by Ed Stafford
The plan for supporting my filming for sixty days without anyone contacting me in any way was as follows. There was a ‘dropbox’ on the east of the island in an old disused campsite that I named Lemon Camp for its being the site of two medium-sized, but out of season, lemon trees. This dropbox had been built by the clan and comprised a small ring of rocks with a wooden board on top to keep the worst of the rain off. The crude lid was held in place by two more heavy volcanic rocks. The dropbox was my only non-emergency access to the outside world.
The plan was that once a week – on prearranged days – I would walk over the island to Lemon Camp and leave all my used compact flash cards and dead batteries in the dropbox. I would make sure I was then free of the area by mid-morning. The only crew member, Steven, who was living on Komo, would then come in and collect the items at midday, by which time I would be well clear of the camp. In their place he would leave fresh batteries and clean memory cards for the video cameras. If essential he would also leave production messages such as ‘The sound on camera two is on the wrong setting. Check that it is set to “External mic”.’ No messages of support or encouragement were allowed, only those necessary to ensure the footage coming back was usable in the edit suite.
Who’d made these rules? I suppose I had; they were driven by me. I was adamant that this was going to be a reputable survival project that would stand up to scrutiny. Would anyone have known if I had received support messages? Probably not – but the rules made me feel like we were doing things properly and honestly.
In the middle of the afternoon I would then return to the dropbox to collect the items that would enable filming to continue. This system also meant that the production crew back in the UK, and, in theory, survival experts all over the world, would be able to start to view footage while I was still very much going through the ordeal on the island. The other use for the dropbox was that if a camera developed a fault I would leave it in there and hope that Steven, the one-man crew, could fix it or replace it.
As I had never been to the island before, initially I had no idea where Lemon Camp even was. I did not know the shape of the island or upon which shore I had been dropped. I did not know how long it would take me to walk over the island or even whether I could find a route across it as there were no paths. I decided that the best option was to walk around the coast on my first visit to Lemon Camp. That would also give me a feel for the size and shape of my new home.
This first drop was only a drop-off of cards and dead batteries – I didn’t require a new supply so soon. It was scheduled so that the very valuable first-day footage could be whisked back to London and so that the production team could correct anything that I was doing wrong – filming-wise. It was Sunday and the first actual weekly exchange was scheduled for Tuesday.
The tide was fairly low and I set out around the south of the island, land rising to my left, sea on my right. Past the vast rock headland at the south of my beach was the one I had already scouted once. It was shorter than my beach and crescent-shaped, giving it a neater, more contained feel than my long sprawling mass of sand. At the southern tip of this beach I was forced into the shallow waters by the sheer rocks and waded around a craggy point where large coloured fish darted through the most perfectly blue sandy ocean pools. The water lapped my grassy sporran at the deepest point and then began to get shallower again as I broke on to a further expanse of yet more golden sand.
The significant difference on this new beach was that I could now see Komo, the closest island to Olorua, where Steven and the Komo tribe were living. This shouldn’t have surprised me as I had seen Olorua from Komo, but I had forgotten this, and so it did. As I saw the friendly green island I was hit by a bleak wave of isolation. The idea that just eight nautical miles across the sea was a warm community that was chatting and fishing and cooking together made me feel distinctly lonely. I wanted to be among them. For the first time I thought of Olorua as my captor. Her shores and the sea beyond were my prison bars and my minefield respectively. To have a conversation all I had to do was swim eight miles through tiger-shark-infested waters. Yeah, right.
Why did I find being alone so sorrowful? It wasn’t as if I was here for ever.
The beach ran out and I clambered over sharp rocks and loose pebbles. I turned half left again to be presented with a much harsher view. A shore of large jet-black rocks was being assaulted by a prevailing weather system from the south-east. The wind was stronger and the waves were taller and darker as they crashed into the crumbling coastline. With a chill on the exposed skin of my torso I leaned to the right into the gusts and battled on up the beach until I was halted by an appreciable interruption in the tree line to my left.
Standing in the break of the tree line at the top of the rocky beach with my back to the ocean, Lemon Camp may as well have had a big sign directing me in. I faced a pleasant flat clearing tucked into the forest, partially rimmed by thorny lemon trees. There were obvious signs of human activity – a long length of bamboo had been wedged between two tree forks to act as a ridge pole for a tarp that had long since been folded up and taken home. There was litter: buried crisp packets and old fizzy drinks bottle tops. There were small lengths of perished rubber half buried in the soil. In the centre was what looked like a cairn with a lid – I had found my dropbox.
The area was large and flat but it was exposed to the prevailing wind on this side of the island and so I was surprised that it had been chosen as the camp that the Fijian clan had used on their visits in the past. There must have been some marine advantage for mooring boats here. Although I’d already acknowledged that I could not camp there (because the no-human-contact dropbox system required that I stay away) I was happy because I would not have wanted to anyway. My cave was better protected. The lemon trees bore no fruit but I broke a leaf and held it to my nostrils. The scent was powerfully fresh and lemony. I knew that if I could get a fire going these leaves would make a wonderful clean, zesty tea.
