LEARNING TO SURVIVE ON A DESERTED ISLAND

This video is sponsored by Versed.

In just a few minutes, we are going to be climbing into the helicopter behind me, which is going to fly us to a remote, uninhabited island 45.

Minutes off the coast of Panama.

Once we arrive, we're going to jump.

Then swim to the island.

Oh, we made it.

Which will be our home for the next six days as we attempt to survive with just the coals on our.

Back and a few essentials.

Fire.

The first three days, we're going to be learning skills from an expert survivalist.

It is the world's most portable poisonous tree.

Then, after soaking up as much knowledge as possible, he is going to leave us on the island for the last 72 hours to fend for ourselves, and.

We'Ll see if we have what it takes to survive.

I didn't think I would be this nervous.

In the beautiful ride. That's hard to enjoy that. We have to jump.

Getting close. The island's right up there. This is our home for the next six days. Everyone, take over your head with one clock.

Good jump. We're ready.

Oh.

There we go.

We did it. That was the craziest thing of my life.

No turning back now.

We survived the jump.

Now we swim.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Oh, we made it.

Goodbye.

That was epic.

Now that we've made it to the island, let me introduce you to the team. This is Nate's brother Dusty, and his wife Sarah. They tend to join us anytime we have crazy ideas that involve some sort of physical challenge, like biking across Iowa, spending a week in a canoe.

Hey, there's a bear.

Or climbing the vertical elevation of Mount Everest without sleeping.

Go.

This is Lucas. He's the survival expert who's going to be teaching us the skills we need to stay alive. You may recognize him from season one of the show alone, where he survived 39 days in the Canadian wilderness.

Oh, my God.

He did it.

He made a boat.

And last but not least, this is Tom. He's the owner of Desert Island Survival, the mastermind behind this crazy trip and who made this whole thing happen.

So you guys have got six nights on the island. The idea is that we're gonna ease you into this. We're gonna focus today on she. Then we're gonna be doing fire, we're gonna be doing food, we're gonna be doing water. Slowly doing away with the modern stuff that we have and moving you towards just working with the primitive tools that are around us.

All your strength is right here, and.

That thwack is what's gonna allow you to cut Through a coconut.

Please don't cut your fingers off.

Okay, ready? Hold on, hon.

You're in my bubble.

Kara's not gonna eat this week.

Okay, that's not good.

Stick it closer to this end.

Further out.

It's gonna be the best coconut of my life. That's it.

There it is.

Look at you go.

I know what you're thinking. This all looks very luxurious coconuts. As we came on the island, we've got a bunch of stuff with us.

It doesn't really look like a survival situation. The first three days are going to.

Be a lot more comfortable than the last.

While we're learning our survival skills, we'll have a hammock. We'll have food that's brought over from.

The mainland and a lot of tools. But then the last 72 hours, we.

Are going to be left here with only a few essentials to survive.

Can I get a hold?

I don't know.

Nate's not. Oh, Nate's not so sure about is not trying to move slowly. This is my bet for the next few nights. I've never slept in a hammock before. Got a perfect view of the ocean. I can hear the waves.

So my bed, Kara's bed, Sarah's bed, and besties.

Real quick, we want to say a big thank you to verse for making this epic adventure possible and for creating gear that can stand up to any activity, even surviving on a deserted island.

I am really putting this t shirt and these shorts to the test this week.

I specifically love that these shorts come with a built in liner and that that liner has a pocket. I mean, they have regular pockets too.

But this liner pocket is a game changer.

I ran an entire marathon in Greece.

With my cell phone bouncing around in my pocket.

Also, if you've seen our channel before, you've probably noticed that I pretty much exclusively wear a black cotton t shirt, which would have been a horrible choice for our time here on the island. This seamless tee, on the other hand, is super lightweight. It's breathable and ventilated in all the right spots.

I don't know if you can see.

That texture, but there is way more to verse than just workout clothes that.

You would wear on an island. They have a versatile lineup of gear.

Built for any lifestyle. On our flight here, I wore the.

Verse terry shorts in the essential pocket tee.

My top priority for choosing what I.

Wear on travel days is comfort, and it doesn't get much more comfortable than these shorts.

But the best part is not only are they super soft, they're Also stylish. Plus, Karen, I never travel without a sweatshirt because there is nothing worse than freezing on an airplane.

