however
if there was "other water" consumed it would be an entirely different story and depending on the proportions what the results would be.

The weather conditions would also have a big effect on the outcome.

As for the Dr Karl question.....firstly you would be in a ( hopefully) fully provisioned life raft, complete with an eperb.

secondly I think long before the 25 days the discussion woul be more on the lines of " would it be better to use the gosip guru for bait, eat him, or just cast him adrift".

wilcara
01-02-2009, 07:32 PM
Just a few wild thoughts from an old advanced life support paramedic....

From what I can recall from all I ever learned about exposure etc etc.... and what I have read in relation to sea survival.... this sounds like a crock of sh&t to me.

I think the guy referred to is talking about how much sea water you can drink and stay alive. This is a long, long way from drinking sea water to stay alive.

Seawater is an emetic, it will make you vomit. If you vomit you will dehydrate. If you dehydrate for long enough you will suffer brain impairment and eventually die. Remember all teh stories about shipwrecked sailors drinking the sea water and going crazy before dying in agony or jumping over the side? This medically makes a lot of sense and I have no doubt it is true.

Everything I have ever read or studied says to me that if you are dehydrated and under physical stress the very worst thing you can do is drink seawater.

You can survive quite a while without it, depending on your state of health and the weather.

You may be able to survive if you drink it. I do not believe that drinking it will help you stay alive.

Also, I hope there is a medico out there to help me, but as far as I recall drinking urine also will exacerbate dehydration, that is, make it worse. I don't recall the science behind it unfortunately.

As to the salt enemas I am not sure: Yes the large colon functions include reabsorbtion of water and it is very efficient at this but a salt solution could also draw fluid out of the body leading to worse dehydration.

Lastly, Garman1, the first function of skin is as a "waterproof" membrane so no you won't absorb water through it, though you will lose water through it via perspiration.

oldboot
02-02-2009, 12:04 AM
One of the problems with this whole discussion is that veryy few people would realy know... I mean realy know their stuff of this survival stuff....even fewer would be prepared to entertain such a concept.

As the article says the concept has many critics... quite understandably.

As it mentions in the article drinking any sort of volume of sea water quickly is going to cause you to vomit.

most certainly death by dehydration or even worse salt poisoning is a very uggly thing, delusion, insanity, fitting and spasims are all possible results.

I agree that once dehydrated and under heat stress, the bodies tolerance to salt water would be very low.

I would be very interested to see the source text that all this comes from.


One other consideration that comes to mind is the salt concentration in sea water.....the genearl salt concentration varies arround the globe and there are some places where there are strong outflows that the "sea water" can be quite drinkable some way out to sea......for instance the Burdican River in flood pushes fresh quite some way out.


As far as drinking urine..... there are quite a few " alternative therapies" that involve drinking your own urine... but they all have other sources of water involved and the total output of urine isn't drunk.
One of the big problems with drinking your own urine is that you keep recycling other toxins as well as the salts, probaly the most significant is urea.

So in a dehydrated situation.. assuming you are still pissing.. the urine will be quite concentrated in salts and other toxins your body is trying to get rid of.

the liklyhood of becomming euremic ( overloaded with urea) is quite lilkley this will cause the brain to misfunction with the eventual fitting and death.

I would not necesarly say that this is all "a crock"..... but " of questionable benifit" and unlikley to be recommended by the majority is without arguement.

As for me...I don't think I would be...drinking the sea water, drinking urine, having sea water enema.

I think it is important to carry sufficient fresh water.
In the case of emergency, keep cool and minimise activity to concerve energy and minimise perspiration and arrange some sort of shelter.

cheers

finga
02-02-2009, 07:53 AM
Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters or how about an experiment or 70 on the 2 blokes in question.
Might get some answers either way then :)

I still reckon their story is a pile of pelican poo
And more importantly....what happened to the esky???

oldboot
02-02-2009, 10:49 AM
The thing about the original text is the lack of any detail, particularly concerning climatic conditions and how much other fluid is consumed and how much and how frequently the sea water was drunk.
There seems to be no tests on multiple subjects as there would be in conventional scientific studdies.

I have no doubt that one could drink 800ml of sea water per day, if it was drunk slowly enough and combined with an intake of significant ammounts of fresh water either at the same time or on following and preceeding days.
Say 800ml of sea water and 4l of fresh water.......but what would be the point.

From what we have discovered during this discussion the benifit of drinking the salt water would be questionable indeed....and one would have to do some very serious medical studdies under a variety of conditions and with a variety of subjects to prove or disprove any benifit under specific conditions.

Indeed it may turn out to be a complete crock or pile.

As for drinking salt water alone....I think we are pretty well agreed it is probaly a very bad idea.

cheers

wilcara
02-02-2009, 12:15 PM
And I bet that if you looked hard enough you would find somebody who survived a period of time eating razor blades and drinking battery acid or something. I have seen some amazing survival stories. Doesn't mean to say it would be recommended... maybe you would be more likely to survive longer with nothing, that is, no blades or acid at all.

