01x09 - Lost at Sea

[bunniefuu]

I've got four cameras with me,
a whole bunch of batteries, the tapes I

need, the camera gear I need associated
with that stuff.

And other than that, I've got the ocean.

This time on Survivorman, I'm
heading to Central America and

the country of Belize, a tropical
paradise of the highest order.

But for this challenge, I won't be
anywhere near land.

I'm heading out into the open ocean.

Like a castaway, I'm
going to be set adrift in a life

raft, left to the mercy of
the wind and the currents.

For seven days, I'll be lost at sea
without food or fresh water, only the

searing tropical sun above me and the
depths of the ocean below me.

My support crew and I
are going to head way out

into the open water
where they'll set me adrift.

But before we left, I tested out what I
thought would be the raft we would be using.

Life rafts are packed
by the manufacturer and

have an expiration
date printed on the case.

We found this one on a local yacht.

And even though it was six months
past its due date for repacking,

it was considered by the
yacht's owner to be ready for use.

Within only two minutes
of a promising start, the

plugs on the raft completely
failed and it deflated.

What if this had been a real emergency?

Anyone attempting to use this raft would
have been dead in the water.

My support crew has found a replacement
raft, but there's no time to test it out.

I have flown, biked, driven, paddled,
and helicoptered into survival locations.

But somehow sailing to where
I must spend the next seven

days surviving alone has a
much more powerful feel to it.

More final.

Gord Lacco, my marine survival expert,
and Frank Gagliano, my boat captain,

tried to figure out the best place to drop
me so they could follow my drift from afar.

They think that I can drift in the wind
and current to a group of small islands,

and if all goes right, I
may be able to beach

myself on one towards
the end of the week.

Just getting ready to
toss this raft over, we're

going to first disable
the hydrostatic release.

This gadget here operates like a depth
charge fuse.

If this yacht sank with no one ready to
release it at about ten feet underwater,

this would blow.

Release this hook, which flies back,
the raft comes up.

But the way we're
launching it, we're going to

Chuck it overboard,
so we'll do it manually.

Sometimes if the vessel is sinking fast,
the raft can inflate and get caught up in

the rigging, and be taken to the bottom of
the ocean with the boat.

These rafts can be very heavy,
and I don't know how anyone is expected to

lift one by themselves while the boat is
sinking and a storm is blowing.

It's been quite a problem for many people
throughout history.

But the sailors' rule of thumb
for life rafts is that you should

only use it when you actually
have to step up to climb in.

The raft opens upside down, a common
occurrence.

Hopefully the few supplies
it comes with haven't

fallen out or been
soaked by the salt water.

In an emergency, a boat can take just
seconds to sink.

I can't imagine how hard it must be to get
into a raft like this in a heaving,

stormy sea at night.

On a quick check, it looks
like the supplies haven't

floated away, but they're
all saturated with salt water.

Hopefully the baler is still here.

You're gone!

There goes less.

Now the crew leaves me to drift,
alone.

They'll try to keep track of me throughout
the week.

My fears?

Dehydration.

Sunstroke.

And sharks.

This is it.

This is it for real now.

I'm sure the reality is going to sink in
any minute now.

That's got to take a moment just to figure
out what it is I got to do.

Well, actually I know what it is.

The first thing I got to do is get all
this water out of here.

Get myself as dry as possible,
as quickly as possible.

It's a great raft, but it's already
leaking badly through the floor,

which means I'll be bailing constantly.

Well, I'm completely alone now.

The potential for something to go wrong is
very high.

There's great risk in doing this.

I've got a shadow boat with me.

Now they can't chitchat
with me on the radio, but

they've got to monitor
my safety all week long.

I'm quite nervous about it all.

For now, the seas are relatively calm.

But there's so much openness around me,
so much water.

It's easy to become overwhelmed by the
immense ocean.

Well, it's not hard to figure out what you
do in a situation like this.

I mean, you either want to try and attract
attention by signaling somehow,

or you want to hit land.

Obviously, I'm not going to be trying to
attract attention.

What I'm going to hope for is that there
are keys, little islands, basically,

that I might land on with this.

And I can try to make that
happen by playing with the

sea anchor, like a parachute
on a long line sent out.

