Survivorman | Grenada Island | Les Stroud

[Applause] i haven't seen anybody out there all day not a single boat it's complete and pure survival on the island trying to find my own water my own food it's either that or die that's the real story of survival on a tropical island you can't get off [Music] [Music] [Music] the island of frigate an uninhabited tropical island that rests deep in the heart of the caribbean sea not far from grenada discovered by columbus in 1498 the island has remained untouched by civilization for centuries largely due to the fierce waves that pummel its rocky shoreline survival on a tropical island is not always what it seems in a unique way an island represents a strange form of entrapment i can walk across this island in less than an hour the birds can leave whenever they want but nothing and no one else can survival on a tropical island now that likely conjures up images of palm trees and sandy beaches and drinking lots of coconut water the reality is the pirates used to maroon people on tropical islands to die they'd give them a bottle of rum a gun and one bullet a bullet well that was to use on themselves before they went mad or died of dehydration or starvation you see tropical islands are not always as ideal pretty and as easy as living on gilligan's island what happens when the palm trees are replaced with cactus and the water that you can drink the stagnant pools how do you survive that tropical island there they go my faithful team leaves me here in maroon and alone for the next five days they've left me here with a raft for safety but the deadly ocean currents that hit this island make the raft all but useless there's about another hour before the sun sets i'm just going to sleep here on these rocks hope that it doesn't rain before i do that i'm going to scrounge around see what i can find there's always something on the edge of the ocean no matter how pristine or how remote of a place you are in you will find floats some stuff that comes up now check out what i've got here half a bottle of water which in an hour or two will be an empty bottle of water i think i got a rain jacket there and then i got this got this pot got a belt knife as well and then this they call it a cutlass now that's a machete that's all i've got to survive [Music] let's see what i can find around these rocks and just like that in only a matter of seconds i've figured out what i have within my zone of assessment number one my personal belongings and my body so the next step is zone number two my immediate surroundings in this case it's the wrath that the crew left behind look at this well there's always stuff right water bottle i like it an old lighter i don't know if that's water or fluid in it but you can see it's been there a while here's the rust stain if this works i'm going to be smiling hey all right so that's fluid oh that's fantastic somebody's smiling down upon me right now if i don't look beyond my circumstances i never know what advantages may exist to help me through a survival ordeal oh oh oh i see something right there fishing line hang on hang on that's a hook i see the hook i've walked only 100 yards not even that maybe and i've got myself a fishing line ouch and a hook and i even found a lighter that works i'm not going to have any time to fish right now and besides that i've got to catch some bait anyway the fish aren't just going to jump on a hook ah i did feel raindrops i see some major rain coming this is not going to be pretty i got nowhere to hide i'm going to light this fire now before it does start raining bad i can't believe i found a lighter that's just amazing yep beautiful oh that's not good i don't usually fail at a fire but i need that blade it shows i've lit thousands of fires i should know better but i was counting on all the dry grass and dry wood to just take off on me turns out all this dry wood is hardwood all right let's try this again and this time environmentally horrible scenario of burning some of this rubber and plastic that i found that means i can get this fire going then i'm gonna use it instead of using the lighter i see i've got some wood here that's smoldering really nicely thanks to years of experience my self-confidence will often betray me and still to this day caused me to treat something as vital as fire a little too casually yet the importance of this fire is as strong as it is for any survival situation all right fine let's try some rubber ripping apart a rubber shoe here it's pretty bad for the environment burning plastic and rubber but if it gets my fire going in a situation like this where it's all about survival well you got to do what you got to do i feel kind of stupid trying to start that fire so hastily but now it's going whether in the desert the arctic or on a tropical island the need for fire will always remain my greatest concern it's one of the most important ways to bring about comfort in a place where comfort is hard to find it's so hot here i'm still sweating i don't need the fire for heat that's for sure that sure is nice for comfort i sure hope that water doesn't come up any higher it's making me nervous this is the rainy season well that's actually an understatement because it's also the hurricane season hurricane ivan devastated this whole region grenada is a powerfully beautiful place beautiful but for me alone out here right now i still have to be careful left alone again this time on an island and try and get some sleep it's not going to be easy sleeping on a rock that's still sweating at this point you know there aren't too many experiences that are as powerful and beautiful sleeping out under the stars by the ocean if you can't survive the psychology and the emotions it doesn't matter how many fish you catch or how many fires you get going you'll still perish and here comes the rain oh