Survivorman | Mexico Part 1 | Les Stroud

i think i see what the seagulls were all on about that is what i think it is fortune may have just delivered me a meal that's gonna be good or it's gonna make me violently sick [Music] [Music] [Music] this is tiberone island situated off the sunny and warm coast of mexico but this is no tropical paradise with coconuts to enjoy it's a rugged and unforgiving landscape that is the original homeland of the siri indians any bounty that exists here to help with survival is hidden under the waters of the estuaries and in the rocky crags of the desert mountains themselves while the ocean can be bountiful it's unpredictable and your skills need to be strong what it doesn't offer is fresh water for that i'll likely have to trek through the scorching desert inland because without water survival is just not possible happens every year people sail people get lost or they run into trouble usually it's a result of weather and bad weather and if you're lucky you find yourself either close to port close to safety a way to get to an island that's got sustenance for survival coconuts fresh water whatever you need you're not lucky you end up like me my mast is busted my kicker motor's out of gas and i am off the coast of an island so that's good just so happens to be a desert island tiburone island mexico also known as shark island that's going to be a long 10 days as the safety team leaves i've been left aboard a disabled sailboat for the next 10 days i'll have to eke out a survival-based existence by whatever means i can find the nights are cold enough to chill you to the bone and if you're foolish make you hypothermic and the days are hot enough to dehydrate you quickly which is a bad combination for basic survival but out here survival always depends on my ingenuity and my drive to discover every opportunity i can to make things better and there are small advantages to every location if you pay attention and open your eyes to the possibilities for now i'm anchored on the windward side and about 100 feet off of a long spit of land that cradles an estuary on the lee side there's no doubt i'll need to eventually get on land to see what i can find but i'll stay on board the boat to see what i have to work with here which this time includes a kayak left in the hull of the sailboat well at least i have a huge advantage this time kayak that'll make a big difference i can get back and forth from the shore with these waters here are fine i mean it's called tiburon island because of the large population of hammerheads that come here every year i'm not worried about that first i got to check out what i've got on board see what i got to work with everything in this boat is dirty and musty and old and that's what they left me with to survive 10 days actually this boat comes with a bit of history it was found floating in the sea of cortez it's got no name had no passengers had not much on it other than the junk that you can see right now came out as if it was just an afternoon of sailing i've got a bottle of wine and some cigars a blanket about enough water for four or five days and this heat four or five days at best knife and multi-tool that's about it the rest will be up to the sailboat if i'm gonna make it through ten days i still have a reserve of water to get me through the first couple of days but in this heat it'll run out fast food is never an early concern in a survival situation everyone can last longer than they think without food but without water perishing is only days away no point me sleeping inside this boat way too musty and dirty to breathe in there not much chance of rain happening to the desert it's hot during the day and can be quite cold at night right down to zero right down to freezing there's potential for it to hit that over these nights i'm gonna hope that it doesn't definitely goes down in history is the softest shelter bed i've ever had it's important to be proactive rather than letting the circumstances dictate for me what i have to deal with so i take a moment to assess my body what i have close at hand and what i have in an extended area around me and start to formulate plans for survival reactionary survival can be doomed to failure i think a lot of times people come in and you can do uh sort of bear rentals where you rent a sailboat and head off with a little experience and get yourself in a lot of trouble and end up in a situation like this a bit of a rough night it sounds like hopefully everything will hold fine using the sail has a cover to keep the dew off of me and then i lock it off the anchor will stay anchored before i have a chance to relax and enjoy the starry night the wind has picked up and it started to hit the boat hard tugging violently at the anchors holding on to the sandy bottom threatening to blow me far offshore this is crazy it's been super windy all night boats rocking straining against the anchor and not getting much sleep at all i just keep getting up and looking at the shore hoping that it's still there this is when the clock becomes a killer i don't know what time it is and i don't want to know just when you think it's maybe five or six in the morning the sun should be coming up soon you have a watch check it it's only 12 30. but in this case i don't have a watch or anything anyway i'm telling time so all i've got right now is patience and uh rock