My wife comes home from 'Curves' today. There's a contest: What six things would you want to take with you to a desert island?

Three weeks in, they have (1) water, (2) fire, and (3) an axe. Winner gets a free month. My wife says she wants a tarp next. What do you think?

Water, Fire, Knife, Axe, Large cook pot, 200 ft paracord. I could do fine with these things.

While you're thinking of survival, I'm betting they want to hear junk like "The Beatles Collection on CD". LOL

The sacred order of survival is shelter, water, fire, food and the items should probably reflect that. You could add first aid in there, and a rescue item seeing as how it's a desert island scenario.

However, since I can rarely manage to be too serious about much of anything, I'd make the first thing I'd take "Les Stroud" so he could keep me alive while I lounged on the beach taking advantage of the time to get away from the world. HAHA

I agree with Angel, but I'll take a 300 yard spool of 550 cord, you can never have to much cordage! If I had to limit myself to individual items instead of generalities...
1. 100' 550
2. custom survival axe (in development)
3. custom multi tool (in development)
4. 25' x 25' heavy duty plastic tarp, dark as possible
5. stainless steel cooking pan/pot
6. extra large adjustable bic lighter

I am basing my list solely on staying alive where I am, not on being rescued. Rescue should of course be your ultimate goal but keeping alive until then is the key.

I'd ditch the multitool & take a 5 pronged fish spear. What good is a pot if you have nothing to put in it?

I guess my six items would vary depending on how I was to get to said island.

If I am being taken there and will be picked up in a known time, then my six would be:

Enough water for the planned time
Large blade like a kukri or golok
Ferro rod
Cordage (as much as I can take)
Tarp
Metal pot

If I was being stranded there somehow, I would swap the pot for a personal locator beacon.

I ultimately would want to get off the desert island.

Good luck to your wife on her contest.

Why don't we look at this from the viewpoint of what problems are we going to have that can be solved with equipment. Example: sunburn - the dark tarp, water - machete for digging a weep hole or solar still if you find some clear plastic, you can dig sanitation holes, cut coconuts, cut fire wood, kill fish or Komodo dragons & the blade is longer & thus will stay sharp longer than an axe. If you dull the end of the blade digging, you can still use the rest of the blade for cutting. The sheath is part of the machete, so if you get a sheath that has the little sharpening part (military) you can resharpen it. Also, a magic marker to draw a face on your soccer ball (found on all islands).

Actually my first thought was "Free real estate, and beach front at that" Why would I want to be rescued, I'd be building a hut and furniture. If rescuers come by, I'd just send for more supplies but I would stay there. Attitude is everything.

0311, all the cordage is for making traps and snares, plenty to eat. A fish spear requires there to be water nearby that has fish and requires that you are holding the spear actively trying to spear a fish. This means you cannot do two things at once, traps and snares work for you while you are making shelter, resting, making a ground signal such as an arrow, setting other traps, making a fire, cooking, repairing clothing, building improvised tools etc. Also you can make a fish spear with all sorts of available materials. A multi tool has so many useful things, especially when in a survival situation. About "the blade is longer & thus will stay sharp longer than an axe" well a properly ground axe will outlast any conventional knife or machete, even if said knife/machete is a quality piece and not some POS from an army/navy surplus place. Knives have thinner blades with finer ground edges, this is because their focus in most instances is sharpness, not edge toughness. An axe does not need to be shaving sharp to do it's job well, you will dull a knife very quickly using it as an axe. Using an axe as an axe you will have that axe for a long long time.

If you want to go digging holes for any reason be it a solar still, latrine, cooking hole or whatever you can make a dig stick. Use the things around you, use the tools you have to the greatest effeciency, don't kill a knife digging. Use a dead branch or break one off, cut a rough spike on one end and you have a dig stick, if it breaks or otherwise becomes useless you haven't lost anything, you can make another. You will only have your one knife or multi tool whathaveyou in the wild, use your brain to solve problems. As far as cutting coconuts, I have done this myself several times, the ones you might find in the real world are a LOT tougher than something you get at a supermarket. A knife or even a small axe is next to useless for opening a coconut. I hate siting a film but do like Hanks did in Castaway, wedge the nut in something sturdy (dig a shallow hole, put a stone at the bottom and the coconut ontop of the stone) then bash the nut with something heavy. The point is to not damage those ever priceless tools any more than you have to.


-Olaf

The desert island description doesn't say what is available on the island. I'm thinking of the classic joke island that has only 1 coconut tree & nothing else. It is an island, so I am assuming that we are talking about it being surrounded by ocean. I am not familiar with making fish snares with 550 cord for ocean use. You make some good points about the axe. However, bear in mind that it is the only sharp that you have & no mention is made of a file for sharpening it.