i got nowhere to hide here i'm literally just standing up in the dark fire sort of smoldering all right i found a place to sit it's on the tree that had all the biting ants crawling on it earlier ow when weather wants to mess with you there's nothing you can do survival this is all about either dealing with the weather preparing for the weather if you're not dealing with it you better be preparing for it i was not prepared for this that's gonna be a long night gotta wait it out [Music] starting a fire was easy after finding the lighter keeping it going will be another story during this rainy season fresh water however is another matter [Music] this is how i spent the night last night it's not going to help me out here i can't get across the strong ocean currents to get to the mainland anyway i do have this life straw here for drinking water i want to try it out but it's not going to help me for salt water check this out i put the cup at the back of the dinghy to collect rain water i look how much i got so that's a huge bonus using this as a bit of a rain catch to give me some drinking water the fire's still smoldering at least that's a good sign throw another hunk of wood on it hopefully the rain will hold off and i can uh scavenge for some food 25 years of survival and finally this is the first time i've been around cactus while they were actually bearing fruit oh i caught it and cactus fruit is ripe and ready it is good oh yeah this is good i'll watch for more of these should be a good boost of energy i found some garbage some plastic in this black garbage bags and i set them up so i could catch more rain water and this prickly pear you don't get a lot out of these guys but what you get helps here we go not my favorite of wild edibles yet there are a lot of them on this island not bad prickly pear cactus was actually once used as a food crop for many desert dwellers but i'm on the edge of the ocean and that means possibly fish there's a lot of line here definitely enough to cast out there but i'm going to have to untangle it and i want to get it around this bottle this is not the easiest short of fish from so it's going to be mostly throw it out let it sink to the bottom and hope for the best usually a tangled mess the fishing line i find on islands is also often too weak to use it snaps with an easy pull but sometimes i get lucky and it's still strong enough to use the trick will be getting the hook and bait out far enough to catch a fish well no sinkers around so i'm going to try using this little piece of shell because it's got a natural hole for me it's a bit heavy maybe it'll help to get the line out there far hook line and sinker even expect that a welk that's nice that's great great bait for fishing or i can eat it and i'm going to try for bait first oh yeah i see a bunch more too this is great news a lot of times what i might find for bait i can always consider as food for myself as well if i'm unlucky with the fishing there we go something biting on the other end already i felt the line go tight something fighting something's biting i got something i got something that's a little ocean perch oh yeah look at that [Applause] all right i'm calling that lunch and there's still bait here i'm going to toss the slide back out while i'm still here and see forget the welts we're eating fish today what a great way to start so i know now that i can access a quick food source close by and that's a huge psychological boost but it'll be a short-lived one unbelievable and all of this here would be excellent bait i say would be because on the last cast i lost the hook so this is it for fishing just in case i'll leave it over here you never know if it was absolute dire straits i would just eat the fish raw you get more nutrients that way survival also comes down to psychology and you want to feel good so i'm putting my balance on the side of good strong psychological survival over the sensationalism of just eating a raw fish and making it look cool now that's survival sooner or later i got to go up up and over and through the cactus and see what's on the other side there [Music] i never wait when it comes to gathering food or water in a survival situation searching out shelter on food water and fire sources should happen often and be considered constantly these basic necessities of survival can run out quickly [Music] i make sure i don't slip my foot into a sea urchin there's a few of them around here regardless of the fish that i've just caught the reality is i've also lost the hook nice so that may very well be the last fish i eat and the welks here are plentiful well i'm hearing an awful lot of big thunder rumbling behind me so i want to cook these up right now all i have to do is put them right on the fire well i was told that they scream when you cook them [Music] i've lost the one hook that i had found this is the edge of the ocean however and in a strange way whatever floats in on the ocean waves make it a potential land of plenty yet either way i'm still very isolated though i'm technically a short boat ride from safety i haven't seen anybody out there all day not a single boat so i could scream as loud as i want like the biggest fire hit the most smoke it doesn't matter i'm still stranded here and without rescue is complete and pure survival on the island well that's not bad at all that's good this guy here hmm that's even better lots of them very edible you know what i haven't done yet at all and i really should have is my zone of assessment check and that's where in any survival situation it's really important to just take a break calm down and check all of your zones basically do an assessment of your zones the first zone of assessment is your body your physical nature am i injured am i hurt what have i got in my pockets you know okay so i know i have you know a knife and