In 1987, I had this idea that a great way to teach wilderness survival would be to head out into the woods and do exactly that.

Survive.

Now I need the skills because I'd be filming myself alone.

And you, the viewer, would be made aware of that.

And I thought, what a great way to make these skills more relatable to you.

Problem was, the technology was not available for me to film myself beyond the old grainy camcorders as we used to call them.

Well, fast forward to the year 2000, 13 years and indeed the technology became available.

the take home information.

And the skills that you would learn from this series would make you more confident in nature.

You'd stay warm, dry and safe, and therefore you'd be able to reconnect to the natural world.

What you're about to watch is raw and real, and not to be confused with reality television.

These are my journeys into the world of survival and around the planet.

These are the skills that can keep you alive and open the doors to nature.

The only reality that matters.

Of all of the survival experiences that I've had and missions I've been on.

Stories I've shared with you.

There's only one that I would never do again.

And that's this one.

To be stuck in a little rubber raft.

Floating on the ocean for days on end is, in a word, miserable.

And in another word, agonizing.

But I'd read the story of Dougal Robertson, and it fascinated me.

In that case, it was a family stuck in a life raft for 38 days.

Now, I know there are hundreds of survival schools that have popped up all around the globe, and I'm sure they will teach wonderful skills on weekends such as shelter building and fire starting.

But I guarantee you, none of them want to mess around with survival on a raft in the ocean.

- This time on Survivor Man, I'm heading to Central America and the country of Belize, a tropical paradise of the highest order.

But for this challenge, I won't be anywhere near land.

I'm heading out into the open ocean.

Like a castaway, I'm going to be set adrift in a life raft.

Left to the mercy of the wind and the sharks.

For seven days I'll be lost at sea without food or fresh water.

Only the searing tropical sun above me and the depths of the ocean below me.

(intense music) I just gotta take a moment just to figure out what it is I gotta do.

constant air leaks or constant water leaks from the bottom of their raft.

Soon it'll be dusk, which has the horrible nickname of "The Sharking Hour."

You know, I've slept in deserts, jungles, swamps, But out here in the middle of the ocean like this, it's by far the eeriest No one to talk to.

Except maybe this fly.

It is just dead still.

And I didn't even know I could get like this out in the ocean.

But it's dead still.

Nothing's moving.

There's no wind, no air.

Sun's beating down.

I'm not moving anywhere.

This is getting steamy and dangerously hot.

I may be in the middle of a vast ocean, but this heat and the thick haze have conspired to make me feel very claustrophobic.

While I battle heatstroke, my whole world consists of these two pieces of inflated rubber.

Well, in this heat, finally, a slight breeze has just picked up.

What I want to do is maybe chart my speed of my drift now.

- I can actually figure out my drift speed with a rope of determined length and something small to float past it.

Here's my measurement marker.

I got a little bit of tissue paper.

This is my very crude version of the 17th century naval instrument.

Settled a log line.

6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000.

Let the halfway mark.

I stopped counting at 32.

32 halfway.

So all the way would've been 64.

So let's... so a quick bit of mathematical chart checking and I can determine my speed.

Hmm.

Well that's hard to tell.

So I'm probably roughly traveling somewhere between 0.2 and 0.3 knots.

Not very fast.

A very slow lumbering unit here.

Traveling much faster when they first dropped me in the water and slow ever since.

(upbeat music) All right.

After being quite a few hours without radio contact, we have a big thunderstorm coming in and they've just come back into radio contact with me, and they're suggesting that this could be a big one and that they could actually lose me in the storm.

in the storm.

Okay, well I've got a very, very eerie problem happening here.

The water has becalmed again and I'm just sitting in a very still bit of water.

I'm back into the dinghy now to try and sleep out the night.

But I'm seeing all kinds of wicked heat lightning, and I know that it's possible that at some point in this night the storm could come upon me at some point in this night the storm could come upon me and really buck it down.

and really buck it down.

Sitting here in calm water, no wind, waiting for a big storm to come down on you.

Watching it come down the way.

Cross your fingers I don't get hit by it tonight.

(thunder crashing) Here comes the rain.