The two rocks on top of the lid of the dropbox thumped to the ground one after another. I lifted the piece of flimsy plywood to reveal a yellow rubber dry bag. Squeezing the chunky plastic clips I unrolled the watertight bag and tipped the contents on to the packed earth. In the bag was an empty cool box – an Esky.
Nothing else. I should not have been surprised as I knew how the system was going to work but somehow I had thought that there would be a note saying that I was doing really well, or perhaps a nice packet of chocolate biscuits. But, no: the box was empty.
I placed my only two dead batteries and my blue nylon wallet of used compact flash (CF) cards into the cool box and flipped the white plastic lid shut. As I did so I wanted to reach out for help. The fresh water source – as positive as it was – was bugging me. ‘Was that it?! Was that really my sole source of fresh water?’ I wanted reassurance that there was another, more plentiful source – or perhaps a forecast that it would definitely rain tomorrow.
I had a momentary fit of anger at the production team. What a bunch of idiots, stranding me on an island with no water! I suspected they’d first come to recce the island after there had been a sustained period of rain. My worry was that they thought there was sufficient water here – the tiny flow I’d come across had probably been a veritable waterfall when the team visited. What if they didn’t know that they had inadvertently put me in a much more difficult situation than they’d intended to?
First drop done, I continued around the coastline in the same direction so as to complete a full lap. At this stage I had no mental picture of what the island looked like. I had a rough idea of east and west, and therefore north and south, from the sun and so I knew I was walking from the east of the island back round to the west via the northern tip. I did not know how long it would take or whether the height of the tide would allow passage.
With the shore on my left, the crashing waves on my right and jagged rocks under foot I ventured once more into the unknown.
The end of the beach was a buttress of the same volcanic rocks that had blocked me and forced me into the shallow water. I held the camera high so as not to get any of the salt water inside and slowly felt my feet along the rigid coral seabed. Sometimes I was in the water, sometimes there was a section of sandy beach, sometimes I was climbing over big rocks. I registered everything I saw: sections of washed-up bamboo, more old bottles and fishing floats, huge pieces of driftwood.
After squeezing around a headland and over an expanse of flat coral I arrived on a bigger beach and was shocked for a moment to see footprints in the sand. A sense of annoyance that someone else might spoil the purity of my experience, and an infantile hope that I might bump into a friendly face, swept through my mind. Could this be a fisherman? A local from another island? Steven? Had something gone wrong? The suspense was unceremoniously deflated as I realised they were my own footprints and I’d almost completed my first circuit of the island. I glanced up to the left and saw the rock seep; fifty metres further on I knew was my cave.
I’d completed a successful circumnavigation of the island and I was happy for a further box to be ticked in terms of amassing more information. But my baby steps frustrated me and I wanted to be in control of my new world. I now knew there were no watercourses or streams coming down to the shore. There was no escaping the fact that my one source was not really big enough and my hopes of others were fading. I felt the need to find out more but caught a glimpse of my reddening shoulders and decided to get out of the sun. The last thing I needed was sunburn.
I was both fascinated and lifted to see that the seep had filled again in just a couple of hours. I extracted about 500ml of water which I rather elegantly drank like soup from the small shell. I calculated optimistically that, if it could fill 500ml in two hours, I had actually already found a water source that could provide me with all my water. My morale was propped up by the prospect of a constant supply of fresh water in return for a little careful management.
I wanted to ride this wave of positivity, to be constructive and make something to help me feel comfortable. I didn’t have to deliberate as to what this would be because the thing I needed to master most of all was water. I had some – but I needed more of it.
The morning’s drizzle had not returned but, prompted by the niggling at the back of my mind about how appallingly inept my first rain collection trap had been, I realised that I could make a far simpler rainwater collection system in about five minutes. I collected every large clamshell I could find, washed them in the sea and laid them all out on the sand above the high-tide mark for rainwater to collect in. That was it. It was so easy it was silly but I knew instantly that if we got rain I would have a guaranteed five to ten litres of water ready to drink.
I felt as if the list of things to tackle was never-ending. Starting from scratch meant that I couldn’t focus on one thing and really sink my teeth into it. I had to flit from one necessity to another to build a sure footing in this unstable new world. I was being jack of all trades and master of none, but with no one else to trade with I had no option but to do everything myself.
The next essential that I wanted to address was the cold at night. I had to concede that a fire might take some days to light so I opted to make myself a blanket and started on badly-thought-through project number three. I stripped some more beach hibiscus for cordage that I would weave into a blanket. The method would be exactly that same as for my scratchy sporran. I would tie a length of the bark between two trees, attach several further lengths with simple knots and then tie the clumps of dry grass into the strands. As soon as I started it became apparent that the process would take a huge amount of both bark and grass and that progress was going to be very slow. In an hour I’d probably made a blanket that was six foot long, but still only two inches wide.