and boat and a strong wind and i hope that morning comes soon the worst way to begin a survival ordeal was with a lack of sleep yet ironically that's almost always the way and tonight it'll be no different for me the winds picked up hard all night if the anchor were to break free i could be blown out of the protected area and down past the baja peninsula out into the pacific ocean i'm gonna have to rethink things the tide currents seem to be pretty strong the boat just kind of whips around chunk chunk junk for hours on end so so i haven't really slept i think what i want to do is get off this boat but that means transporting everything that i've got my camera gear and supplies i have and then whatever i want to kind of pill for from this boat [Music] i know it's not much but believe it or not that actually works [Music] so there just by wiping down the deck of the the boat and you got to be careful because there's bird poop and stuff on the boat but able to get some water [Music] water is going to become really important pretty quick the other thing i can do i'm only able to do it a very very small amount at a time take a mouthful of seawater that's disgusting you can't have too much of this stuff because it's very dangerous to intake seawater very very dangerous if i take just a little mouthful a day it actually puts a lot of minerals and nutrients into my body i would only do this because of the fact that i have some fresh water with me without fresh water ingesting straight seawater can cause an immediate lessening of thirst but shortly afterwards the sensation of thirst returns even stronger the kidneys strain in a losing battle with the sea salt and soon fail cells become dehydrated affecting the brain and causing hallucinations delirium and eventually madness death is not far behind fishing net some ropes this is all going to be good stuff i just got to get it across to the island there's a couple old forks some twist ties and there is a toolbox that's a bonus hammer so a couple of tools here all right i'm going to try and pack this stuff up and get across to the island while the weather's good and while the sea is pretty calm [Music] surviving with camera gear is always a pain getting onto land is going to open up numerous possibilities for affecting survival [Music] you know the truth of a survival situation is that every day every single new day is a brand new day of survival it might be exciting for me to get off that boat but i know the reality is that sun is beaming down pretty hot so my first concern right now is shelter from the sun you gotta move slow and methodical and heat like this and in any survival situation don't wanna make things worse step one survival on a desert island well i'm shut down by high tide gusty winds can't get out to the boat and the sun is ridiculously hot so three strikes i'm out all my efforts have to take place either in the morning or as the sun starts to drop down the sky otherwise the heat stroke and dehydration that i risk is is too dangerous [Music] i'm into my second day of survival on a desert island in mexico there's no time like the present to find ways to better my situation i'm sitting here getting antsy and thinking about things and i think i just had an idea there's a lot of junk on this beach it's just rope and tin cans and plastic and bottles everywhere let's see if i can come up with a way to make water with the right supplies surviving on the edge of the ocean without fresh water is still possible there are ways to create my own supply of drinking water see if i can make the water still but active water still not one that's just dependent upon simple condensation let's see if i can make one utilizing fire it's all kinds of junk up in here it was junk now it's going to be a useful tool for me that's not rusted through [Music] i'm gonna have to create a little bit of a trough so i can feed the fire without having to lift off the bucket those tools that were in the sailboat have come in handy in a situation like this it's good to think like an engineer oh okay so it's soft copper i'm gonna try and get a bend in this thing i'm trying to get a bend without crimping it that should work actually all right that's a good sign now i'm gonna have to find a way to tighten a seal on this thing all around the edges i might have to sacrifice something the simplicity of distilling water is simply creating steam and somehow collecting it to drink just trying to make the seal a little tighter by putting that material in there if you haven't caught on what's going to happen here what i hope to happen is i'm going to get a fire going underneath this bucket salt water will hopefully boil come out through this pipe the steam will hopefully cool i'll have a cooling system down here so i've got salt water in the jar and uh when this fills up with water that should help to keep cooling the steam down so fire down here heats up the barrel comes out the pipe down into that bottle cool water down below helps to condense the steam hopefully i get a drink of water in the absence of cold fresh water condensed steam collected in a bottle and allowed to cool overnight will do in a pinch and it may just mean the difference between survival or death from dehydration i can go a long time without food but it only takes a few days for the heat and dryness to devastate the human body there was a