"All Is Lost" except a dry hammock and a few other necessities

[ntxkayakr]

Last night my wife selects this "award winning" Robert Redford movie because she is obsessed with sharks. I like to learn new survival skills but am doubtful about any Hollywood version of it. Surprisingly my 16 year old daughter manages to endure the first 30 minutes mostly on her phone using "SM" and T.M." apps, but my outcries of "What!? the Noob's SAT phone was not in a dry box! I keep that thing double or triple protected especially in a marine environment!" finally drove her out of the room.

So one of the few wise things the only character in this movie does is to use a hammock to sleep in. And like a few of us he does not get sea sick easily swinging back and forth so it appears to work for him. For those of you who have not seen this movie, I recommend NOT watching the trailer, but DO have a legal pad of paper and pen and write down all the foolish things he does and wise choices as well, then calculate the ratio. See if you get close to a 10:1.



The Discovery Channel's one hour show about Steven Callahan who survived 76 days at sea on a raft was much better and actually educational, but he did not to use a hammock or it was not shown. Also my wife and kids only watch shark week on Disc Ch. everything else is "nerdy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_...76_Days_At_Sea

[e_2]

He's fallen a long ways from Jeremiah Johnson...

[sargevining]

He's fallen a long ways from Jeremiah Johnson...

Agreed. A result of the inevitable hubris that comes from being praised for preaching to the audience.

[ntxkayakr]

There were so many disturbing things in this movie, just far to many to list, but one misleading item that I took great issue with was how much water they showed him getting from his tiny homemade "solar still". Not realistic at all! A good life raft typically has at least 3 Aquamate brand Solar Stills or their equivalents, and any solo sailor or survivalist knows how to make one of these and to collect rain water off the roof during every rain and morning dew. 3 days max without water and many days or weeks without food, these are well known basic matters of life and death.

All I can figure is that they tried to get the rights to Steven Callahan's story but jacked with him so much that he said no. Hammock related, I would have tried to string one across the raft, tie below the bottom of the raft, to keep myself off the bottom and stay a little drier, a wet person is up to 25 times more susceptible to hypothermia (i.e. body losses heat 25x faster wet). Anyone who has been in a raft for hours knows how wet the bottom of one can be, small leaks or not, salty water on your skin for days, not good.