And it helps to keep the raft stable and
keep it from flipping over, because it

pulls down and can slow your progress as
well.

So I might want to pull it up if I want to
try and speed up and hit an island.

All right, well, let's take a look at the
construction of this raft.

These rafts have got two
separate tubes to keep the

flotation happening, as well
as an arch to give me my roof.

They color it on the
inside all blue because

they believe that's a
more calming color.

And they also feel that it does help to
stop seasickness.

Got a zipper out the back of it to help
air go through and also a rain catch.

It's not attached right now, but this is
the water bladder.

This little tube attaches to the rain
catch.

You know, just about every shipwreck
survivor, anybody who had to spend time at

sea in a life raft, complained
about constant air leaks

or constant water leaks
from the bottom of their raft.

Just so happens, I've got both.

The only way I can make
this work and film it, too,

is to tie on a little rubber
dingy to go with me.

It'll be a place where I can put most of
my camera gear.

Wind has died right down and the sun is
going down.

Soon it'll be dusk, which has the horrible
nickname of the sharking hour.

Sharks get much more active at dusk and
dawn when they're feeding.

I think what I'm going to
have to do for the night is climb

into the little blue dingy,
spend the night in there dry.

Survivors often have both a life raft and
a dingy as an emergency backup.

There's so much water
in my raft that I'm going

to sleep in the open
dingy to try to stay dry.

That's mostly home.

I guess this is the bedroom.

I don't think I could be up in here in the
heat of the day.

I'd just be scorched by that sun.

But right now, the sun lost its strength
and it's going down.

It's nice to get in here and get dry.

I feel like I'm a lot lower to the water.

It feels a lot more vulnerable.

I feel a lot more vulnerable.

Pretty hard, I think, no matter who you
are, to not be in a situation like this

and just be thinking about sharks
constantly.

I don't care how tough you are,
man.

This is not an easy-going situation.

You know, I've slept in deserts, jungles,
swamps, the Arctic, tops of mountains.

But out here, in the
middle of the ocean like

this, is by far the
eeriest it's ever felt.

There's not much between me and the ocean.

A little bit of rubber.

That's about it.

It's day two of my seven days lost at sea.

There's only a few square
feet of rubber raft protecting

me from the perils and
the depths of the ocean.

Let me do a spin around and show you what
I can see.

That's it.

Before it gets too windy and
too wavy out here, before that sun

gets too high and intense,
it's already getting pretty warm.

Maybe what I'll do is I'll show you what I
have for supplies.

Now, in this situation, I
wanted to go with the supplies

that came with the raft
and find out what we got.

Something really interesting happened.

When the raft opened up upside down,
water got into everything.

And you see, it's surprising how, how, I
don't know, UN-waterproof the stuff was.

This is the actual bag, which is not a
waterproof bag.

The top was just open.

Okay, now this is something that I have
myself.

This didn't come with the kit.

Emergency navigation chart.

I may be able to use it for figuring out
where I am.

Okay, these are three hand flares.

And once again, water got into them.

And I could feel them reacting with the
water.

They were getting hot, internally hot.

Waterproof flashlight.

It doesn't work.

Okay, first aid kit.

I have added multi-tool.

I brought a pair of goggles.

I'll tell you why.

With a pair of goggles, I might be able to
dive for some fish, or some conch shells,

or something like that.

We've got the blue dinghy, and the raft.

Alright, I'm going to pull up the sea
anchor, the drogue.

Because it would be
nice if I could slip behind

some of the small
islands that I'm passing.

And if I pull up the drogue, it'll lessen
the drag in the water, and help me to move

a little faster, possibly
into a better position than

I am right now, because
I'm pretty exposed out here.

It can go either way.

Drifting at a couple of knots, I could
easily travel as far as 50 miles a day.

On the other hand, without wind or strong
current, I could Bob around like a cork in

one place, frying under the relentless
tropical sun.

So here I am.

It's at a drift in a very, very big ocean.

Sorry, it's hard to talk.

I have to, uh...

I have to keep looking at the horizon so I
don't start to feel too seasick.

It's been hours, and my safety boat is
nowhere to be seen.