i know i have this type of clothing or hiking boots or whatever the second zone of assessment is immediately close to me so what do i have around me so i've got the the rubber dinghy uh machete uh you know a raincoat i've got server gear i've got plastic bottles around here there's some tin cans wire i can find wire i found fishing line so it's looking around this zone of assessment is sort of within the the first sort of hundred yards or so and then the third zone of assessment to check is beyond further afield what is there much farther away i have not checked that zone yet i've been all around zones of assessment number one my body number two immediate first hundred yards or so and now i've got to get up and check out number three and see what's beyond this those welks are really tasty all right i'm gonna climb up through here now and check out the rest of the island looks to be a bit of a pathway here now it's time to check out zone number three what lay further beyond my immediate area [Music] wow this is amazing it opens right up what a difference this is obviously incredibly different from where i've been just huddled down on the rocks in the shoreline on the lee side a lot of birds and they're all in the grass it's gonna be a good chance to maybe look for eggs if i'm lucky maybe there's some uh there's some water fresh water i gotta do some exploring there's got to be nests around here but this many birds all getting upset gotta be eggs around here gotta be four little chicks [Music] this is a major score they call them mariquai i call them lunch and dinner this is a big one the problem with these guys is that the only way in is taking a strong blade and jabbing in through there and trying really hard to get in there it's extremely hard and it's a tough go now with a snapping turtle you can dangle something in front and he'll jump out and bite it and you can grab the head and cut the head off because he'll actually hold on to a stick and you can kind of pull his head out a little bit but not so with these guys what i'd end up having to do is putting him down and hacking right here and the whole time that i'm doing this the turtle's alive so it's a good half hour or longer of hacking away mutilating this poor turtle before i finally get a chance to actually uh cut his head off and kill him nasty business eating a turtle you're lucky because i've already had some fish and some whelks if i don't see anything else by tomorrow to eat turtle soup there is zero fresh running water on this island only a feces-filled rain puddle is available to me [Music] [Music] that water is only drinkable because i have this life straw or if i were to boil it but drinking it straight and i'm likely to kill myself i can't imagine what's in that pool of water with the dead birds and turtle feces with the straw with boiling it i can drink it and that's great because now i don't have to rely on rainwater when the rainwater comes it'll be a bonus not since my time in the australian outback or south africa have i had such a repulsive source of drinking water it'll be the life straw that makes a big difference for me here this guy bombing me they want to keep me away from their chicks that's for sure and that was the end of survivor man they found him with his eyes pecked out the middle island though the island should be left alone to continue as a biologically unique area as a bird and turtle breeding colony locals will still sneak onto it to take eggs and turtles and even shoot a small group of goats that were put here for that purpose grenada itself could be a world heritage site due to the still pure nature that exists here and this island in particular could be a shining example of natural beauty especially if they remove the goats at least i know i'll stay dry here that's a long night when your pillow is a rock beautiful vistas aside survival on an island is still no walk in the park this is how i ended up last night crawling under this uh dinghy it came on to just pour down probably about four or five o'clock in the morning and started raining hard i tell you survival is such a roller coaster affair super high highs super low lows physically in terms of sustenance definitely mentally and emotional well see if i cut some rain water oh yeah advantages and disadvantages when it comes to the weather say while it's cloudy and it's rainy and i gotta hide from the rain that's very true i'm collecting rain water and that's a lot better than drinking out of that sludgy puddle i'll take the rain i'll take the clouds right now well since i have the cloud cover and go hunt for some bird eggs even if i find only one or two finding eggs would be a huge boost [Music] it's in these little holes right here look for the little spots where the grass just kind of is blown over and you see maybe an opening on one side like look at this right here fresh turtle poop and uh right beside this little egg shell and i'll look all around this area and see if i can find some eggs my own have a real breakfast oh look at that right there a pair of chicks which i could eat but they're hatched so i'll leave them be there's nothing on those little chicks but if the timing was right i could find plump chicks reality is that finding them with little more than a teaspoon of meat on their tiny bones is unlikely hardly worth the lost calories looking for them or chasing them down this nice little sheltered cove over there [Music] that's beautiful i think i found my new home [Music] see how it is for shelter certainly big on comfort nothing like a sand beach this is a beautiful little spot it's better than the other side as always after just a few hours of exploring i've discovered a way to make my circumstances much better ah oh ah a few ants but they'll settle down at night i think i hope oh god it feels good on the back nice view