Table of contents

Just to make it easier to find whatever you are looking for, I have prepared a list of the posts so you can read them in order. Included only The Island posts. Hope that helps.

VIDEOS:

1. Trailer / Slideshow
2. Part One- Before The Island
3. Part Two- On The Island

POPULAR POSTS:

1. On Our Way To Paradise
2. First Night On The Island- Jungle Is Massive!
3. After Sleepless Night- First Day in Paradise
4. Life On The Island
5. The Island- Did We Find Paradise?
6. Desert Island Survival - Step by Step
7. DO's and DON'T's on tropical deserted island

Enjoy!

DO'S and DON'TS on deserted tropical island.

Do’s and Don’t’s on deserted tropical island.

Here we go, without unnecessary intro:

 

DON’T:

1. Don’t place your hammock or walk under the coconuts which can fall on you. Falling coconuts are probably the biggest danger for you when on the island. So, be careful when walking under the palm trees. A coconut which is falling from 80 feet can reach the speed of 50 miles per hour. No joke. Around 150 people die each year from being hit by falling coconut…
2. Don’t worry about the sharks. Most of the sharks are not dangerous to people. Most dangerous areas in the world are South Pacific and Australian coast. Well, if you have a bloody wound and in the water where sharks are- that’s different story…
3. Don’t boil your meal in only sea water- it will be way too salty. Tried it. You can mix it with fresh water to get salty rice if you don’t have salt.
4. Don’t worry, be happy! You are on deserted Tropical Island!
5. Don’t think you will find yourself in a tropical paradise with plenty of food. Take food with you, even if you think you can catch some fish or find coconuts. First thing is that, sadly, our Oceans are overfished nowadays, so it is not so easy to catch a fish. Also it is not so easy to catch a fish in general. Regarding coconuts and fruits- you will be lucky if you will find some.

DO:

1. Make sure you will have drinking water. If you are going to deserted Tropical Island it means that there is no source of fresh water. If there would be a source of fresh water the island would not be deserted, trust me.
2. Take food. As mentioned before. Take some rice as an emergency. See point 5 in “DON’T’S”
3. Make sure you can be rescued in emergency. Take first aid kit. Let your family and friends know where you are going. Make sure there is mobile phone coverage on the island. Let the local people know where you are etc. Be careful. It is easy to harm yourself on the tropical deserted island. Simple cut and you can get a nasty infection…
4. Take a hammock, mosquito net and tarpaulin rather than a tent. Tried it. It works perfectly. You are going to tropical island right? Tropical means HOT and humid. You don’t want to live in the tent in hot and humid weather. Also, there are less chances that you will find some uninvited guest in the hammock which hangs above the ground.
5. Take a lot of sun blocker. No need to comment that.
6. Take a lot of insect repellent. Again, no need to comment.
7. Do expect that the reality of living on the uninhabited island will be different from your expectations.
8. DO ENJOY YOUR STAY ON THE ISLAND! Not a lot of people have a chance to do this. So no matter what, no matter if you will give up after one night, at least you tried so be proud of yourself!

By the way, if you like my blog and would like to be up to date with new posts simply subscribe by using subscribe form on the right.
All best
Martin

Tropical Desert Island Survival- Step by Step.

Although I cannot compare myself to Tom Neale (if you are reading this article you should know who Tom Neale is!) and my stay on The Island was not even close to what he had done, I have tried the Island life. I have spent two amazing weeks on one of The Philippines’ deserted island. Only on rice and water! Well, I had some rum and beer, but shhh! :)

First thing you need to do is to find The Island. Does it sound easy? Trust me, it is not. This is the HARDEST step on your way. I will not tell you where My Island is. Let it be my secret. I will only tell you it is one of the islands which lay around Palawan. 

The problem is that basically ALL of the tropical islands belong to someone. They are either private or in the national parks’ area where you simply cannot just go and camp. Well, you could do it but it would be rather illegal. My stay on My Island was not completely legal, but I don’t want you to get into the trouble. 

So, how to find The Island?