Alright, you want to see the cold hard
reality of this?

Susan calling talisman.

Susan calling talisman.

Susan is the name of the raft,
by the way.

No answer.

This is our high-powered VHF.

Susan calling talisman.

Susan calling talisman.

No answer.

Which means that at this very moment,
anything could go wrong to me here,

right here and now, and they wouldn't be
able to hear my cries for help.

This is the boat down here.

Les is somewhere out in here.

We're not quite sure where.

I do not read you anymore, talisman.

I do not read you anymore.

Over.

Talisman, this is Susan.

I read you loud and clear.

Over.

After.

hours of no visual in this thick haze,
the safety boat doesn't pass by.

To check and see if I'm still alive.

Waves are calming down.

I guess night is coming in.

The raft has bad leaks,
both in the floor and the air

chambers, causing me to bail
and reinflate every 20 minutes.

I'll need to climb into the blue dinghy
that is my camera platform.

The raft is leaking.

It's like just sitting in a big warm
bathtub.

Climbed into the dinghy.

So... I can get
up and get dry...

in the dinghy.

It really is gonna be a long, long night.

My life jacket is on in case I roll out of
the dinghy in my sleep.

Then, without warning, a sudden rain
squall hits.

Okay, well...

I finally, I just climbed in here.

I'm soaking wet now, of course.

Finally, as I get myself organized, get
the camera turned on, it stops raining.

But, the good news is...

it rained enough that I got... some
fresh water caught in the rain catch.

Probably gonna be salty a bit,
but...

mostly of it... most
of it is... fresh water.

Actually... no... hardly
any salt water in it at all.

Doesn't taste very good though,
coming off the plastic.

Oh...

That's nice.

Nice to get the fresh water though.

It's the middle of the night.

Survivor Man has gone six miles from the
place he was dumped into the sea.

But, he probably covered 20 miles...

throughout the night.

Going in circles, unfortunately.

So, that's gotta be the maddening part of
it.

For a while, you see
a light or you see a

piece of land, and then
it starts to disappear.

That was a long night.

And you know, it's really hard to tell,
but when you look at the islands...

I have a feeling that...

I drifted... one way in the
night, and maybe even drifted...

back out again.

Because the breeze has changed.

There's one sort of big...

island I can see, and the breeze has
changed.

It's now blowing me...
away from that... that island.

I interchange keys and islands.

Down here they call them keys.

Or islands.

It really doesn't matter.

I've got... little fish... that have decided
to make the bottom side of my raft home.

That could be good.

Well, good in that I might be able to make
a meal of them.

bad in that... they are a
floating meal for larger fish.

And eventually sharks.

So... at this point, as my
captain so eloquently put it...

I am now part of the food chain.

Dolphin just swam...
within just feet of me.

No doubt checking me out.

That was cool.

I'm glad to see
him... so close to me.

I mean he passed
by... within feet.

A dolphin is a good sign.

They have been known to even protect
swimmers... from massive great white sharks.

You know, a lone survivor is at a grave,
grave disadvantage.

There's no one... to help.

There's no one to tease me out of fear.

There's no one that I could
even be brave... courageous for.

No one to talk to.

Except maybe this fly.

It is... just dead still.

And I didn't even know it could get like
this out of the ocean.

But it's dead still.

Nothing's moving.

There's no wind.

No air.

Sun's beating down.

I don't... I'm not moving anywhere.

This is getting steamy...

and dangerously hot.

I may be in the middle of a vast ocean...
but this heat... and the thick haze...

have conspired to make
me feel... very claustrophobic.

While I battle heat stroke...
my whole world consists...

of these two pieces of inflated rubber.

It's very hazy.

But you can still get burned badly...
through this kind of cloud cover.

Well, in this heat... finally a
slight breeze has just picked up.

What I want to do is maybe...
chart my speed of my drift now.

I can actually figure out my drift speed...
with a rope of determined length...

and something small to float past it.

Here's my measurement marker.

I got a little bit of tissue paper.

This is my very crude version... of
the 17th century naval instrument...

called a log line.

Six thousand.

Seven thousand.

Eight thousand.

Nine thousand.