too just beautiful i think i'm gonna have a daytime nap it's tough sleeping at night not much at all really getting sufficient sleep remains vital to keeping a clear mind for survival where i'm staying right now i haven't seen any birds coming over here at all i'm gonna hope that it's not uh gone bad but it seems like it's actually abandoned because nothing's been around it try and cook it up now that was relatively easy one single egg hiding under a log i didn't even have to go looking for it but finding it without any adults protecting it seems suspicious to me still it's worth a taste test if it's fresh it could be delicious come on baby burn all right i'll let that catch and get ready to cook an egg [Music] not only did i find this one egg but also some wire and a couple of other surprises all around this shoreline that'll work [Music] oh oh god i think that might have been a waste i think this was simply a bad egg maybe it was a dead egg maybe that's why it was left there oh you know what i eat that i run the risk of making myself horribly sick because that doesn't smell it looks good but it smells [Music] horribly bad the good news is that while i was trying to find some wire for tying up this tripod i actually found more fishing line lots of it and hooks and sinkers so i'm going to get out and try some fishing in this section here i think i can walk right out into the shallows here and try fishing no welts but i've got a handful of snails i'll try out on the hook the area here is not as rocky and perhaps not as fruitful as the other side of the island [Applause] that's the toughest part i gotta find some more bait i don't really want to have to give up too soon i'm looking for some good eggs or even some plump chicks they should be an easy catch what i'm looking for is an actual live chick big pump one that i can grab and eat i think what's happened is i'm about a week too late most of the chicks are just up they're up on their feet now and i always watch them scurry off into the rocks there i'd have to run throw a rock i'm not saying that's not possible but uh in fact i'm gonna go look over there and see this is highly unlikely but it can't hurt to give it a try [Music] [Music] well now i know it's entirely possible but this guy he feels like skin and bones there's nothing to him so i can either run and catch a whole bunch more of these or go pick up a turtle at ease i've upset these guys and this little guy enough [Music] gonna let him go [Music] and off he goes [Music] he'll be all right why not eat the little chick well too strawny really to make a meal i would have had to have caught another dozen or so to get a good solid meal out of it there were 20 or 30 running around but the amount of energy spent to get that small meal be a little excessive actually whereas these guys well they're all over the island basically it's a grocery store of turtles walking along nice and slow always out in the open and uh instead of running to try and catch my meal i can walk along pick one of these up lunch and dinner so i've had prickly pear lots of it an egg i know where there's some more eggs and um i'm gonna try for some more fish today tomorrow you are dinner today you live as good as he may have looked there was nothing to him maybe a teaspoon of meat and a few crunchy little bones i would need at least eight of those to make a meal worth eating and by then i would have burned off twice as many calories as i would have gained and that's not smart survival hunting not when hundreds of turtles are an easy pickup as soon as my body tells me i need more food but what's more important to me right now is water dehydration will shut me down quick if i don't keep drinking that's foul tasting stuff but at least i know it's clean it's the only way i can stay hydrated otherwise i'm dehydrating pretty quick i'm going to create an impression in the sand and line it with some plastic we've arranged tonight hopefully get more rain water i can drink one small trick is to not eat too much the more food i eat the more water i need for digestion and this is not a land flowing with milk and honey just one stagnant pool of rainwater filled with feces and dead birds i got this crab here i can eat them but i want them for bait that's looking like fish bait to me [Music] it's a big one come on baby stay on the line come on [Music] oh yeah i had a good feeling about that all along look at that baby that's dinner oh yeah i'm getting repaid the gods are repaying me for letting that little chick go couldn't believe it that was freaky being in the water and having him on the line he fought well oh yeah yeah baby you are dinner yes indeed with such little water to drink i'll have to be careful i don't eat too much but this kind of a meal is an incredible psychological boost and i'm not going to forgo it [Music] searching for firewood on this shore reveals more than i really want to see as it does on every ocean shoreline around this planet [Music] oh i figured this is just really really good karma let the little guy go and reward it with a fish dinner oh i can guarantee this tastes a lot better than that little bird a lot of times in a survival situation you need to consider where all sources for sustenance are the turtles are here anytime i want them easy pickings a prickly pear cactus easy pickings but as long as i can catch fish like this i can leave the turtles where they are i can leave the chicks where they are and eat my fish in my prickly pear and get a lot of my main nutrients i'm going to keep eating turn the cameras off i can almost guarantee that i will not sleep tonight because now i'm going to have way too much energy rushing through my body but it was time to eat wow there's a major fish thing going on out right in front of me this has got to be a good little bait for catching fish [Music] oh