first aid kit in the sailboat so i've got a piece of this cotton and there was some toilet paper but the way i'm going to make them last is i've got some lip balm so i'm going to utilize this wax in both places i'm going to put it on the the cotton from the first aid kit and on the toilet paper and that should really hold the flame one match fire you do not want to miss it's got to take or i'm in trouble it can be intense when something so simple at any other time takes on such great importance now this is my one and only match all right somehow i've got to keep this fire going for about another eight straight days once i get a good base of coals going i'll push some up underneath the uh the bucket of water and hopefully get it boiling [Music] it's only the second day and even though i still have a small supply of drinking water from the boat being proactive and working to make even more water is vital to surviving 10 days out here fire is always a good sight changes everything when it comes to survival on my second night of survival i can rest well knowing i'm not in danger of being swept out to sea in a disabled sailboat anymore should a storm come in but as the coyotes howl searching for a nightly meal themselves the desert begins to cool in the night air and the ping-pong effect of hot during the day and cold during the night continues to sap my energy reserves making my need for food stronger on my third day of survival i can start to get a handle on just how long and slow the tides are and with that knowledge i can look to times to get into the estuary to hunt for food but as it is with all deserts the window of opportunity to accomplish things out in the heat lies usually in the mornings and at dusk when the heat of the day is gone there's danger and beauty in all corners of the earth which characteristic i choose to live within is entirely up to me survival depends upon my own choices it wasn't so bad of a night got pretty cool but i was able to keep the fire going fire's still going nicely good bed of coals i haven't got the water boiling yet to create steam i fell asleep and so it died down enough that it just hasn't picked back up nice temperatures now but it's going to get hot this is not so much an estuary in the classic sense of the word for there's no fresh water running into it on a steady basis that really only happens here when rare storms come through yet it is a well-protected lagoon area and should serve as fertile hunting and fishing grounds i know an estuary like this would be just filled with stingrays so i want to protect my feet my calves somehow from getting stung i've got to make something to protect me and i think i know what i can grab off the boat to do that [Music] as i paddle out i'm watching down below to see if there are any signs of edible life the water is much colder than it looks and the only bounty i can see are the sea slugs and they're all 15 to 20 feet down my old home well that might be useful some old life jackets in this boat take them as much as the sailboat is kind of romantic i'm still happier on shore i'm fortunate i've got no issues with repurposing my belongings to aid in my survival all too often lost victims are weary of breaking or ripping apart something they own it's like they feel guilty yet that guilt needs to be lost quickly if you expect to utilize your surroundings to the best of your advantage so that you can turn a possibly horrific ordeal into a manageable one while the tide is low the search for sustenance becomes easier as opportunities open up to me look at this i see this estuary here like it's just full of wildlife there's all kinds of herons and cranes egress yeah it's just beautiful spots where some of the trees over there loaded with birds at times look over and they're just all sorts of white blobs in the distance it's all the birds hunting fishing there's a lot going on in this estuary and i'm gonna see if i can make some of it work in my favor there's a patch over there of drier sand and that should be a better spot for clamming than in this more hard packed wetter stuff the tide here is gentle enough that it's going to give me a lot of time to explore if i need to just going to scoop along using this shell see what i can come up with just start out from here hey look at that what did that take 15 seconds clam two clamps three [Music] seven nice big one not bad because i'm already getting to the point where i'm getting a meal it's not all that often in a survival situation when you come across an opportunity to simply and easily gather more food energy than it takes to do the gathering in the first place it's a big field feed me for a while it's counterproductive to walk a mile only to find enough food to fuel a half a mile so walking 50 yards and gathering this easily is a lucky find you do get a feel for it after a while what i like to do is scoop like this and then drag my knuckles in behind sometimes my knuckles actually feel something that the shell didn't hit or when you hit baiter look at that that's just a few minutes work and i've got dinner [Music] this is where i got to start being careful in terms of stingrays they're on their way back up from the south as the warmer weather starts to return and they come into these estuaries by the thousands so it's not likely there's any in these little puddles but they do get trapped the tide