In this next... at
the half way Mark...

and I stopped
counting at 32... 32.

Halfway... So, all the
way would've been 64.

So I'm probably... Let's...

So... Let's...

A quick bit of mathematical chart
checking... and I can determine my speed.

Hm...

well, that's hard to tell...

So... Im probably roughly
travelling somewhere between...

point two and point three knots.

Not very fast.

A very slow lumbering unit here.

Traveling much faster when they first
dropped me in the water.

Been slow ever since.

After being quite a
few hours without radio

contact, we have a big
thunderstorm coming in.

And they've just come back into radio
contact with me and they're suggesting

that this could be a big one and that they
could actually lose me in the storm.

OK.

Well, I've got a very, very eerie problem
happening here.

The water has be calmed again and I'm just
sitting in a very still bit of water.

I'm back into the dinghy now to try and
sleep out the night.

But I'm seeing all kinds of wicked heat
lightning.

And I know that it's possible
that at some point in this

night, the storm could come
upon me and really bucket down.

Sitting here in calm water, no wind,
waiting for a big storm to come down on you.

And watching it come down the way.

Cross your fingers, I don't get hit by it
tonight.

It's really coming down out there.

I'm just blowing like crazy.

And it's storming.

The rain is bucketing down.

And there's a good
chance they could lose

me tonight if they don't
come and tether me.

This is pretty scary.

The tropical storm is wild and getting
stronger.

And it seems intent on blowing me all the
way to Honduras.

The safety boat has to move in quickly
once it spots my emergency strobe light.

Then it too has to escape the massive
waves and wind by ducking into a small

lagoon before it is wrecked on a reef
somewhere.

I'm now tethered to the safety boat.

For the safety of the
crew as well, it pulls

into the Lee of an island
to wait out the storm.

In the morning, I briefly
jump aboard the boat so

they can reposition my
raft out into the open water.

It's a welcomed respite.

But then, it's back into the raft.

Camiles!

Good work.

Good work.

Good work.

Excuse me, guys.

Okay, we're chopped the boat.

Let's get it.

The next day dawns fairly clear.

And Gord and Frank decide that it's
finally safe to set me adrift again.

One of the biggest challenges of survival
at sea is psychological.

The monotony and
desperation of week after week

of drift and waves can
break the will to live.

Survivors tell
heartbreaking stories of ships

passing close by only to
disappear over the horizon.

The promise of land, even deserted,
must be a godsend for the true survivor.

All week, islands have
passed by tantalizingly

close, but impossible
for me to get to.

This island is within reach.

All right, you see that?

Now, I'm drifting in a way.

With any luck, I'll hit this little
island.

If I don't hit it, I'm way out beyond the
reef.

It looks like it's gonna be tight whether
I hit it or not.

The current's doing one thing,
the wind's doing another.

I'll show you where I am.

Like this.

Directly underneath the
raft is a field of skin-ripping,

bone-jarring, and
sometimes poisonous coral.

This is not really the safest thing here.

That coral is gonna be sharp.

This is more dangerous than it may look.

Coral reefs can rip apart yachts,
or simply shred the skin from my legs.

I thought about jumping
in to pull the raft ashore,

but I get lucky, and I
hit a Sandy cold instead.

After days of bobbing around on the ocean,
the solid ground feels amazing.

The irony is that being
cast away on a small island

is in some ways worse
off than being adrift at sea.

At least then I was going somewhere in the
raft.

Now I'm trapped on a tiny island,
and my safety crew has left for the

mainland, leaving me utterly alone once
again.

It's a pretty small island.

I don't know, maybe 90 yards long by 75
yards wide.

Wow.

People have been here and cleared out this
area here for shelter.

And I'm gonna shelter here too.

In this case, the evidence of people can
only mean poachers.

They come from other
countries, and use these

desolate ocean
islands to poach lobster.

Their garbage, along with trash from
shipwrecks, is all over the island.

This raft, that confidently
held my life for days, is now

relegated to keeping scorpions
and crabs off of me at night.

Now I do have one serious problem.

The possibility of heat stroke.

I'm feeling extremely hot.

I'm still sweating, that's a good sign.

But, uh, I gotta be really careful if I
get to the point where I'm not sweating.