it's why does it always have to be ants across the channel from my island lay safety and people but the currents here are deadly and they take lives and so i remain isolated and alone within view of salvation and that's classic island survival last night's first night it hasn't rained so i actually got a little bit of sleep early in the morning and already that sun well i can start to feel this heat it's gonna be intense today i can feel that coming before that happens i'm gonna get out and explore along the outer zone out there just to see what else i can find boy under the tropical sun it's not a good place to be when uh heat stroke could mean your life well they certainly don't make it difficult this fella's coming walking right into camp that's a big turtle anyway too big for my needs i can get a smaller one i'll be just fine with abundance like this i can afford the time and calories to search for eggs i've had bad luck eating turtles having suffered through some pretty horrible parasites and though these ones may be just fine and without issue they're still on my easy last resort list the turtles aren't going anywhere fast in any event as soon as they start swooping down at my head i figure i must be getting close to something so it's back to the egg hunt ow oh that hurt cactus and shorts don't go together ouch hey hey hey there we go awesome check this out [Music] two eggs [Music] sounds solid well i think what i'll do is uh i'll do the more environmentally friendly thing and i'll leave one egg behind i know where it is and uh i'll go eat this one that's a nice size day once again it's the proactive survival that has served me well if i don't look around and i just sit and wait to be rescued i can wither away and die but spending the time exploring has brought me fish water cactus turtles and best of all an egg meal this doesn't look good it looks like it was a bit far along well that looks and kind of smells disgusting actually there's the chick well crazy thing is it's all edible i've never eaten an egg this far gone before well let's start with the egg whites shall we oh that's actually good wow all right now let's try the chick it's not bad this is going down a lot better than i thought it was going to i'm going to add in the shell there's calcium in this shell well there's more where that came from once again in a strange twist of how survival works i've had the boost of eating an egg but i've made my need for water much stronger by putting food in my stomach that'll help anyway anything else i can do to catch some rain if it does rain tonight beats uh going over and drinking out of the sludge puddle three four inches of water and i've got a good cool drink [Music] uh just to be safe i'm gonna make a little bit of a rain shelter here in case it does come on the rain tonight i don't have to go running to the uh other location through the cactus in the dark this is the rainy season and i have to remain vigilant at protecting myself from the elements [Music] it's not watertight by any stretch it'll help to shed most of the rain i'll tuck you in here with my raincoat on in case i get any more downpours like i did the first couple of nights [Music] it's always very humbling when you do well in survival it's humbling because just about anything could go wrong in a survival situation and usually does i'm always asked what's the toughest place to survive and the answer is always the same comes down to temperature give me heat for moderate temperatures and i'll get by drop it below freezing and survival becomes quite the struggle surprising that on it tropical island it's covered in cactus no palm trees no coconuts no fresh flowing water yet the opportunity to survive here to gather prickly pear cactus turtles catch fish gather eggs tap small birds before they get their flight feathers make survival here strangely more doable than in some tropical islands that are covered with boundaries that's the irony of survival locations tv has made survival look like a recreation and me being in this location may almost look like an adventure but survival will always be survival and by its very nature it's a difficult and a miserable undertaking not to be wished on anyone that sure paid off well unbelievable works perfect a little tiny thing like this little idea i give myself a drink of rain water this island might not have any palm trees no coconuts no fresh running water it has eggs and turtles prickly pear cactus by the ton that i can eat and live off of and good fishing you never know what you're gonna get in survival you get what you get you deal with it because survival is doing what you have to or perishing tropical island survival often exists in people's minds as a cliche yet it's the reference point for us all when we think of being marooned and there are places where the coconuts fall in profusion and fresh water comes cascading down rock faces into aquamarine pools but here a cactus replaced the coconut and the flowing fresh water is actually a stagnant pool yet grenada stands as a beautiful example of pure nature and its islands are uniquely vibrant and rich in biodiversity so why is it i always seek out the most difficult way to enjoy such powerfully beautiful places someday i'll have to try being a tourist and just take pictures of turtles rather than considering them my lunch in the name of survival you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 401,893

Rating: 4.8585639 out of 5

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, Grenada Island, Grenada, volcano, active volcano, Caribbean Sea, stranded, uninhabited island, Frigate, will to survive, untouched by civilization, secure freshwater, prickly pear cactus, turtles, survive, survival, isolation

Id: tepOs-KWxLE

Length: 47min 34sec (2854 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021