comes in really flat smooth and even and slowly and gently fills up these mangrove swamps that's why there's a lot that can be gathered here without having to go into deep water the odd fish gets trapped it'd be really nice to come upon a flounder or something like that i'm really fortunate to know that all these clams are here i'll come back and gather clams as many as i can but before i do too much in the actual water i want to get some protection on my feet one shot from a stingray and this whole venture is over with a very unglamorous ending [Music] three days surviving on a desert island and as the tide slowly comes in the water covers over all of my clam hunting areas and i'm finished for the day nature is forcing my hands so i'll take to the ocean side to see what else i can dig up uh it's just time to go and gather some more firewood there's so much wood all the way up and down this shoreline it's easy but i also see some seagulls messing around up up at the edge of the water here i want to go find out what that's all about as well huh i think i see what the seagulls were all on about that is what i think it is the fortune may have just delivered me a meal whenever i spot lots of bird activity i know something's up and that's how i came across this little bit of food i can scavenge unfortunately for me i'm not familiar with how to cook and eat squid or even which parts are edible and that's the trick of even finding or gathering wild edibles whether something from the sea like this or wild plants if i'm not sure what it is i'm eating or how to eat it i can take a great chance at making myself very sick and all too often lost victims take the chance and eat something that kills them i got myself a meal that's amazing i've been walking this beach back and forth back and forth and i keep running into sea slugs but nothing else and then this just hanging there that's gonna be good or it's gonna make me violently sick one of the other happened to me in alaska and i came upon a spot where an eagle had just dropped a fresh caught salmon and you can take advantage of that for a survival meal absolutely i'm probably wasting more of this than i should but i'm being honest here i've never done this before never eaten one of these guys before so i'm not taking any chances i'm cutting off all the little grippers here this is going to be good this gathered food from the lagoon in the ocean will go a long way in boosting my energy to make use of a few things i got from the boat cooking up this calamari these forks twist ties [Music] sweet the heat of the day is pushing down on me now but i'm still gonna go and cook this calamari while it's still fresh it's so fresh that the tentacles are actually still moving now we're talking squid all right i have no idea of knowing how much you're supposed to cook this definitely tastes salty wow all of a sudden i just realized how hungry i am i know what i'm doing for the rest of the day eating squid and then i've got clams for dessert [Music] under the desert sun as my own supply of water depletes quickly it becomes more and more important to be making as much water as possible now that i have food my body needs even more water just for digestion i don't know if you can hear this or not but the kettle's boiling with the bucket full of salt water the steam is finally collecting in the cooling system i've made look at that that's amazing that's basically one day's worth of uh distilling and whatever that is 500 milliliters or so of liquid and no salt yes indeed that's amazing that's really really cool i've always loved survival skills that keep working when you don't have to [Music] that sun's going to drop fast like it always does so before that happens time for clambake i've actually returned uh some of the smaller ones back to the estuary there's no reason to be greedy here and it's better for their population to not just go in and just clear them out so i've kept only the big ones and thrown all the little tiny ones back the young ones let's give them a chance to grow it's real simple all i have to do is put them on the coals best way to do this is take it just put this the hinge end down into the coals and then they'll open up at the top and in the meantime i can chew on some squid this particular feast offers little in the way of carbohydrates or sugars it's all protein there we go oh that's really good that is really good sun's going down pretty quickly i've got clams got my squid oh yeah wow that's good now if only there were coconuts on this island that would be a big score [Music] for now life and survival has taken a positive turn and it's easy for a moment to get rested and prepared for the inevitable search for life-sustaining fresh water [Music] [Music] it's been four days of survival and to get myself into the deep waters of the lagoon to hunt for more food i'll have to take chances with the stingrays they come in here by the thousands so a little homemade protection can't hurt well that looks good if i do something like this my feet are going to sink into the mud as i walk so something around my foot itself might be kind of useless this could appear to be a little overkill but an injury any injury while in a survival situation can change things for the worse and all it takes is the wrong step in the wrong place that's not bad actually so if i'm walking and i'm testing if a