So I also brought along this crew.

Neck sweatshirt that's made from the same super soft fabric as the shorts. And last but not least, yesterday we explored the old city before heading to the island. And for a night out on the town, I wore my Verse commuter skinny pants, which look great but are also moisture wicking and they stretch in all the right directions. So like I said before, Verse has a wide range of gear to fit any lifestyle. So if you'd like to check out these looks or any other gear that Verse has to offer, just go to verse.com.

Water and shelter are the two most important parts the of of survival here on the island. So we're starting by building some kind of a shelter.

We're gonna be looking for these Y sticks. These guys in the center are gonna be higher, and then we're gonna have some lower ones on the side.

Wow.

Dusty and Sarah.

Good one. I just dug up a crab. Oh, I bet he was so scared, his little claw just came out.

Like another one. Another one.

Kara keeps digging up the crabs.

We were all giggling about the crabs in the moment, but what we didn't know was that these crabs worst enemy. In just a few short days, the.

Crabs have been relentless.

I'm not really sure what I'm doing.

If you turn it to its side and then you can really go ham. And then it'll compact the sand to help solidify the beam.

Okay. Packing the sand to solidify the beans, of course.

So this hibiscus tree is what gives us fire. But it's also great for cordage. If you don't have a knife, you can just break off a piece and begin to run a strip down. So that's really strong and totally usable. You know, you can go around and then maybe tie, like right here. Does that make sense? So all the pressure is being pulled down, and then you can kind of just do some simple overhand knots.

Take your time up there.

Well, hold on. I thought I was doing these on the side.

You're on my shoulders, so you could do the top ones.

Oh, I just thought we were, like.

Doing this for fun.

No.

Okay, I need you to turn to the side.

This.

No, this way.

Good communication.

And to the left. Okay, wait, hold on.

Here.

And then across. And then I tie it here.

Yeah, why not? Just take your time, figure it out.

Oh, gosh.

How's it going up there?

All done. Okay, good work.

All right, how do I put you, down.

I know how you think.

I just bend down.

No, no, no, no, no. Under my legs. So one, two, down, up. Ready? One, two, down, up.

Good job.

That was very coordinated of you.

So the last step of building the shelter is to add the roof, and we're going to make that out of palm fronds. Lucas is going to climb one of the trees, cut some fresh ones down for us, and then we'll use those to make the roof.

This is a something I've seen in the Polynesian countries that they do, and it's a type of sling or foot holder. So this is just tree bark that's going to hold my life. The hands go like this. Elbow here, and I'll pop, and I'll.

Move my feet up.

I'm ready.

Nice.

Now move your hands up. Pop and pull two more inches up.

That's all.

Exactly.

Bracelet.

We laughed it off when I couldn't climb the tree, but relying on Lucas to reach the tops of the trees and not learning the skills for ourselves was a major mistake that will come back to haunt.

I'm so close to the coconut.

All right, time to go finish our home.

This is heavy.

So the plan is to split these palms so we can shingle them on the roof so they can be, like, overlapping. If you come to, like, the really thin bit and you just start pulling away, it unzips just like a zip.

And voila. You got two pieces for each side. And this is also good cordage, but it's okay cordage, like quick and dirty cordage that you can use.

Good work. Good work, team Beauty.

There will be no showers this week, so that little ocean bath is as clean as we're going to get.

Now that we've got our shelter up, we're going to spend a little time at point some exploring our new home and learn what will kill us and what won't.

It's mostly stone, but there's a little bit of fruit. It's good. Kind of tangy.

This tree. I think I know it as kapok, and it has this really beautiful tinder.

So we'll be using the fluffy stuff here to start a fire later.

Getting water on a deserted island. It's like we don't even know where water is. It's really hard to find. But we do know there's water in here. So this is life.

Can you make coffee with coconut water?

Yes.

I'm gonna teach you my coconut cream.

We're just interacting with this beach with a totally different lens right now. Like, usually I just Walk down the beach right now. It's like every little thing. I'm like, will this help me survive? Can I eat this? Will this start a fire?

This guy.

It looks so lush.

