I could have sworn this story was already posted on the forum. I found this in-depth treatment of it today and searched for the story here, but couldn't find it.

Alcohol: The main ingredient in many situations that go horribly wrong.

Great story!! Thanks for posting.
What surprised me the most ... was that early in the epic they all drank a significant amount of seawater. I would have thought that this would ruin their kidneys, or other organs. But apparently, fresh rain came within a day or so, and it was enough to save them. They were very, very lucky about getting adequate rainfall during this ordeal.

cheers,
Pete2

The sea is not all at a homogenous level of salinity. Possibly, they were fortunate enough to be in water with less salt content when they did that.

Even brackish water is way, way, way to salt to drink. Most seawater is typically around 3.5%. I think the definition of brackish water is something like 1% or so. Can't drink that, either.

If the water has 2.8% or 3.5% is of little interest when you're thirsty - you can't drink it anyway.

The story reminded me that although we know that you're not "supposed" to drink seawater ... it can be very difficult to resist the urge to drink when you are horribly thirsty. It would take a lot of mental discipline - because you honestly don't know whether any rain will come. And if it doesn't, you are going to die from thirst anyway. It's a very bad predicament.

Pete2

Um yeah, one known troublemaker and wannabe gangster, one guy who was doing okay till he met the troublemaker, and one nerd who wants to be hero. Throw in a couple jugs of vodka, that's a disaster in the making.

They are extremely lucky Darwin came knocking but didn't go in, hopefully it's a life changing event for them.