1. I would suggest Philippines as the tourism in other SE Asia countries is way too developed. Although you might find The Island it will be really hard to escape the people. You want it to be DESERTED Island, right? South Pacific would be great but it is too far and too expensive to get there.
2. Ask locals. Don’t look over the internet. There is a lot of info you can find, but not everything. I have met an old Filipino guy who owes a couple of small islands. He told me that I can stay on one of them as he is looking for a caretaker. And guess what- he doesn’t use the internet :)
3. Do not expect the tropical paradise with waterfalls, a lot of fruits, coconuts, wood for building your shack etc. You will not be able to get even a coconut without a practice in climbing the palm trees or really long pole. Expect that you will find the place which is simply uninhabitable. If it would be habitable, it would not be deserted anymore! :)

Now, when you have found The Island you need to prepare yourself for the time you will stay there. Basically, every human (and non-human as well) being needs only three things in order to survive:

1. Water
2. Food
3. Shelter

Nothing else. Full stop.

WATER. You will not find it on The Island. EVERY tropical island with any source of fresh water is already developed. So, you need to take the water with you or make the sea water drinkable. You can use a solar still etc. but this information you can find in the Internet. I took 60 liters of water for two weeks which is 4 liters a day. You will need that amount of water daily, trust me.

FOOD. Well, it is up to you what and how much you will take. If you are going for two weeks, you don’t need the food as you could survive. (this is true but please do not try it at home (at The Island) :)) I think rice is the best bet. I had 7 kilograms of rice with me which is half a kilo per day. Enough, in the tropical and humid climate your appetite will go down. Add to this the stress of being ALONE in the middle of nowhere- you will not think about food! You can boil the rice in the sea water- don’t need a salt! Some garlic and onions will make your meals exclusive! Every day! For the rest of your stay on The Island! Yummy!

SHELTER. Do not take a tent. The humidity will make it damp inside. Best bet- hammock, mosquito net and tarpaulin above it all. You just need two trees (be careful to not hang your hammock under the palm tree with a coconuts directly above you), stretch your hammock between, stretch a cord just above the hammock over which you lay a mosquito net. Then roof- 3.5 meters x 3 meters tarp does the job. Did you try to sleep in the hammock before? No? You will love it!

So, now you are on The Island, you have all basics needed to survive there, but, what to do with your free time? I love fishing and had a spear gun with me; the problem is that it broke after one day. So my advice is- do not take the things with you which can break and on which your survival will depend totally. I was lucky I had rice, if I would take only spear gun and think that I can catch a fish and survive, well, I would not survive. 

You can simply do nothing, just feel free, go and get to know the surroundings on The Island. Or, build a raft, a shack or make some baskets from the palm leaves. Meditate. Write a book. Make a fire without a lighter. Feel free. Do whatever you want to do. Appreciate the moment because it will not last forever…

Finally Part two of the video...

Yes, I have managed it.

Finally it is here. Part two of the video. On The Island. Enjoy!
If you did not watch part one yet it is available here:
Part one of the video

The Island Movie - Part One

Finally I've found the time to finish part one of the movie.

Enjoy!
Part two available here:
Part two

The Island - did we find Paradise?

Well, to be honest there was not a lot of things happened during our stay on The Island. First few days were really hard, we could barely eat the rice, no appetite because of the tropical heat. Also, I mentioned before about the first night which was pretty scary, but forgot to mention one thing, which made us really scared. Ruel told us that sometimes there are some fisherman coming to The Island. And that they can be dangerous. "They can steal your backpack or even worse". Well, I don't know if I wanted to know about it... We did not have a choice now. If something would happen no one apart from Ruel know where we are. So Mark slept with his crocodile dundee big fckin knife and I slept with my spear gun under my hammock.

But every day on The Island I felt I am free. Really free. Did not have to go anywhere, do anything, think about anything. Just basic thoughts - how to survive. We had plenty of water and rice, so no problem with the food. We've built a shelter and have the place we can sleep. All three basic elements needed to survive we've had. So, how was it?