This is called the Manchinel. It is the world's most poisonous tree. If you were to eat one of these apples, it begins by being delicious, and you go, oh, I'm loving this. And then it gets peppery, and you start to feel tingling, and your throat can close and you can asphyxiate.

I am so glad we're getting drained right now.

If you were underneath this in a rainstorm and the water dripped on you, you'd start to get blisters on your skin. It's really toxic stuff.

I for sure would have at least tasted one of the apples on that tree without knowing any better. That's kind of terrifying. Oh, this is a good seat cushion.

How do you know if it's a mango or a Jeff hassle?

This is called the noni. It's also called starvation fruit because you would have to be in a state of starvation if you were to eat it. Am I gonna eat it for you guys? I am. Go on.

All of you have to eat it.

Oh, my God.

If we're doing it, you're doing it.

It's truly disgusting. It's like blue cheese that's been left in the car for a month.

What do you think?

It's like licking the bottom of a trash bin.

I can smell it. Oh, that's horrible. I can literally smell it. And it's over here. Okay, okay, okay.

Oh, so bad. It's taking over.

Oh, no.

I feel like I need to rinse it out. Dusty, you took a huge bite.

Oh, my gosh. That's what you get for eating half of it.

Oh, my gosh.

You're taking.

This.

Oh, I don't like.

Yeah.

I think garbage can juice was the best description. That's starvation fruit.

The first day of training was so much fun, but looking back, we should have definitely paid more attention and asked more questions to better prepare ourselves for the days ahead.

That was a surprisingly good night of sleep.

Good morning.

How's your sleep?

Very good.

You want some coffee?

I can't take credit for the coffee. This morning, Tom boiled a big pot of water, threw some coffee in a sack, and then just stuck that sack in the water, and we have coffee. We've now been on the island for almost 24 hours now. I've become a chef. Cooking bread in the fire, you just literally throw it directly on the coals. Who's hungry, Tom.

Yes, sir.

So yesterday was a bit of an adjustment, going from normal life to this rugged place where everything's a little sandy, everything's a little damp. But after being here for 24 hours now, my mindset is, wow, this is so luxurious, because in just a few days, we're not going to have any of this stuff. I think surviving is going to be a little more difficult than we anticipated.

Beautiful. Water, water, water.

Last night, we took a swim in the ocean. We came back to camp, and it had been taken over by thousands of crabs. There's a crab in the drone bag. 1, 2, 3. There were like 20 on my tree right next to where I was sleeping. And then we woke up this morning. Every footprint was gone, and it was only crab prints and holes where they've dug themselves.

It was like the ground was alive last night.

And that's where we're gonna be sleeping next week. We have a lot to learn.

Soon, coconuts will be our only reliable source of water on the island.

Coconuts are called the tree of life, and they give us huge amounts of water on desert islands.

We learned that these green coconuts are easy to open with a machete and great for drinking, but really hard to get off the tree. Once the coconut is mature, it turns brown and falls off the tree on its own. And the water inside stays drinkable for up to nine months. But at this point, it's basically turned into a wooden bowling ball that can't be opened with a machete. Instead, you have to use a sharp spike and a lot of willpower.

It made it look so easy. There we go.

And it looks like a face.

The last bit's the hardest.

Oh, Mine turned out a little hairier.

So now we've opened our coconut. I've just got a shell with a nice serrated edge, and I've just been round scraping, and I've just been popping it in here. So this comes off the coconut tree as well. All part the same plant. I'm just dumping this into this burlap, and then this is where the magic happens. If I then bunch this up. No. Squeeze it. There's your coconut cream.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh. This is the best coconut milk I've ever had. It's so rich.

These are the shavings that he squeezed to make the coconut milk, and it looks like the dried coconut that you'd buy at top the store.

So we've been tasked with cleaning out the coconuts that we opened. We are going to turn them into Bowls. Besides the clothes on my back, this bowl would actually be one of only two items I would take with me during the survival challenge. Here's what it looked like before. Here is after next. Somehow I have to make this shiny and clean just using this.

So I've taken my coconut down to the ocean and I've rubbed it around in sand to get it as smooth as possible. And now I'm going to finish it off using triggerfish skin as sandpaper to make it shiny. Nature is so amazing.