That's very dangerous.

I gotta go cool down.

It's been a long time without food.

And the rain that filled both the raft and
the blue dinghy was tainted with seawater.

I went in to cool off there just now.

I'm standing there.

I look down.

About a three-and-a-half-foot shark swam
right by me.

I tell you, I'm glad to be out of that
raft.

Like you would not believe.

So tomorrow, it's all about food and
water.

There's no water on this
island to speak of in terms

of spring, so I'm gonna
have to find other methods.

And try for some live foods.

Very bright moon tonight.

It's making it so that I
can walk around on the

island without too much
problem in the dark.

Well, it is certainly the strangest
feeling to be inside this life raft.

And not be...

Jostled back and forth constantly.

Time to get some sleep.

Good night.

There are some big c*ck around
here.

That was one horrible sleep.

I still have what they call stillness
illness.

Once you're on the solid ground,
it feels like everything's still moving.

Even this morning, it still feels like the
raft is bobbing around.

Here's what's left of my rain catchment
bag.

You know what I could do, especially with
a bag like this and the long tube?

It comes with it.

A water enema, basically.

You can't do it with sea water because
it'll k*ll you.

But brackish, slightly brackish water or
slightly tainted water, there was one

family who kept themselves alive by giving
themselves daily enemas with tainted water

that they couldn't otherwise drink or it
would make them sick.

Fortunately, there are palm trees on this
island.

All over this island, there are parts and
supplies from boats, refuse from ships,

as well as the leftovers from the
poachers.

Cold hard reality of just about everywhere
on the planet.

You can always find garbage of some sort.

Huh.

This is one half of the canister that the
life raft came in.

The idea is that all the sea water and all
the greenery will start to evaporate.

The sea water will evaporate and the
greenery will sweat.

The moisture out of it will evaporate.

Hit the plastic on the roof and then
hopefully little droplets will drip down,

down, down, down, down to the lowest point,
which is right up above my little cash cup.

Drinking only the liquid of green coconuts
can lead to diarrhea.

I need some solid food.

And the best place for that is the ocean.

Oh yeah, he's in there all right.

This is a conch shell.

And inside is a delectable treat.

There's no way that I can pull him out of
there.

And the shell is extremely hard.

But it does have just one, one weak spot.

Did it.

Well, it won't be conch chowder,
but after five days without food,

it should hit the spot.

I'm basically going to cut away everything
that isn't white.

This little piece here.

Call that strength of the conch.

Here's what I want.

Fresh white meat from right out of the
conch.

You can just eat raw.

And if I found one, I'm sure I can find
more.

Smells fresh.

Oh, it's warm, but it's fresh water.

Who'd have thought?

It's only announced, but it's better than
nothing.

So the solar still does work.

It just takes its time.

That's good.

Somehow I think I slept better when the
bottom of this raft wasn't rock hard.

At least it didn't rain last night.

Cool.

Sea snails.

They're locally known as willicks.

Gathered a bunch of coconut husks from the
island.

Also got bamboo.

Bamboo.

This may be my easiest fire starting
challenge yet.

This... is one of
my hand flares.

Okay.

That works.

Yep.

Okay.

Flares died.

c*ck are all going running.

I've got the willicks in there,
in seawater.

Gonna cook them up.

Yeah.

Let's get rid of all the entrails.

A little overdone.

Rubbery, but good.

The next few days can be spent gathering
sea snails, coconuts, and conch shells.

I've found an old bottle.

There is one thing I could do with it.

It may seem like a cliché,
but survivors adrift, even

in recent years, have used
bottles to send messages.

Notes have been scratched on styrofoam,
or anything else that will float.

I can only imagine the desperate feeling
of knowing that your only chance for

rescue may lie in a small bottle floating
out to sea.

A drift at sea was an experience I
approached with trepidation.

For my time out here, I was just a speck
on the ocean.

In a storm, even a rescue boat could be
powerless against the forces of nature.

Before the end of day six, the world's
realities take over.

Belize is now in a state of political
turmoil.

So the crew comes back to free me from my
island prison.

Oh, and the note in the bottle?

It has my phone number on it.

I'm still waiting for someone to call.