Reality Blogging Challenge Part 1

Now for a little fun. Birdie has tagged several bloggers including myself with telling the world how they would survive if they were ever stranded on an island. I gave a lot of consideration to the parameters she gave whether it was an inhabited or uninhabited island; or whether or not you had family there. Now I know that if I had my family there I would be thinking way long term as in making a new life and never coming back. I might miss some of my electronic toys like the computer but I think that if I could just make a living providing food and shelter for my family on an island that would suit me just fine. Seeing as how the idea is to get back to civilization I would have to have an incentive to get back so in this case I would be on my own.

I have apparently washed up on shore with only the items I have on hand. Where I got them from I am not sure but here is my list:

A Bible (slightly soggy as are all the books)
Apologia General Science Student book
“A Boy’s Own Handibook”
“If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”
Any G. A. Henty or L. M. Montgomery book (As I am not sure how any of these books would help me other than a good read or kindling any will do.)
Two slightly overdue library books of your choice, but you must name them! (As I was considering reading for my trip to a remote known island for some missionary work, I chose a book on tropical vegetation and one on tropical geology)
A pocket sewing kit including all of the usual items (i.e. six one yard spools of hideously colored thread, two oddly-sized buttons, two needles, two safety pins, a needle threader that will break the first time you use it, a tiny pair of scissors guaranteed to give you hand cramps, but not guaranteed to cut anything, and a plastic thimble that will not fit on the finger of anyone above the age of nine)
One package of chenille stems, and/or pompon balls.
2 glue sticks (half used and more than half dried out).
A plastic recorder
Some kite string
A cheap, but only slightly broken Swiss Army knife.
An Optic Wonder
A really ugly sweater
A copy of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing

First and foremost is securing a source of food and fresh water. Second is locating a place to make a shelter most preferably a cave but lacking that fine piece of real-estate I would look into finding what I would need for tools to make a shelter. With my soon dried out book on tropical vegetation I should have no problem locating edible fruits, tubers, and other plants. This will suffice until I can rig things up to trap animals and fish. Fresh water is a bigger concern. Depending on the size of the island it may have ponds and or small streams. Seeing as there is vegetation in large quantities I will have to assume there is some source of fresh water. Also large vines when cut can be a source of water, it does not taste all that good but will suffice to prevent dehydration. So I do not get lost while looking for my water source I will use the compass in the optic wonder and the knife to make markings on trees to mark my path back to my base camp. In order to make life a little more pleasant I will assume that I find a steady stream that will suffice for my drinking needs.

Now that I have provided for the basic needs in food, water, and shelter I need to “flesh out” the diet a little by getting meat into it. This can be accomplished in a couple of ways. The easiest would be to fashion a crude fishing pole and make fishing lures from the sewing kit. If I have patience I could also fashion a crude net by unraveling the sweater and using the yarn to make it. This option would be time consuming, as I have no experience weaving nets. Given time I could fashion traps to trap the local fauna. Now all of this meat would require fire. I have the perfect tool in the optic wonder as long as I have some sunshine. I also could fashion a fire-starting tool using some sticks and some of the kite string for days that are cloudy.

This is all fine in that I am sure I could survive for a long time if need be with these simple steps but the ultimate goal is to get home.

I will post about how I would work on actively getting myself rescued on the next post for this challenge.