Please guys do not dring seawater, urine or alcohol in any survival type incident or yoo will be going home in a bag, not a rescue chopper.

reidy
02-02-2009, 12:20 PM
I believe this thing was a load of cr@p, it's basically living off 16mL of water a day each if they had 800mL's altogether. Also it's a bit like that secret warship that got torpedoed in WW2, most of them died from thirst and only a small portion from sharks. The survivors were near death on their fourth day. This is my opinion anyway,

Tom
would that be USS Indianapolis.It wasnt a secert warship it carried components of the first a bomb to Tainan Island.She was sunk by Imperial Japaneese naval sub i-58 on the 29th of June 1945 on its return to Okinawa but due to radio silence imposed on the vessel no distress signal was sent and a search did not start until she was overdue.The crew spent 4 days in the water.It was the worst ever recorded case of humans being killed by sharks.
Also during ww2 a indian merchant crewman survived over 200 days on a raft.He was passed several times by allied shipping but fearing a u-boat ambush left him behind:-/ .He was rescued in the end.
Cheers
Reidy

oldboot
02-02-2009, 12:41 PM
I supose this is typical of many of the, medical myths or folk remidies that go back centruries.....so many of them still persist somehow.....it is probaly fair to say that people survive inspite of them and not because of them.

I think it is fair to say that we should be concentrating on the positive pro active survival things we should be doing every day we go out on the water.
like
having a properly equiped and prepared craft
telling someone where you are going and when you should be back
carrying effective radio communication and an EPERB if necessary

of course carrying a decent supply of drinking water even when you are off down the creek.

and so on.

In that case the need for desperate measures as discussed here should not occur

In this day and age 9 times out of 10 that someone finds themselves in an extreem survival situation there is some sort of foolishness or neglagence involved.

cheers

FNQCairns
02-02-2009, 12:42 PM
Was it Captain Cook? or some other explorer who spent months in a lifeboat from a pacific island up the QLD coast across the top of Australia to somewhere near or at the western end of Java to get locked up by the french. He had sailors to row and wind to push but he couldn't of packed near enough water.

cheers fnq

reidy
02-02-2009, 01:52 PM
Was it Captain Cook? or some other explorer who spent months in a lifeboat from a pacific island up the QLD coast across the top of Australia to somewhere near or at the western end of Java to get locked up by the french. He had sailors to row and wind to push but he couldn't of packed near enough water.

cheers fnq
William Blyth, the Bounty, Pitcan to Java.Not as good as Ernest Shacklton in 1914 Antactica to South Georgia Island (off the Falklands in the South Atlantic) amazing navigation in two whale boats after Endurance was crushed by ice.He did't loose a man.
Cheers
Reidy

yellowbeard
02-02-2009, 03:03 PM
I still reckon their story is a pile of pelican poo


Hey finga, that sounds quite close to another account, but you seem to have picked the wrong end of the pelican. Seems they ate bird vomit (so what, they haven't tasted the food at our local RSL yet).
And it seems it wasn't an Esky after all, according to an NZ article it was a 'chully bun', er that's chilly bin in Oz lingo. The 'chully bun' had an 800 litre capacity, which it's reported was a regular collector of downpours of monsoonal rains that were confirmed in the area.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/world/40213/chilly-bin-survivors-ate-bird-vomit

Cammy
02-02-2009, 04:36 PM
And I bet that if you looked hard enough you would find somebody who survived a period of time eating razor blades and drinking battery acid or something. I have seen some amazing survival stories. Doesn't mean to say it would be recommended... maybe you would be more likely to survive longer with nothing, that is, no blades or acid at all.

Please guys do not dring seawater, urine or alcohol in any survival type incident or yoo will be going home in a bag, not a rescue chopper.

Well just so happens that there is a guy over in europe that has eaten a jet, 10 bikes or somthing washing machines and somthing tonnes of nuts,bolts and razors as his diet over his life. There was a video on him and it shows him just picking up a cup and eating it and they show xrays of his stomach and you can see the bolts in his gut. And he goes to harware store eg. "Bunnings" to get his food lol. He is able to do this because he has an extra thick stomach lining so nothing can penetrate it.

A bit off topic but interesting non the less.

Oh and i agree on the whole surviving at sea thing - BS

Cam

FNQCairns
02-02-2009, 04:45 PM
William Blyth, the Bounty, Pitcan to Java.Not as good as William Shacklton in 1914 Antactica to South Georgia Island (off the Falklands in the South Atlantic) amazing navigation in two whale boats after Endurance was crushed by ice.He did't loose a man.
Cheers
Reidy

Yeah that's the bloke, thanks. Amazing story, totally unconceivable today.

Will look up the 1914 story for a read.

cheers fnq

reidy
03-02-2009, 10:49 AM
Yeah that's the bloke, thanks. Amazing story, totally unconceivable today.

Will look up the 1914 story for a read.

cheers fnq
It's a bloody amazing story.The ABC ran a BBC telemovie about 2 years ago ,top viewing ,a truely uplifting story of the will to survive and the dedication needed to preform feats only dreamed off.Sorry about the first name mistake Ernest not William
Cheers
Reidy

oldboot
03-02-2009, 11:30 AM
some of the stories of survival are quite something.

Consider that Cook traveled to the other side of the earth in what in reality was a clapped out coal barge.....the endevour was not very big either.

Then think about the tiny thing that Flinders (i think) used to explore the east coast and came up the brisbane river in.

and both of them were on purpose.

There are quite a few stories of survival from the iimes of sail that are just amazing.

cheers

disorderly
03-02-2009, 12:27 PM
William Blyth, the Bounty, Pitcan to Java.
Cheers
Reidy

I dont think they rowed/sailed that far....Bligh and his men were set adrift closer to Tonga while the mutineers sailed the Bounty east to Tahiti(after throwing overboard all the Breadfruit trees::)),stole some native tahitian women and then settled on Pitcairn island where their incestuous lifestyle continues today...(Pitcairn Island was in the news a couple of years ago when some of the islands leaders were jailed for rape)...

Dont know the shackleton story..might have to check that one out...

Scott