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> For a week, the men lived off coconut meat, but they did have fresh water from a small well on the island, which is sometimes visited by fishers in the region

> For a week, the men lived off coconut meat, but they did have fresh water from a small well on the island, which is sometimes visited by fishers in the region, Coast Guard officials said. What do you do if you don’t have a fresh water source? Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gambiting 3y ago
>>Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells? Depends - if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued. If there is anything else edible on the island you eat that, water from plants will help. The second option is capturing rainwater, assuming you're in a place with rain. Third is boiling water to get rid of the salt(you need to capture the steam on a piece of cloth, wring it into another container, but it's probably going to be the fastest option). Of course this is assuming you have any materials from your ship, which I assume these guys did? You'd at least need a metal pot or a metal sheet that you can bend into the right shape. But yeah in general without access to at least some kind of container where you can boil water(maybe a rock of a right size would work?) you'd be generally screwed. I think the final desperate option is to just try and dig down and hope you hit water and that it's not salty.
- morsch 3y ago
  Dig a hole near the sea, fill it with stones, light a fire on top, heating said stones, fill hole with water and catch the vapor?
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>light a fire on top On top of what? Again that implies you have some kind of metal sheet or something.
    - morsch 3y ago
      In the hole you dug, so on top of whatever soil or sand you dug into and filled with stones/rocks. You fill the hole with water after the fire has died down and use the residual heat in the stones. You can't make a soup this way, but you should be able to make some steam -- I think.
- verbify 3y ago
  > if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued Coconut water has high levels of potassium, and in excess, has been noted in case reports to cause severe hyperkalemia. This link has more information: > A 42-year-old black man without any medical history presented to our hospital after a syncopal episode. He was playing tennis outdoors all day in temperatures in excess of 90° Fahrenheit. He reported drinking a total of eight 11-ounce bottles of coconut water throughout the day. He experienced the sudden onset of lightheadedness and was witnessed to have lost consciousness https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.113.000941 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.113.000941
- nubinetwork 3y ago
  I've never tried planting trees in sea water, but what if you tapped the tree as if it was maple syrup... would the sap still contain salt? Although I'm guessing that doesn't work on every kind of tree.
defrost 3y ago
If there's rain then there's water in the ground, and that water will travel toward the ocean and visibly (if you can read the signs) run out at low tide. https://bushguide101.com/freshwater-seepages-on-sandy-beaches/ https://bushguide101.com/freshwater-seepages-on-sandy-beache... A thirty one acre island that has rainfall and trees that capture moisture should have some groundwater flow that with luck can be found.
- IanCal 3y ago
  Unrelated to survival these are fantastic fun on beaches. We found one and started digging to make a pool, then a wiggly run to the beach to create a river. Blocking and changing it was great with the kids. Then we found more, so we channeled things to join them together. Then more, and more. By the end we'd joined maybe 10 or more points together over 30+m wide, kids and adults from a bunch of families all with spades rapidly redigging various channels. TBH I think I enjoyed it more than the kids. I even finally managed to make an oxbow lake - a result underappreciated by my four year old.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> What do you do if you don’t have a fresh water source? Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells? Coconuts are a fresh water source.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gambiting 3y ago

>>Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells? Depends - if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued. If there is anything else edible on the island you eat that, water from plants will help. The second option is capturing rainwater, assuming you're in a place with rain. Third is boiling water to get rid of the salt(you need to capture the steam on a piece of cloth, wring it into another container, but it's probably going to be the fastest option). Of course this is assuming you have any materials from your ship, which I assume these guys did? You'd at least need a metal pot or a metal sheet that you can bend into the right shape. But yeah in general without access to at least some kind of container where you can boil water(maybe a rock of a right size would work?) you'd be generally screwed. I think the final desperate option is to just try and dig down and hope you hit water and that it's not salty.

morsch 3y ago
Dig a hole near the sea, fill it with stones, light a fire on top, heating said stones, fill hole with water and catch the vapor?
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>light a fire on top On top of what? Again that implies you have some kind of metal sheet or something.
  - morsch 3y ago
    In the hole you dug, so on top of whatever soil or sand you dug into and filled with stones/rocks. You fill the hole with water after the fire has died down and use the residual heat in the stones. You can't make a soup this way, but you should be able to make some steam -- I think.
verbify 3y ago
> if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued Coconut water has high levels of potassium, and in excess, has been noted in case reports to cause severe hyperkalemia. This link has more information: > A 42-year-old black man without any medical history presented to our hospital after a syncopal episode. He was playing tennis outdoors all day in temperatures in excess of 90° Fahrenheit. He reported drinking a total of eight 11-ounce bottles of coconut water throughout the day. He experienced the sudden onset of lightheadedness and was witnessed to have lost consciousness https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.113.000941 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.113.000941
nubinetwork 3y ago
I've never tried planting trees in sea water, but what if you tapped the tree as if it was maple syrup... would the sap still contain salt? Although I'm guessing that doesn't work on every kind of tree.

defrost 3y ago

If there's rain then there's water in the ground, and that water will travel toward the ocean and visibly (if you can read the signs) run out at low tide. https://bushguide101.com/freshwater-seepages-on-sandy-beaches/ https://bushguide101.com/freshwater-seepages-on-sandy-beache... A thirty one acre island that has rainfall and trees that capture moisture should have some groundwater flow that with luck can be found.

IanCal 3y ago
Unrelated to survival these are fantastic fun on beaches. We found one and started digging to make a pool, then a wiggly run to the beach to create a river. Blocking and changing it was great with the kids. Then we found more, so we channeled things to join them together. Then more, and more. By the end we'd joined maybe 10 or more points together over 30+m wide, kids and adults from a bunch of families all with spades rapidly redigging various channels. TBH I think I enjoyed it more than the kids. I even finally managed to make an oxbow lake - a result underappreciated by my four year old.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> What do you do if you don’t have a fresh water source? Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells? Coconuts are a fresh water source.