by Ed Stafford
As we approached the coral reef that encircled Olorua the ocean changed from a dark metallic blue to a brilliant turquoise. Steve needed to film me making some opening observations. I sat in the bow of the boat with the island visible behind and Steve fed me questions designed to elicit the dramatic answers he was looking for. If he didn’t get the answers he wanted he simply told me what to say. ‘This is the biggest challenge so far of my whole life!’ I found myself mouthing to keep Steve happy. That’s what he wanted to hear. I couldn’t allow myself to see it that way. I’d walked the length of the Amazon for two and a half years through drug traffickers, defensive indigenous tribes and communist terrorists – an expedition that so many people considered suicidal. This wouldn’t be more challenging than that, would it? Surely this TV project had to be a walk in the park in comparison to a walk along the Amazon.
This simply wasn’t the time for me to be acknowledging fear – far too close to the bone as far as I was concerned – and I was allowing false bravado to distract me. I cringed as I found myself giving Steve the sound bites that he wanted − to me they seemed full of hype and an exaggerated sense of danger − for the opening sequences of the film. Paradoxically simple honesty would have provided him with feelings of more genuine anxiety than he could have dreamed of – but I was now far too scared to be honest about them.
‘I cannot wait until I’m on my own. Nothing personal – but it’s time for you all to bugger off now.’
Chapter 1
SURVIVING
The drone of the motor now long since receded, I walked up the beach to where my case full of camera equipment had been dropped in the shade of a coconut palm. I allowed myself to fall to my knees in the sand and clicked open the four chunky plastic latches. The case opened to reveal the only remnants of civilisation left to me: two video cameras, two head-mounted point-of-view cameras, a very stripped-down medical kit (just one course of antibiotics and a trauma dressing), an emergency satellite phone and a GPS locator device. If ever there was a moment for comfort eating, this was it. But there was no food in the box − nothing to help me survive at all.
I snapped into autopilot and tried to take charge by doing something that I did have control over. As I rigged up the cameras I was immediately aware of my first oversight. I had nothing to clip the radio mic box to. I was naked! ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The silly things that I’m already starting to flap about.’ I tried to joke to the camera and yet inside I wasn’t laughing. I tried to clip it to the camera, which completely defeated the purpose of having a remote radio mic. I was flapping. Calm, logical thought was almost impossible to hold on to.
Sand was already finding its way into everything. Deep breath out. Having rigged up the second camera and radio mic, I sat down to make a plan. ‘I’m up and running filming-wise. I just have this nervous energy circling round my chest at the moment. I think every part of me knows that this is not messing around – that I’m very much putting my money where my mouth is. If I can survive – on my own – for two months – fantastic. But I’ve never done this before! Am I going to go mad without anyone to talk to? Oh Christ.’ My sentences were just streams of consciousness – there was no perspective or reason, just raw disjointed emotions and thoughts.
‘OK, what’s the situation, Ed? What are your priorities? What do you need to do first?’
I am a former British Army captain who has been leading expeditions and operations to remote parts of the world for more than a decade. I have been in very high-risk situations before in Afghanistan working alongside the UN and I’ve taught survival courses to people about to embark on jungle expeditions in Belize. But a menacing truth suddenly loomed in front of me. I had never had to survive before from scratch. You might think that would have occurred to me before but I felt a little sick as it dawned on me that I was making it up as I was going along.
Think about it. Expeditioners, even those at the most extreme level, all carry kit and supplies to help them. They will have food and a means of cooking it; navigation equipment; some form of portable shelter; water and a means of storing and purifying it. If things go wrong they will often still have a lot to help them get themselves out of trouble. They will have a well-thought-through casualty evacuation plan that would hopefully ensure that they are never in a survival situation for very long.
Consider this too. In prehistoric times cavemen would have been very unlikely to have been in a situation in which they started with nothing. They would be born into a tribe or family that had tools, animal skins, a fire, and they would probably all be cuddled up in a well-chosen cave. They would acquire all the skills that they needed in order to live in their world as they grew up. They would usually only have to deal with one problem or situation at a time. ‘We need some more firewood/mammoth meat/sabre-toothed tiger skin.’ Delete as applicable.
My eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that I’d just volunteered myself for the absolute worst-case scenario with an acknowledgement that I would have absolutely nothing to help me survive, and a sure certainty that the situation would not change for a very long time. I would be sending an ‘OK’ message every day from the locator device but if I fell off a rock and cracked my skull in the interior of the island it might be too late by the time they found me.
My brain, used to self-deprecation to help me muddle through such times, looked for someone to share a black joke with about the absurdity of my predicament. A chill shudder ran through me as I realised another absolute truth: no one was going to share this with me. No one would laugh or cry with me. No one would give me any encouragement. No one would advise me or warn me of danger. I had absolutely nobody to turn to or to comfort me in any of this. I had to take complete responsibility for myself in every respect – probably for the first time in my life.
‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ I asked myself all too late. What would make anyone volunteer for such a lonely yet totally public self-examination?