And for the very last step, we're going to polish the bowl using the oil from the coconut meat. Still needs to be cleaned a little bit and it needs to be polished a bit better. But this is going to be the bowl that I use for the rest of the week. That was a very satisfying and somewhat meditative process. Okay, so now that we've finished our bowls, we have to catch dinner and we're going to attempt to do that using what's called a bottle line, which is basically just a plastic bottle with fishing line wrapped around it.

I'm just going to launch it up.

And once it's got the bottom, I'm just going to get tension straight away and I'm going to feel like a little bit pulse, like.

Oh, I almost went in.

All right.

Ah, yay.

Oh, it's a bloody puffer. Not a bloody puffer.

Those kill you, right?

Yeah.

Oh, look at those teeth.

Wow, that's crazy.

So pufferfish are toxic. You may have heard of fugu, which is what will kill you. It's that famous dish in Japan. And these guys have got a highly venomous, toxic.

Ow.

Oh no.

He just bit my finger. It's, ah, surprisingly deep. I've been done by a puffer.

No way.

Every time.

Nate doesn't get frustrated very often, but missing a fish.

Really gets to him.

Go dusty.

Dinner is served.

Got a monster.

Woo hoo. Oh my gosh, he's huge.

Dinner.

Ouch.

Just got too close to the fire. So to go with our fish tacos, we are making a fire roasted salsa. We've just put all of the veggies right on top of the coals in the fire and gotten them this beautiful crispy brown on the outside. It's gonna be so, so good.

So for drinks tonight, we're getting super fancy. We are doing made by hand pina coladas. Kara has been shaving coconut for hours and now we've taken some coconut juice, we've mixed it with the shavings, and I'm gonna attempt to put it all in this bag. And then squeeze out the coconut milk. And we're gonna use that to make our pina coladas. Just need to do a little test.

We share the test with me.

Oh, yeah. It's gonna be good.

Oh, wow.

And now I'm gonna add some very natural pineapple juice. Pineapples don't grow on the island. Half a coconut cup of rum.

I just love that I'm using the bowl that I made earlier today to stir this around and taste it.

Oh, my God.

Cheers, team.

Cheers, tribe Ziggidi dam.

Oh, this is so special. We work so hard for these all day. 10 out of 10.

Yeah. My favorite.

It doesn't get much better than this. That is insane. It does not even look real.

So we've got three different fish that we caught of different sizes. Going to start with the biggest first. We've wrapped it in almond leaves and tied it off with hibiscus bark to make these little parcels. And now we're going to pop it on the coals. It's going to be about 20 minutes to cook. This just seals it all in. Really nice. Flaky.

I'm so excited. This is the most anticipated taco of my entire life. We have homemade corn tortillas.

You're good at this.

Rice, beans, fish caught by dust, salsa, and guacamole made by yours truly. Absolutely incredible. I feel, like, a little emotional. Maybe it's the smoke in my eyes. It's really good.

Making coffee is a much longer process out here on the island.

We have 24 hours left to learn.

The all, all the skills that we.

Need to survive, because tomorrow morning, we are paring it down to the bare essentials, and we're starting the survival challenge. But there's still one key skill that we've yet to learn, which is how to make fire.

So the idea is that we take our spindle, we put it inside the bow, and load it like this.

This is called a friction fire. It's a way of starting a fire without matches or a lighter and then.

Slowly starting to increase pressure.

The goal is to create enough friction with the wood that it turns into an ember, which you can start slowly, grow into a flame.

And now it needs oxygen so I can blow in there.

What I quite like to do is just let the wind do the work as well. There's less moisture in that.

There we have fire.

There was no editing magic in that. I'm looking at the recording on the camera right now, and that took four minutes to start a fire with no Match.

Cheers, dude.

I have a feeling we're not going to find it that easy.

All right, while the guys are learning to make fire, Tom is going to teach me and Sarah how to make a hat out of a palm tree.

Okay. We've each made our own fire set in our own tinder bundle. Now we're going to attempt to start a fire.

Okay.

Step one is to measure my head with this piece of bark. It's a lot of pressure. My head is this big. I feel like this is really big.

That is big.

Step two, I have half of this palm leaf. I'm going to take the prime real estate right here in the middle of it, where it's the biggest and the strongest. And I'm gonna cut out the length of my head. I've never worn a knife on my hip before, and I kind of love that it's hooked to my sarong. I've not used my machete very much.

