Hypothetical: Desert Island Survival.

[Lucas88]

For the hypothetical you can choose 5 items to take with you, but you must be able to fit them in your backpack. Phones and laptops are useless. Food is not an option either, neither is a yacht or anything like a boat. It has to be tools etc that you think will help you survive your time on the island.

My five items:

1. A fully loaded pistol machinegun

2. A sharp small machete

3. First aid kit

4. A leroy (aka a lighter)

5. A flask

I'm not taking any chances with a group of potential psychopaths. I'm going heavily armed!

[kangarunner]

@Lucas88 and @Pixel--Dude Both you guys got it right.

1.) Food - Fishing equipment
2.) Water - Can boil water with fire, or purifying tablets, but how else would water be purified from the ocean water?
3.) Self Defense - weapon (knife, gun)
4.) Fire - (flintstone, lighter)

Being alone on an island you would definitely go crazy after years...

@Pixel--Dude Your equipment is nearly the same as what this guy brought with him:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... hlife.html

That guy is probably happier and freer on that island than he ever was with his stressful life in the city. It's good that he's got a dingo with him.

[WilliamSmith]

My 5 items would be:

1. A Knife.
For hunting animals, can cut lengths of the fishing wire. Bind it to a large stick on the island to make a crude spear. A knife is an essential piece of kit in my opinion.

2. Fishing Wire.
To catch fish. I could fashion a fishing rod. Make a spear and use fishing wire for other useful things like building a shelter (binding sticks together etc)

3. First Aid Kit.
If I have an injury infection will be an issue. I would need to be able to clean my wounds and dress them to prevent blood loss and prevent infection.

4. Flint.
For starting fires. Essential for survival on a remote island.

5. Flask.
For containing water. Could I not heat up the water with the fire started by the flint to sterilise it?

https://wildernessawareness.org/article ... al-skills/

Here's an article on wilderness survival should you ever find yourself stranded in a remote area, or if you are on the run from the authorities because you didn't take your mandated vaccines.

What do you guys reckon to my choices? Would I survive?Let's see what you would choose (bonus points if you choose unique items that don't match another user's)

If you can't be arsed to choose 5 items we can just talk about basic survival techniques in the wilderness instead in this thread.

That is quite a good starting list, I need to come up with a serious answer to this because I quite literally am investing heavily into eventual full-time live-aboard life (on a small sailboat) and it's not even out of the question I could end up marooned on a small island IRL, LOL.

So, I will get back to this...

For now, the #1 item is a steel machete, for sure.
I found a good book on machete fighting (which is one of the most likely things to be attacked with by pirates in the Caribbean or Latin American coastline, in addition to small fire-arms). @Lucas88 I think you will like it. I also did a lot of research into pirate attacks on small boats all over the world, and I think you gents who like "prepper" stuff and martial arts will enjoy it. In case it takes me awhile, there's a good book called "Pirates Aboard" that documented a number of cases, and was an interesting mix of practical ideas + a window into the psychology of sailors who easily deflected pirates, vs those who went in with a soft and defeatist attitude and made easy prey for even ho-hum pirates...

Anyway, I need to read up on island survival and all of the things you can actually craft out of items you'd be able to find on a small island, before I come up with a full list....

My only other impulses for now: I'd better have as large a supply of dry-active distiller's yeast as possible to make alcohol (e.g. out of coconut milk maybe, though not actually sure there's enough sugar in those....), and also as much ibuprofen as possible.
Hopefully when I'm shipwrecked on this hypothetical island, the woman I have with me will already have her own plus-size leopard bikini and plus-sized faux-snakeskin bikini (which are totally vital essentials as well, but if she brings them in with her, then they shouldn't be counted against my own limited five-item list, in my opinion).

[WilliamSmith]

Ahhhh, I found this old thread I remembered!
I've been actively working on this project of wanting to fix/flip boats up until I can invest in a steel boat (by far the best survivalist material for a bugout vehicle, both for obvious durability and also having advantages as a sort of faraday cage that can help against even extreme scenarios like electromagnetic pulse weapons).

But I guess the rules said not to count a boat amongst your assets, so OK...........

The machete is still a must-have no matter how you look at it.... Besides slaying your enemies and using it as a defensive weapon and tool, if there's coconut palms on the island then the coconuts and the coconut milk are damned good. And you can use it to harvest edible seaweed and dispatch fish you caught, etc.

Also, a slingshot:
I intend to never harm a seabird in my life since I love the sound of their birdsong, but if we're talking pure survivalism vs starvation:
A slingshot is worth considering here, in addition to the machete, since you could craft your own ammo for it fairly easily (vs something like a gun or pellet rifle which anyone could use to bag more rats or seabirds than you need to survive, but only if you have a big stock of manufactured ammo).

Snorkeling gear would enable you to haul in loads of mollusks and crustaceans and whatever they're called that would be too difficult to get at if you had to hold your breathe and open your eyes underwater...

If it were a toss-up between fishing gear and a spear-gun... maybe the spear-gun if you had enough spares, since it could also double as a weapon and hunting gear for on land?

Of course the #1 thing to have is an alpha female on the island with you as your mate: Then I can let her go figure all this shit out and do most or all of the work on this stuff, while I work on lazing around on the beach and figuring out how to scrap off various forms of yeast off the island's vegetation so I can try to brew alcohol..................

[WilliamSmith]

Here is the actual article: https://wildernessawareness.org/article ... al-skills/

Hmmm, since I'm making a big list of islands that make good "bug out" escape havens, I was anticipating having fresh water available on the island... but if there wasn't and I was thrown onto a desert island with no freshwater, then I'd have to add some kind of tarp or emergency blanket kind of thing that could be used to capture rainwater. I remember reading most humans can survive weeks with no food, but only a matter of days with no water...

This thread inspires me to figure out the science of how "water markers" (onboard desalination plants you can buy for your boat to create freshwater out of seawater) actually work...

[galii]

TIL the Guinness World record for longest period which anyone has gone without solid food (fasting) is 392 days. Angus Barbieri of Tayport, Fife, lived on tea, coffee, water, soda water and vitamins in Maryfield Hospital, Dundee, Angus, from 6/65 to 7/66. His weight declined from 214kg to 80.74kg.

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ ... st_period/