• • •
Rewind two years and I was running down a sandy beach in northern Brazil into the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by international press teams. Exhausted and yet as high and magnificent as Mount Everest, I stood in the crashing waves allowing the moment to flow through every vein in my body. I had completed an expedition that everyone had told me was impossible – I had walked the entire length of the Amazon and it had taken me nearly two and a half years. Pride surged through me to the point of tears – I had done something that no one had ever done before – and nothing would ever take that feeling away from me.
Or would it?
Imperceptibly, I immediately started to get side-tracked. The media attention made me feel good. When I returned home to a hero’s welcome I found that I was being treated differently. I liked it. People wanted to hear what I had to say; people wanted a slice of me. The attention made me feel good and, without realising it, my internal glow of self-worth, one that had taken over two years to germinate and nurture, began to get lost in a fog of insincere compliments.
TV interviews gave way to radio, radio to motivational talks all over the world. My story was real and seemed to inspire people, and so I tapped into my pain and my elation time and time again.
‘What’s your next expedition?’ was the question asked more than any other. I found this fascinating in itself; you do something that no one in the history of mankind has ever done before and then, because we are so used to consuming and spitting out information, people want something new.
Have a beer, Ed.
My Amazonian candle of self-worth now all but extinguished – a thin wisp of smoke the only sign of my evaporating self-belief. I listened to what other people wanted because they appeared to be my source of happiness. What would the Royal Geographical Society think of this? Would Sir Ranulph Fiennes approve? Would this island adventure capture the hearts of the masses? Would that one make good TV?
Have another beer, Ed.
I fought imaginary battles between my perception of other people’s expectations and my own lost sense of direction. Where was I going? What had this all been for? How could I once again get back to that place in which I was overflowing with real confidence?
Another beer, Ed?
I needed a sequel. I needed to stay current. I needed people to see me achieve something else. I needed to prove that the first time hadn’t been a fluke . . .
In the modern surroundings of a sophisticated basement flat in Streatham, south London, I sat with Craig, my loyal friend and TV contact, and, over a cup of sugary white Lady Grey, brainstormed what to do next. We’d gone through every expedition that we could possibly conceive and independently acknowledged that I’d probably done the biggest one I was ever going to do. Unless I wanted to commit four years of my life to circumnavigating the earth manpowered via both poles – the apparent ‘Holy Grail’ of modern-day adventure – everything else seemed unworthy.
I needed to think laterally. What could I do to step sideways from what people expected in order to pit myself against nature in a more intense manner? I wanted to sift out the exploratory filler, the boring bits, and just be left with one raw challenge after another. I began to dream about an event or a test rather than a conventional expedition. Something incredibly hard, outside my comfort zone; something at which I genuinely would not know if I could succeed.
Craig and I began by eliminating every factor that would make my life more comfortable. The first to go was any assistance. ‘I need to do the next one alone,’ I said to Craig, tapping my mug with chewed fingernails. The help I’d had in the Amazon had been incredible but had left me wondering. Could I have done the expedition without my loyal Peruvian friend Cho who walked much of the journey with me? I wanted to find out if I could stand on my own two feet and be put to the test truly alone.
‘What if you were to be on a desert island and had to survive with only the basics?’ suggested Craig. I allowed myself to imagine the scenario and then, as a glow of excitement began to spread in my belly, I slowly proposed, ‘What if I was to have absolutely nothing to help me survive? No food, no equipment, no knife – not even any clothes?’
‘Could you do that?’ asked Craig.
‘I have no idea,’ I grinned.
• • •
‘Get a grip, Staffs – deal with practicalities.’ The video camera was my best friend and my mirror and meant that right from the start all my thoughts were verbalised. I caught the look of fear in my eyes in the flip-out screen and immediately realised the obligation to look after this frightened reflection of myself.
I ran through the textbook priorities that I had taught to others so many times. Water, food, fire and shelter. I knew that water was the only one that I really needed on day one but, even as I acknowledged that, a wave of panic rose in me. I had little knowledge of the island and no idea whether there would be any reliable water sources. What if I couldn’t find water? Despite the inherently contrived nature of this experiment, it was now absolutely real and it was happening. If I couldn’t find water quickly I was going to fail, and fail quickly.
‘Stay calm, Staffs. You can delay this problem and give yourself some breathing space by using what you’ve already seen.’ I was my own coach, my own adviser – I held my own clammy hand as I took the first steps on this daunting voyage. Glancing up at the green coconuts I told myself that without even moving from where I was I would be OK for one or two nights. I could throw rocks at the coconuts to dislodge green ones and I could drink the coconut water that I knew was full of electrolytes. That would hydrate me well enough for now.
My knees clicked as I stood up stiffly and brushed the sand off my bare bum. I looked up and down the beach for an obvious coconut tree that was low to the ground and immediately identified one that was only a couple of metres above my head height. I found a rock the size of an apple and threw it overhand at the inviting source of natural single-portion drinks.
