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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
Link tip a friend
Xavier Rosset is a Swiss paraglider and snowboarder from the mountain resort town of Verbier, a place which could not be further in every way from the tiny South Pacific island of Tofua. Rosset set himself the challenge to see what could be learnt in terms of the fundamental survival skills that life requires for 300 days with no gear, no food, in fact no nothing apart from ....... a penknife and a machete.
The mission was to learn the survival skills which urbanised people have no idea of anymore and his assessment was that the task he set himself was incredibly difficult.
He needed to learn everything from building shelter, collecting water, making fire, hunting animals ...... the lot and all on an island less than 10 k's in diameter, where in the wet season it’s plagued by heavy rain, strong wind and suffocating humidity.
His only tools were the two knives he brought with him and his only company was a baby pig and like this Rosset existed alone on the uninhabited Pacific island for 300 lonely days and in his words:
"It was hard, yes, very hard''
Tofua is only 64 square kilometres in size and is home to nothing more than pigs, coconuts, a lake and tropical forest and his gear consisted of just the knives and a video camera to record his adventure for a documentary.
"At the beginning I had to try hard to survive, I had to find the food and water, build shelter, learn how to fish, everything.''
And just 10 days into the challenge of the realisation hit that he was in fact going to be alone for many months:
"That was very hard, without my family, my girlfriend, my friends, there was a lot of loneliness.''
But the sheer demands of what he had set himself kept him incredibly busy just trying to survive, in fact over just the next couple of months his weight fell so much that it continued to be a huge challenge not to lose more.
The single factor that stopped this decline was when he learnt how to trap and kill the wild pigs, which were apart from coconuts, the only source of genuine food on the island.
And in terms of some form of company, he spared one piglet that he couldn't handle killing:
"I couldn't eat her because there wasn't enough meat on it, so I kept her with me and she stayed for three months. She was exactly like a dog and was a very good friend for me but I didn't talk to her like Hanks did to the volleyball in the movie Castaway”.
It wasn't until eight months into the stay that Rosset says he felt at peace on the island:
“I'm spending the most part of the day doing nothing, looking at the big ocean; I even have enough food and can say that only now do I feel at home".
Visit the man himself here and look out for next steps from him, thanks Xavier ....