Or your hand knife.

I mean, my hand knife. I'm great at this stuff.

I feel like I'm about to really start sweating right now.

All we're trying to do is just create movement. Just try to move the bow a little.

Yes.

Got it.

It's a little brotherly competition to see who can start a fire first. But at the same time, if either one of us can start a fire, then that's a win.

There you go.

Yeah. This is my hole. I've been going for 10 minutes, and it's not even brown yet.

Step number three, I need to trim the stitch stem so that it will bend around my head. Right now it's really stiff, and if I tried to bend it, it would break.

How do I look?

Just kidding. Not done with the hat yet.

There we go.

Nate, that's smoke.

Yeah, bro.

Out of all the skills we've learned this week, I think this one was the hardest for me. I don't know if it's, like, the perfectionist in me or, like, the expectations I had for this hat. I just can't get it right. Here's where I'm at so far. A little lopsided. We're getting there.

I'm gonna dub the hat maker from here on.

Thank you.

It's like I have a goatee. I love it.

All right, I'm finally finished. What do you think? I feel like this is one of those projects that's just ongoing. I'm constantly going to be adjusting it and trying to make it look better, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Honestly, I'm feeling a bit Anxious. Today it's really hitting me that we're about to spend three days alone on this island. I still feel like there's so much to learn. It's one of those things. The more I learn the lesson, I feel like. I know. I feel like I could probably just sit in one spot for three days and be okay. But, like, I want to thrive. I want to take advantage of everything we've learned.

Okay, it's been at least an hour. Neither one of us have been able to get this on our own, so we're going to attempt to tag team it because we only need one ember to start a fire.

Sure.

No.

Way back.

Wait. You did it.

I think. Wrap it, like, all the way up. And now wave it. Good.

Oh, my gosh. It's coming out the back. It's fire.

Fire.

We have.

Oh, it's hot.

Yes.

Top 10 Best Feelings of my entire life.

Way to go.

Think we're gonna make it?

We're gonna do it.

You've now been invited into a circle of people that few exist this day and age, which is starting a fire primitively from materials. You have found not many people know how to do that, nor have they been able to do it. So welcome to the circle, brother.

Wow. This is legitimately a childhood dream come true.

I've always wanted to try to survive.

On a deserted island.

I've always wanted to try to start.

A fire with my hands, and I'm getting to do all of that and more this week. There's a primal satisfaction that you can get from few other things in life. It honestly was questionable there for a little while.

I'm so proud.

The sun has officially set on our last day of training, and tomorrow begins our survival challenge. What was that? I'm nervous. I'm excited. I have a lot of emotions. I'm already a little exhausted just from living out on this island for the last three days and being in the sun. And I know it's only gonna get harder from here, but I think what I'm most nervous about is sleeping, or lack of sleeping. We won't have a bug net. We won't have a hammock. We're just gonna try to make a bed on the ground. And we were first coming here, I.

Thought, oh, it's only 72 hours.

Probably won't be that big of a challenge, but being out here for the last three days and knowing how many discomforts we're already going through with all the amenities that we currently have, it's shedding light on how I can comfortable. The survival portion of this could be. But we'll worry about that in the morning. Look at the sunset. I'm just going to sit here and enjoy this.

Kara, what are you most nervous about?

Food. I'm nervous that I'm not going to have energy to contribute without proper food and water. I want to be a part of the team.

Sarah.

I agree with that. And then I would say second concern is probably sun exposure.

Dusty, they're crazy. The thing that we should be worried about is sleeping. It is going to be a long night. A long three nights.

I think dust is spot on with sleep. I'm so sorry, but no one sleeps that well. Bad sleep with hunger doesn't create the most happiest people. So keeping your spirits up whilst hungry and tired is going to be tough.

A snake just fell out of a tree right in front of my face.

We've already lost the girls. That is the meanest looking spider I've ever seen. He's like, we're just laying down, trying to go to sleep and we're realizing that we've made a mistake. That was one of the craziest nights of my life.

Nature's toothbrush.

So this is our fishing setup.

Go away.

It's so crazy how quickly I'll go from here, here to here.

Wow.

Thank you, earth. Get me off this island.

Thanks again to Verse for sponsoring this video.