Most of the time I'm fishing. Now, when the spear gun is broken I am going to the far rocks and fish there using the line and hook which I brought from home. Oh man, how do I regret I did not take some basic, small fishing rod... but hey, it supposed to be survival :) Anyway, I manage to catch some fish, not really big but always something different than only rice. To get to the rocks it takes me 10 minutes swimming. Seen really big fish on the way there and back. Set up a fishing net near the place I've seen the big fish but without success..

Apart from fishing, we clean our camp, make fire, drink more Tanduay and that's it. Nothing special, no adventures or things we did not expect. After one week it was little boring I can say. I liked it but we European people used to do something all the time. There was no time to build a shack. Two weeks is not enough, so we abandoned our original plan to build it. So we just enjoyed freedom, sun and warm waters of the South China Sea...
Two weeks passed. And it was time to go back to civilized world. End of the adventures on The Island, but not end of adventures on Palawan...

Life on The Island

Everyday we wake up with the sun. It is really good for your body. Earlier you wake up, better you feel. Try it. Morning bathe in the sea with our friendly fish. Making a fire and cooking the rice. Checking the fishing net. Snorkeling. Swimming. On the evening after "mosquito time!" (the worst time is just before sun disappear totally in the sea and last for one hour) we drink some Tanduay Rhum and just doing nothing. Swimming, singing, laughing. Real freedom.

We found out who the big trails belong to. There are at least 7 monitor lizards near our camp. A lot more on whole island, that's for sure. One of them dug a nest in the sand 100 meters from us. We can hear them at night, they coming very close, looking for food. Hopefully we are not their target...:)

We hang the rice in the bag on the tree so they can't reach it. I don't know if they would eat it though... After first night I saw small holes in the rice bag. Probably hermit crabs. The problem is that the lizards are more and more audacious... Every day they coming closer and in bigger groups... Well, they are not really dangerous. Only if they would bite you- their saliva is toxic and full of bacteria as they eat everything. But they would bite you only if they would sense the danger. I don't know what you would have to do to provoke them, to be honest. You cannot step on them by accident or something as they are really fast beasts.

Mark dug a big hole in the sand. Wants to catch one. Do not kill, just catch, make some photos and release. Well. I am just wondering how he will release the angry lizard from the hole anyway... It took him like 3 hours digging in the sand under the tropical sun heat. He covered the hole by banana leaves and put some fish head in the middle.

We wait. And wait. And wait. And, there he is. Walking slowly examining the air with his long tongue. Come closer...he came closer, looked at the bait and turned back! Well, they are more clever than we thought :)

The next day the hole cover and banana leaves were inside the hole and fish head disappeared. It seems that the hole wasn't deep enough, the lizard simply got out from the hole.

One day I tried to fix my spear gun but with no success. Made 2 knots on the remaining rubber to make it more tight but it did not help. The power was half of the original. Anyway I tried to catch more fish.
I went to my fishing kingdom (rocks on the left) and dive.

Seen a lot of fish. The big ones are very shy but the smaller are curious and not afraid. Tracked one of them, quite big, maybe 30-35 cm. She try to swim away but I keep my eye on her. Following her, she wants to hide between the rocks where the much bigger one was hiding. The bigger one bitten the one I was chasing, seems that it was her home. It was really hard to target and come closer to the hole between the sharp rocks because of the waves. I don't want to cut myself on the rocks, the infection in this temperature on The Island would be really fast and dangerous. Mark cut his feet on the coral when he jumped from the boat during the island hopping first day in El Nido and the wound is healing really slowly. By the way, if you will cut yourself on the coral, under no circumstances treat it with iodine- corals feeds on it and they can grow inside your wound. But, I want to catch this big fish. The thing is that rocks and corals are covered with plants and seaweeds and I don't want to put my hand or leg into this stuff. Dunno what is inside... But I want this fish! F*ck that, I was keeping myself against the rock by putting the spear gun as a pole which helps me not going forward to the hole where the fish are. I put my legs on the rocks into the deep plants (I really want to catch this fish...) so now I have three points of footing (?) and waves can blow me only back where there is no rocks. I aimed at the fish. Shot.......the spear power was like a spit of an old man...