I felt peculiarly self-conscious − like something from a kid’s dream – scrumping naked. I threw and I missed. I missed again. Bollocks. Underhand . . . Missed. And again. Just as I was becoming exasperated I connected with a satisfying thud. ‘Yes!’ The coconut landed, making a soft crater in the sand.
Having never opened a coconut without a machete I held the rough globe in two hands and tried to think laterally. I found a large sharpish rock that was half buried in the sand and held my coconut aloft. Using the weight of my arms and the fibrous fruit itself, I brought it down hard on the edge of the rock again and again to break through the husk. After perhaps twenty strikes coconut water spurted on to the rock and, panting hard, I held the coconut over my mouth expecting copious amounts of liquid to flow into my parched mouth. A pitiful amount trickled out. ‘That’s amazing!’ I fibbed, faking a smile to match. Then I realised what I’d done and laughed at my immediate instinct to cover up the failure − admitting to the camera that, despite all the effort, I’d hardly drank more than a few drops.
This frantic rigmarole was repeated with low-grade coconuts until I felt that I’d had at least enough liquid to keep me going and I decided to begin to explore the beach.
The long golden beach stretched out below its classic palm-tree fringe. If they were filming a Bounty advert here, you wouldn’t be surprised. But neither would you be surprised to find a few skeletons clutching rotting treasure maps. That popped into my head, too – pirates used to maroon people, didn’t they? I’d become my own Blackbeard, ordering myself off the ship to die in the relentless sun. Not a particularly helpful train of thought.
As I followed the water’s edge I noted small details: where the high tide had left a dirty ring on the beach last time the water had risen; that the sun was about three fists (at arm’s length) from hitting the horizon; and how blood on my foot told me that I’d cut my foot on the coral. I tried to smile and enjoy the beauty all around me. I felt no happiness at all and took zero pleasure in the now irrelevant aesthetics of my physical surroundings. It was day one: I could feel my shoulders burning, my saliva was already viscous and stale. There was so much unknown, so much to do, and so little to hold on to. I took shallow rapid breaths as if breathing deeply would take too much time.
‘Time spent in reconnaissance is time seldom wasted,’ I repeated a few times to reassure myself that this was accepted army wisdom and that I was making the best use of my daylight hours. I felt a strong sense of urgency and a need to get on with things. On reflection I had all the time in the world to relax into my own little private world that had no rules other than those that I imposed, but, ever conscious of my commitments to Discovery Channel and fear of looking like a failure, I immediately began to pile on the pressure.
Then the first of my cartoon double takes occurred. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said out loud.
Before me, crudely carved out of the vertical rock face, was a cave. Not a small cave that I would struggle to get into, or a damp, low cave that would be wet at high tide, but a large, spacious cave cut high into the cliff above the highest of high tides with its back conveniently turned to the prevailing winds.
My checklist of survival priorities resurfaced from the swamp of tasks in my head and I smugly ticked ‘shelter’ off the list with child-like excitement. This was a gift on day one and I knew it. As I clambered up the rock on all fours to inspect my new home the musky smell of animals that reminded me of London Zoo hit my nostrils. The cave was about four metres wide, three metres tall and four metres deep. The sill at the front sat a good two metres raised from the beach below. The well-protected dry floor sloped significantly from back to front and consisted of a dirty brown powder (from the crumbling rock) mixed with a substantial amount of animal shit.
‘Do they have rabbits in Fiji?’ I asked myself. No – it had to be something larger. Sheep? Goat? Deer even? This was too many ticks at once and I whooped a little self-consciously
to the camera to convey my surprise and joy. The prospect of animals to eat was one of my ultimate dreams for the evolution of this project and on day one I was already identifying that meat was a definite possibility.
Like many men I’ve never been one for multi-tasking; my brain has never liked the stress of lots of things happening at the same time. Despite the fact that my discoveries had been very positive I could feel a need in myself to sit down and consolidate.
I decided that the cave would be my base, at least initially, and went to get the big camera case from further up the beach. As I collected the case from the tree line I realised that if I wanted to film myself carrying it to the cave it would, absurdly, require leaving one camera behind filming me and thus would involve a further trip up the beach to collect it.
I was aware what a peculiar sight I must have looked walking down the beach, stark naked and white-bummed, with the big black suitcase. I could feel the camera’s eye watching me from behind. I began to carry the case up into the cave and then fretted that I might slip and fall with the weight. I flapped and decided that a slip or a fall was too risky and instead put the case at the top of the beach in the tree line. I had a whole load of trivial decisions to make in one go. What was the right decision? Who would confirm this to me? No one. Great. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ I confided to the camera. ‘I need to keep trusting my gut feeling. My brain said take it up there and my gut said – Stafford, get a grip.’ I consoled myself that I had made the correct decision, then immediately doubted myself and changed my mind. Finally, I told myself to stop messing around, and hauled the case up into the cave and sat down heavily on the hot plastic, giddy with indecision.