stingray does shoot up and and hits me in the calf at least i'm protected there surviving alone is one thing surviving alone and injured is quite something else stingray shin pads for the first time in a long while a lot of clouds coming in i'm pretty protected from the sun semi-protected from the wind but we'll see how i am for the rain all right let's go spear fishing so i've got a spear the one that i made plus a cane pole just so i can test the deeper waters for stingrays there should be no shortage of available bounty here i'd expect that in a mangrove lagoon like this some places just seem like they should be obvious fertile hunting or gathering grounds the wilderness is neutral it neither adds nor detracts from survival i'm always in the position of having to go with the flow of the seasons live by the weather even population movements of game are a deciding factor these elements and more determine whether or not i'm in the right place at the right time for an easy or difficult go at surviving any fish that are coming in and out of the estuary are going to come right along this path water's very cold a lot colder than i thought it was hard part is uh just being able to see into the water the ripples just looking for anything crabs maybe flounder going by [Music] this is incredibly i disappointing hoping to find some deep channels the fish could be trapped even at low tide there's just too much water here [Music] so i'm just up into the back corner of this estuary nothing here i was hoping to find some more pools of water where fish might be trapped but nothing everything's a little too shallow what i am able to find are these oysters attached to the rocks and the roots of the mangroves after a day of hunting they'll have to do as my only catch of the day it's actually really easy to get them off the roots easier than when you're trying to get them off rocks at least i know these are here they're not going anywhere like the clams these oysters are going to be high in salt pretty much the worst thing for me to intake with dwindling water reserves but for now i'll take in the nutrition to help keep my energy up so that i can continue to survive and even thrive there we go well that was worth the effort cheers that's delicious all right well there's hundreds of these little oysters all attached to the roots of the mangrove this is good i've got clams and oysters now that i can gather from the estuary the sea water slowly makes its way back into the lagoon and i lose my easy hunting grounds i'm just uh clearing away some of this skin i cut one off a little while ago and it seems to be doing better this one here still looking bad i'm gonna need these blisters to be healed up i'm not gonna be able to walk in these boots so hopefully the salt the sun will uh heal these up and be back on my feet again and able to get out of here i'm going to gather a bit a bit of food making a bit of water the waves are rough for holding me in it's not like i can get out in the ocean right now and you just start to kind of go inside yourself in a situation like this no matter what anybody tells you no matter what tv you watch the reality is that solo survival is a lonely experience it's said that any army marches on its stomachs and it's no different for survival stomach problems can knock you out of the game quickly oh man i don't know what those oysters did to me but they're not sitting in my stomach very well in a survival situation there's two things that knock you down really quickly shot feet and a rock gut right now i've got both [Music] [Music] so in the course of survival stomach problems leading to vomiting when already dehydrated can be deadly i'm just trying not to throw up right now i don't think i'll be eating any more of those oysters this is true hardcore reality of survival hours and hours and hours and even days just existing boredom's killer on a time like this but i don't have any other choice i'll wait this out and hope that i don't throw up i've lost the better part of the day due to stomach problems but at least the heat of the desert is broken by the setting sun and i get a small break but losing time in a survival situation is never good and always frustrating [Music] it's been five days of survival in the desert where the nights are cold and the days are hot but the mangrove lagoon area has proven to be a great location for gathering food finding fresh water is a bigger problem on the ocean's edge and dehydration comes quickly the heat and the wind constantly pull the moisture out of my body through convection so finding a way to replenish that water is vital to survival no matter what way you slice it it gets cold here at night there's a strong wind still coming in off the ocean and blows on me here all night long which means i have to spend most of night just stoking the fire the sun's just coming up now and hopefully actually i think if i stand up i'll be in the sun yeah there it is it's on the feather once the sun hits it's a world of difference takes a chill right out of your bones you spend the last two hours of any night just just staring at that horizon going come on son come on and it's going to go from cold to very hot very soon [Music] lost my fire you can just feel some faint faint heat ah this is not good i lose the fire now got no way getting started again there's heat in this this is just some i