Came back to the camp with nothing...(well, at least I forced myself to put my legs into the stuff on the rocks, now I am not afraid of it :)) This spear gun sucks. No more fishing with it. I wish it would not broke... first day I've caught two small fish with the original power, so it would be easier to catch a big one...maybe... Well, time for hook and line fishing... We need something more than rice and green mangoes..

During my fishing I came across some small jellyfish, heard that the small ones are sometimes more dangerous than the big ones. I don't know what was the species I have seen, did not want to try if it was the dangerous one. Also, I had to fish in the long sleeves as there were a lot of tiny plankton, jellyfish-like, invisible in the water. I think it was Richard who told me that they are called nick-nacks (?) and are very popular in Australian waters. I could feel they sting all over my body, it was not really painful though and last just few seconds. Just little annoying stuff.

Regarding dangerous sea life, there was nothing to be really afraid of to be honest. Only sea urchins and jellyfish. Once we saw really fast moving fin very far in the sea, I don't know what that was, maybe a whale or dolphin? Apart of that only razor-sharp corals and rocks (on which I was walking everyday in order to get to my fishing spot) mosquitoes and sand flies. And heat. Almost paradise :) Well, almost makes a difference :)

The slideshow

After some time without posting I am back. Did not update The Blog as after two weeks since I came back from The Island had to start adapting to "normal" life... It was difficult on the beginning but I have my Blog and it keeps my mind still on The Island.

Over the weekend I've finally made a slideshow. I have a lot of pictures from The Trip and putted some of them in the slideshow. Still many of pictures waiting to be uploaded to Blog, maybe will make another slideshow like the one below but this time not only from The Island. Anyway, enjoy watching!
Click full screen in the bottom right corner.



The slideshow was more difficult to make than you may think. I needed to mark every beat where I wanted photo to change and then insert photos and shrink it or extend to the time. Almost whole day of work and another day to upload it to YT... Well. I think it was worth it. Was it? :)

After sleepless night. First day in Paradise.

Sun. Finally bright and sunny morning.

Really wicked night. Wings of some flies are everywhere. Strange. No flies, just wings. Everything is covered with it. Strange because we did not find anything like that later during our stay on The Island. Later on I found out that those wings belonged to some kind of ants and there are some times when they all die at once. It would explain those wings everywhere. We've been lucky (?) to see it on our fist night there.

Still hungry. Checked the rice from previous night. A lot of very tiny ants in the pan despite it was covered. Need to make a fire again and eat something.

First thing in the morning- bathe in the sea. A lot of small silver fish with black stripe. Funny fish, they are curious. Every time you move they follow you. Some of them are quite big but we decided we will not catch them (we found out later it would be really hard to catch them anyway).


We discovered some tracks on the sand leading from the jungle to the sea. Quite big tracks. Is it this big animal who was under our hammocks last night? We will find out soon.

After some rice we felt better and more confident in the new environment.

I have a spear-gun which borrowed from Ruel. Time to make a use of it. Took my snorkel mask and went near the rocks on the left of our camp. Later on it was my fishing kingdom :)

There is a lot of fish near these rocks. The problem is the waves. It is hard to swim near the rocks as the waves pushing you towards the rocks and coral. Very easy to get cut. In less than 10 minutes I caught 2 fish, not big though... But I felt good as those fish were small is harder to catch them with the spear gun. Was sure that if I caught small fish the big one will be easier to catch. Well, if my spear gun would not broke... One of the two rubbers broke so the spear-gun has now only half of the original power...
Did not catch any more fish this day. We ate those two small I caught before. That's it, but we still have almost 15 kilogrammes of rice :)

First night on The Island. Jungle is massive!

Wicked.

We unloaded everything from Ruel's bangka, thanked him and said good bye.

