Was watching a “Naked and Afraid” marathon the other week and was just uttlery dismayed by people who would go into life threatening situtations with no cloths and only one tool of there choice. It seems that most people either took a knife, a fire starter flint or a pot for boiling water. Appears that most of the ones who didn’t last the required 21 days tapped out due to dehydration or drinking contaminated water.
So my question is , if you didn’t bring a pot with you how would you purify water using only things found in nature. That is, no depending on finding something like plastic sheets so you could make a solar still. Could you make a simple useable pot out of something? Or would you figure out another way to get clean water?
Myself, I’d take a knife and hope the other person brought a pot (most women bring the pot I observed). But then you risk someone not bringing a pot (or showing up with two),
The only answer I can think of is a stone age method for cooking using hot rocks. Hold the water in an animal’s stomach, woven basket, etc. and then drop in the rocks.
If you could find a soft rock and a hard rock, you would be able to carve something. How long it took would be highly dependent on what rocks you were able to find, and how many times you just break one of your rocks in half.
Other than on the ocean with a pre-built one, it’s been shown a solar still lose more water by making it that you gain. Maybe with just the right gear and wet ground, or with lots of impure water. But in the desert? nope.
In other words, it’s nearly useless for survival.
You can drink impure water and either get lucky or just get a mild case of Giardia. Over 30 days, that can be OK. Better than dying of thirst.
For most of the survival shows in this series, it really isn’t a shortage of water that’s the problem. They’re almost always next to rivers or oceans (or both). The problem is that they need to avoid getting sick from the water, so the still would actually be a decent solution for them if they had the materials. Getting sick from water is definitely the number one cause of people going home on that show and some of them have gotten really sick. (Or so they and the producers tell us. I’m never sure how much of these kinds of shows to believe.)
Weave a basket
Hollow a rock
Use an animal skin or stomach
Filter through layers and layers of charcoal, sand, etc. This probably won’t get rid of everything (giardia?).
All easier said than done.
Or bring the knife and mug your fellow survivors for their gear…
How long to boil? By the time the water is boiling the organisms are already dead, no need to boil for X minutes, where X>1. If your material can withstand up to 212F/100C it might work.
You’re not supposed to use a solar still just once, no? Just refresh the vegetation and no need to dig a new hole.
Giardiasis caused diarrhea and such will take it out of you, though…
And survive a fire for boiling the water? Wouldn’t it at the very least spring a leak? Or do you drop in the hot rocks? Seems like the rocks would get cold too fast.
I can’t say how well it would work for decontaminating water (so you don’t get something like food poisining), but you can get water pretty clean by distilling it. All you have to do is set something up that will hold water (even just a hole in the ground), put something over the hole that the water will collect on when it evaporates and then collect the water off of that. Usually done by putting a weight in the center and a containment vessel under it.
At the very least, it gets the mud and salt out as for getting things like e.coli out, I’m really not sure.
Well, first of all, I would point out you don’t purify water with a pot- you sterilize it. Boiling water does not remove contamination unless you build a still and distill it. So my choice for a tool- a good water filter. I have a filter installed under my kitchen counter that filters down to a half micron. It will (they claim) filter out harmful organisms. It’s rated for 500 gallons, plenty enough for the 21 days. I don’t think I would care to try that challenge, though.
ROFL, my tool of choice would be a classic mess kit. I took a class in flint knapping and can make my own knife and hand axe [and as a bonus we learned to turn the knife into a spear, and add a handle to the knife or hand axe to have more flexibility. While I know modern bowmaking, I wouldn’t really be able to do it without a lot of work and a moderately large animal for sinew and tendons.] I would also opt to dress in a 1 piece bathing suit as underwear, a slighly overlarge tshirt, a white cotton pashmina shawl and a plain all cotton sari as the sari can be wrapped as a long skirt or pantaloons, or turned into an impromptu sleeping bag for 2 people and the pashmina can either cover the head or be an imprompty carry bag or water prefilter. I would also prefer a good pair of hiking boots to sandals or sneakers.
Since we are pretending to be limited by the show rules these would not be options. No mess kit, just one item. Like no pot and pan, just pot or pan. And no clothing of any kind, you are to naked the entire time.
I like the idea but do not believe that a ready made filter would be allowed since it is made of multiple materials. Although you could probably bring charcoal. Still I’d be more concerned about disease and getting the water sterile for 21 days.
Starting to think bringing a shovel and digging a well might be good. Ground filtered water. Although this may expend a lot of energy.
the right shovel would make a half assed shallow pot/pan as well. might have issues with burning the wooden handle…if you could find a one piece metal shovel or one of the folding ones that wouldn’t transfer heat to the handle that would actually be a bad assed choice. it chops, it pounds, it digs, cooks, and sterilizes water. and if you find some it can fry eggs!
If you sharpen the edges all the way around you would have a decent cutting tool as well. Probably wouldn’t work for heavy cutting but it would get through smaller stuff pretty well I bet.