Fears and concerns about wasting yet more time caused further doubts and panicky thoughts. Was I deliberately trying to make a mess of things?
‘You can’t cut any corners, Ed – you need to put the effort in if you’re going to survive,’ I told myself. It might take me a long time to make this properly so I had to be patient.
I sourced more hibiscus poles, bashed them on a rock to loosen the bark and stripped them, producing loads more cordage. I made another little mission up to the top of Snail Rock (the spur where I sourced and smashed my snails − no point in overcomplicating the names) in order to collect more clumps of dry grass to tie into the strands. I sat back with my fledgling blanket and tried to be calm and patient as I wove in more strands of bark and more fistfuls of grass. In another hour and a half the blanket was a foot and a half wide and had the appearance and softness of a harsh-bristled doormat.
By now I’d spent the majority of the afternoon on this coarse blanket and decided that it was big enough for me to press pause for the day. I slung the scratchy doormat over my shoulder, gathered up the remaining grass in my arms to supplement the loose hay that I’d used the previous night and carried my bedding back to my cave. Knowing how important sleep was and that, so far, my blanket would only cover part of my body, I then set out back up the beach to cut more palm leaves that I could lay over my loose hay bed to help protect me from the piercing wind. I hauled back a huge armful to the cave in the gusty grey afternoon, leaving long sweeping trails in the sand.
I forced down some white flesh from a mature coconut and admitted to the camera that I wasn’t bothered about eating and that all I craved was water. I also swallowed ten raw snails from the rocks. I was determined to ensure I had enough protein going in to keep my strength up.
‘If I ever thought this was going to be easy I now officially take it back,’ I told the camera as the last gritty gastropod passed my oesophagus.
I felt like I was an ant or a chicken. I was at that level, scratching around for the measliest amount of food and ferrying materials back and forth to try and make a nest to make myself crudely comfortable. I kept trying to do all this while not allowing myself to get dehydrated. It was bizarre – I’d already found a tree with which I reckoned I could make a fire, beach hibiscus, but there wasn’t enough time in the day to investigate this further. Unless I got enough bedding in there I wouldn’t sleep tonight. It was unbelievable how much effort was required to do all of this and film it.
Filming your own struggles is very weird. I think if I’d been dropped on the island with no camera I’d have fared much better. Without an audience I would be free to make my mistakes in private. I wouldn’t dwell on worries or negative emotions as they wouldn’t help me at all. But the viewer needs to understand the pressures and emotions in order to feel any empathy and so I had to make the invisible visible, and share every worry. Without such openness the resulting programme wouldn’t only have been bland and superficial − it simply wouldn’t have stacked up.
On the plus side the filming gave me a project beyond just surviving which at times helped to distract me. Talking to the camera could also be a consolation, a legitimate reason for speaking out loud when you’re alone.
The pressure of not only going through the survival ordeal – the thirst, the hunger, the discomfort – but of producing, filming and hosting your whole programme was huge. As a result I never really relaxed unless I just said, ‘Bollocks to it – I’m having a no-filming afternoon.’ Then I would take off my grass skirt and just do what was needed to get by: collecting firewood, foraging, eating, etc. I felt indulgent, guilty even, having these times by myself. Bizarre, really, when I had sixty days entirely alone.
So as to be able to tuck the corners of the blanket in and ensure I got some sleep that night, I decided I needed to excavate a section of the cave floor so that I was not resting on a slope – constantly bracing myself from rolling down the hill and off the two-metre ledge was not the easiest thing in the world. I set out along the beach – and immediately forgot what I was doing it for. Halfway back I remembered that it was to get a stick and I cursed my lack o
f focus. A knife would have made things so much easier but I hacked the makeshift digging stick down with my clamshell fragment and shuffled slowly back to the cave, exhausted.
The shadows on the beach grew longer and the golden light warned me that my day was almost over. The sunsets on the island were spectacular, staining the sky the purples and reds of smashed fruit, the dying light deepening and darkening the blue of the sea. I’m not the first to have noticed that sunsets are a very romantic time. They seem sent to make you think of those you love and, inevitably, the transience of human existence, how lucky we are if we achieve a moment of connection with another human being. It’s as if the day can only sustain such beauty for an instant and then, exhausted by the effort, collapses into night.
Practicalities drew me back to the present and away from the contemplation of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things and the woman I loved, Amanda, who I wished was with me.
I washed out my precious new straw with seawater and took it to the seep. The rock hollow had hardly filled at all since mid-morning and my heart sank at the sight. I was confused: I had been expecting another 400ml of fresh water before bed but I had barely 150ml. I gently positioned the straw so that it was at the surface of the water and sucked it but managed only a mouthful of sediment. After a day with some substantial disappointments this seemed to be a kick in the face.