think it's nylon netter i don't know what it is okay i need some more finer shave down material some fine shavings no matter what this is the last of the toilet paper that i'm just gonna break it up a little bit let's give this a shot always dangerous to lose a fire overnight really tricky to get a fire back again once you lose it there we go yeah all right that did the trick well that was actually close that was closer than it looked believe it or not i was worried about that it was just a fine fine coal that was left it's going now because uh i got another way to get a fire going right now good so well i thought that i'd eaten up all my squid but actually a couple pieces had fallen off to the side of the fire so so as of today unless i get some more clams that's breakfast lunch and dinner [Music] squid so long as my energy is still good there's no point in not looking for more opportunities to aid in survival it's always important to know what's just around the corner i'm going to take a long walk along the beach see if i can come across any other squid or something else that might be edible that might have washed up probably do this every morning you never know [Music] the coyotes sure have a run along this beach every night i hear them yipping and yelping and they're obviously coming in real close to me not close enough for me to see yet but i know they're here way up ahead of me on the beach i can see a couple of coyotes running down at some of the shorebirds i haven't been this far down the beach before yeah that's coyote for sure [Music] yeah he was watching me let me get in real close gonna feel like dances with wolves here dances with coyotes [Music] there's a big pole sticking up up here i'm gonna check this area out a little mini village set up there's that coyote [Music] he's curious see if that brings them back little villages like this one are usually set up nowadays by the military to try to stop drug smugglers from moving up and down the coast they stay out here and keep their chase boat hidden ready to rush out and apprehend smugglers out on the ocean and this is the whole trick to survival if you can be proactive if you can move around if you can check out where you are what's around you you never know what you're gonna find you stay put and wait and wait and you're not sure if rescue is going to come you don't know what might be right around the corner sometimes it could be a cabin sometimes it can be food sometimes it can be rescued so just even doing this walk along the beach reveals new things to me things i can make use of for survival if i need to [Music] while walking back to my beach shelter i see that the boat has slipped off its anchor it's being blown into the shore and destroyed slowly as wave after wave digs the keel into the sand bottom oh man this boat's in rough shape now let's see if i can get the keel to come up yeah i can't get the keel to come up i don't think that's doing anything it's probably snapped off and broken and now it's stuck in the sand here the sailboat's definitely seen better days it's done that's too bad getting out of here that's a done deal in a true survival situation the loss of the boat would spell disaster i had other plans to move inland and find fresh water so it doesn't matter so much in the short term but in the long term it's devastating after five days in mexico it's time to start thinking about moving on and finding a greater source of fresh drinking water the small amounts i can make with my water still are not keeping up with my body's demands and the dry desert heat if i can i'm gonna try and take as much shelter material with me but it's a lot to carry and i don't want to make this be turned into two trips my body needs fresh water so my motivation for moving on is at its highest where i'm going is still along the shore it's a long walk but it's along the shore so i can i'm going to drag it and hopefully it's i don't think it should be too heavy i'll put all the camera gear on my back in my backpack as usual be a bit of walking today but it'll get me to a new location new opportunities new ways to survive to keep it simple for now i'm just going to move myself down the shoreline to the little village i found and use that as a break point before i head deeper into the hills and mountains in search of fresh water after five days of survival on tiburone island in the gulf of california i've been able to make water and find food but i can't distill enough water to meet my body's needs and i'm only halfway through this if i'm going to make a go of it i'll need to head inland and search out not only shelter perhaps in the caves and food but also fresh drinking water wherever i can find it perhaps game trails will lead me to it survival comes down to the most important element on earth water without it no one can survive and i have five days yet to last in the desert heat of mexico first i got to come back for you too you

Channel: Survivorman - Les Stroud

Views: 2,616,905

Keywords: Survivorman TV Series, Les Stroud, Survivorman, Survivorman Les Stroud, Survivorman TV Show, Survivorman TV, Tiburon, shipwrecked, mexico, mountainous desert landscape, desert landscape, wild coyotes, scorpions, rattlesnakes, edible plants, ten- day survival, survival, survive

Id: Y4pVYLbPWxw

Length: 45min 10sec (2710 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021