Now we need to find good spot for our camp. We walked out beach all way long but to be honest, only one place was suitable to hang our hammocks. We could do it in different place but we would need to cut a lot of plants. As it was early evening already we decided to choose an easy option. We still needed to cut some small banana trees and some bushes and clear the ground but it was not very hard to do. Luckily we landed near the spot we choose as moving 6 big canisters to the different place would not be a pleasure in this heat ...

We hanged out hammocks, mosquito nets and tarpaulin above them.

Time to eat. Made a fire to cook the rice. Beautiful sunset on horizon, no islands on the way, just open South China sea. No people. Just paradise. Rice still not ready. And then, out from nowhere a big cloud of mosquitoes came. Hundreds and hundreds of them mixed with sand flies and other flies. They came to our fire or my head torch? I don't know and I don't have time to think about. We jumped to our hammocks. Mosquito time! There was not time to clear our hammocks from mosquitoes which were inside so we got some bites even under the mosquito net... It's getting darker and darker, rice is still on the fire and we are hungry. No way to get out from the hammock, too many mosquitoes...

 Jungle is massive. You know, you can read and watch some films or documentaries about some places and situations, but when you actually go there it is totally different experience. One example: I have snorkeled some time ago in Tenerife waters and a big turtle appeared in my sight. I don't know why but for the millisecond I felt afraid. You know, it was my first time seeing a wild turtle in his natural environment. I know turtles are not dangerous at all but still, seeing it for the first time, something new in not my environment made me anxious for a second. You know what I mean?

So going back to jungle. It is pretty scary night... It is dark already and the jungle coming to life. EVERYTHING on the ground was moving, everything made a noise. Insects, birds, some fighting monkeys, crabs, don't know what else. I knew what to expect but still, as mentioned before, is is totally different experience when you are there. On top of that we could hear some big animal just under our hammocks. Don't know what that is. Crazy night...We are hungry... We did not move out from our hammocks whole night. We did not sleep at all... But we survived this first night. After that everything should be easier. Just waiting for the sun...

On our way to Paradise - El Nido - The Island

First thing in the morning we went for shopping. We bought 6 big canisters of water, 4 gallons each which made more than 100 litres; 15 kilograms of rice and machete. Rest of stuff we had already. For water we paid 200 pesos deposit for each = 1200 pesos just deposit. Water was only 47 pesos for canister. For machete we paid 170 pesos. On top of that we bought 2 bottles of 1 litre Red Horse beer and 3 bottles of Tanduay rum. What..? Apart from survival we need to have some fun!

Ruel was waiting for us on front of our beach huts. We loaded all the stuff and...that's it. We are leaving the system. Finally. THIS is beginning of our REAL trip. Now.

Few words about Ruel. He is around 30-35 years old. Maybe more but doesn't look like more. Really honest and genuine person. First impression was really positive that's why we decided to go with him and took his advice about The Island. Despite he had a stroke and almost half of his body is paralysed he manage to operate his bangka on his own.

Bangka, really loud boat. I am wondering how many years the fishermans driving these boats will become deaf... It is really loud sitting right on the diesel engine. All of our trips we spent on the front of the bangka and it was still really, really loud. 

On the way to The Island we felt little anxious. You know, expectations are always different than reality. We are prepared though.

We are doing it, finally. My biggest dream is coming true. I was thinking very often during that trip about The Biggest Dream people have. What I realised is that not even minority of all people, I think minority of minority of people make their Biggest Dream come true. I am lucky guy. I am doing it. Either I will be happiest man in the world after that trip or I will need to find another Biggest Dream. Doesn't matter. I am here. I am doing it. I am happy. I am really happy man.

Someone told me that the pursuit of The Dream is the best part of it. I don't know. I was pursuing My Dream all my life but cannot tell it was the best part of The Dream...

It took us more than one hour to get to The Island. When we approached Our Beach it was something amazing. A very long golden beach, palm trees, high mountains and, the best of all, no one there. No people, no buildings, just nature. One of the best moments in my life. I am here and it will be my home for the next two weeks...