The drone of the motor now long since receded, I walked up the beach to where my case full of camera equipment had been dropped in the shade of a coconut palm. I allowed myself to fall to my knees in the sand and clicked open the four chunky plastic latches. The case opened to reveal the only remnants of civilisation left to me: two video cameras, two head-mounted point-of-view cameras, a very stripped-down medical kit (just one course of antibiotics and a trauma dressing), an emergency satellite phone and a GPS locator device. If ever there was a moment for comfort eating, this was it. But there was no food in the box − nothing to help me survive at all.
I snapped into autopilot and tried to take charge by doing something that I did have control over. As I rigged up the cameras I was immediately aware of my first oversight. I had nothing to clip the radio mic box to. I was naked! ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The silly things that I’m already starting to flap about.’ I tried to joke to the camera and yet inside I wasn’t laughing. I tried to clip it to the camera, which completely defeated the purpose of having a remote radio mic. I was flapping. Calm, logical thought was almost impossible to hold on to.
Sand was already finding its way into everything. Deep breath out. Having rigged up the second camera and radio mic, I sat down to make a plan. ‘I’m up and running filming-wise. I just have this nervous energy circling round my chest at the moment. I think every part of me knows that this is not messing around – that I’m very much putting my money where my mouth is. If I can survive – on my own – for two months – fantastic. But I’ve never done this before! Am I going to go mad without anyone to talk to? Oh Christ.’ My sentences were just streams of consciousness – there was no perspective or reason, just raw disjointed emotions and thoughts.
‘OK, what’s the situation, Ed? What are your priorities? What do you need to do first?’
I am a former British Army captain who has been leading expeditions and operations to remote parts of the world for more than a decade. I have been in very high-risk situations before in Afghanistan working alongside the UN and I’ve taught survival courses to people about to embark on jungle expeditions in Belize. But a menacing truth suddenly loomed in front of me. I had never had to survive before from scratch. You might think that would have occurred to me before but I felt a little sick as it dawned on me that I was making it up as I was going along.
Very, very alone... (Ed Stafford/Discovery Channel)
Think about it. Expeditioners, even those at the most extreme level, all carry kit and supplies to help them. They will have food and a means of cooking it; navigation equipment; some form of portable shelter; water and a means of storing and purifying it. If things go wrong they will often still have a lot to help them get themselves out of trouble. They will have a well-thought through casualty evacuation plan that would hopefully ensure that they are never in a survival situation for very long.
Consider this too. In prehistoric times cavemen would have been very unlikely to have been in a situation in which they started with nothing. They would be born into a tribe or family that had tools, animal skins, a fire, and they would probably all be cuddled up in a well-chosen cave. They would acquire all the skills that they needed in order to live in their world as they grew up. They would usually only have to deal with one problem or situation at a time. ‘We need some more firewood/mammoth meat/sabre-toothed tiger skin.’ Delete as applicable.
My eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that I’d just volunteered myself for the absolute worst-case scenario with an acknowledgement that I would have absolutely nothing to help me survive, and a sure certainty that the situation would not change for a very long time. I would be sending an ‘OK’ message every day from the locator device but if I fell off a rock and cracked my skull in the interior of the island it might be too late by the time they found me.
My brain, used to self-deprecation to help me muddle through such times, looked for someone to share a black joke with about the absurdity of my predicament. A chill shudder ran through me as I realised another absolute truth: no one was going to share this with me. No one would laugh or cry with me. No one would give me any encouragement. No one would advise me or warn me of danger. I had absolutely nobody to turn to or to comfort me in any of this. I had to take complete responsibility for myself in every respect – probably for the first time in my life.
Want to keep reading? Buy Ed Stafford's Naked and Marooned book here
I snapped into autopilot and tried to take charge by doing something that I did have control over. As I rigged up the cameras I was immediately aware of my first oversight. I had nothing to clip the radio mic box to. I was naked! ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The silly things that I’m already starting to flap about.’ I tried to joke to the camera and yet inside I wasn’t laughing. I tried to clip it to the camera, which completely defeated the purpose of having a remote radio mic. I was flapping. Calm, logical thought was almost impossible to hold on to.
Sand was already finding its way into everything. Deep breath out. Having rigged up the second camera and radio mic, I sat down to make a plan. ‘I’m up and running filming-wise. I just have this nervous energy circling round my chest at the moment. I think every part of me knows that this is not messing around – that I’m very much putting my money where my mouth is. If I can survive – on my own – for two months – fantastic. But I’ve never done this before! Am I going to go mad without anyone to talk to? Oh Christ.’ My sentences were just streams of consciousness – there was no perspective or reason, just raw disjointed emotions and thoughts.
‘OK, what’s the situation, Ed? What are your priorities? What do you need to do first?’
I am a former British Army captain who has been leading expeditions and operations to remote parts of the world for more than a decade. I have been in very high-risk situations before in Afghanistan working alongside the UN and I’ve taught survival courses to people about to embark on jungle expeditions in Belize. But a menacing truth suddenly loomed in front of me. I had never had to survive before from scratch. You might think that would have occurred to me before but I felt a little sick as it dawned on me that I was making it up as I was going along.
Very, very alone... (Ed Stafford/Discovery Channel)
Think about it. Expeditioners, even those at the most extreme level, all carry kit and supplies to help them. They will have food and a means of cooking it; navigation equipment; some form of portable shelter; water and a means of storing and purifying it. If things go wrong they will often still have a lot to help them get themselves out of trouble. They will have a well-thought through casualty evacuation plan that would hopefully ensure that they are never in a survival situation for very long.
Consider this too. In prehistoric times cavemen would have been very unlikely to have been in a situation in which they started with nothing. They would be born into a tribe or family that had tools, animal skins, a fire, and they would probably all be cuddled up in a well-chosen cave. They would acquire all the skills that they needed in order to live in their world as they grew up. They would usually only have to deal with one problem or situation at a time. ‘We need some more firewood/mammoth meat/sabre-toothed tiger skin.’ Delete as applicable.
My eyes were suddenly opened to the fact that I’d just volunteered myself for the absolute worst-case scenario with an acknowledgement that I would have absolutely nothing to help me survive, and a sure certainty that the situation would not change for a very long time. I would be sending an ‘OK’ message every day from the locator device but if I fell off a rock and cracked my skull in the interior of the island it might be too late by the time they found me.
My brain, used to self-deprecation to help me muddle through such times, looked for someone to share a black joke with about the absurdity of my predicament. A chill shudder ran through me as I realised another absolute truth: no one was going to share this with me. No one would laugh or cry with me. No one would give me any encouragement. No one would advise me or warn me of danger. I had absolutely nobody to turn to or to comfort me in any of this. I had to take complete responsibility for myself in every respect – probably for the first time in my life.
Want to keep reading? Buy Ed Stafford's Naked and Marooned book here