It's really coming down out there.

I'm just blowing like crazy.

If the zipper wasn't busted, I wouldn't be getting poured on, but I am getting poured on.

This is pretty intense.

All right, this is getting dangerous now.

I put on my stroke flasher and I think the crew is gonna come out and tether me to their boat.

The winds have picked up and it's storming.

The rain is bucketing down and there's a good chance they could lose me tonight if they don't come and tether me.

This is pretty scary.

This is one of those better come and get me now, or could lose me forever.

The tropical storm is wild and getting stronger and it seems intent on blowing me all the way to Honduras.

The safety boat has to move in quickly.

Once it spots my emergency strobe light, then it too has to escape the massive waves and wind by ducking into a small lagoon before it gets wrecked on a reef somewhere.

- Les felt the full blast of that squall that just came through and it could have driven us apart and made it almost impossible to find him.

- I'm now tethered to the safety boat, for the safety of the crew as well, it pulls into the leave of an island and wait out the storm.

In the morning, I briefly jump aboard the boat so they can reposition my raft out into the open water.

It's a welcomed respite, but then back into the raft.

- Coming loose.

- Good one.

Excuse me guys.

- Okay, adjust the boat.

- The next day, dawn's fairly clear.

Gord and Frank decide that it's finally safe to set me adrift again.

One of the biggest challenges of survival at sea is psychological.

Monotony and desperation of week after week, drift, wave, can break the will to live.

Survivors tell heartbreaking stories of ships passing close by only to disappear over the horizon.

The promise of land, even deserted, must be a godsend for the true survivor.

All week, islands passed by tantalizingly close, but impossible for me to get to.

This island is within reach.

Right, you see that?

Now I'm drifting in a way, with any luck, I'll hit this little island.

If I don't hit it, I'm way out and beyond the reef.

It looks like it's gonna be tight weather if I hit it or not.

Current's doing one thing, the wind's doing another.

I'll show you where I am.

Like this.

Directly underneath the raft is a field of skin ripping, bone jarring and sometimes poisonous coral.

This is not really the safest thing here.

That coral is gonna be sharp.

This is more dangerous than it may look.

Corals reefs rip apart yachts.

Or simply shred the skin from my legs.

I thought about jumping in to pull the raft to shore, but I get lucky, and I hit a sandy cove instead.

After days of bobbing around on the ocean, the solid ground feels amazing.

the solid ground feels amazing.

The irony is that being cast away on a small island is in some ways worse off than being adrift at sea.

At least then I was going somewhere in the raft.

Now I'm trapped on a tiny island and my safety crew is left for the mainland leaving me utterly alone, once again.

(sand and coral crunching) It's a pretty small island.

I don't know, maybe 90 yards long by 75 yards wide.

Wow.

People have been here and cleared out this area here for shelter.

I'm gonna shelter here too.

In this case, the evidence of people can only mean poachers.

They come from other countries and use these desolate ocean islands to poach lobster.

Their garbage, along with trash from shipwrecks, is all over the island.

This raft that confidently held my life for days is now relegated to keeping scorpions and crabs off of me at night.

Now I do have one serious problem, the possibility of heatstroke.

I'm feeling extremely hot.

I'm still sweating.

That's a good sign.

But I gotta be really careful.

But I gotta be really careful.

If I get to the point where I'm not sweating, that's very dangerous.

I gotta go cool down.

(vocal music) It's been a long time without food.

And the rain that filled both the raft and the blue dinghy is tainted with sea water.

So I went in to cool off there just now, I'm standing there.

I look down about a three and a half foot shark swam right by me.

I tell you, I'm glad to be outta that raft.

Like you would not believe.

So tomorrow it's all about food and water.

There's no water on this island to speak of in terms of spring, so I'm gonna have to find other methods.

And try for some live foods.

(eerie music) Very bright moon tonight.

It's making it so that I can walk around on the island without too much problem in the dark.

Well, it is certainly the strangest feeling to be inside this life raft and not be jostled back and forth constantly.

Time to get some sleep.

(harmonica playing) Good night.

There are some big cockroaches around here.

(electric music) That was one horrible sleep.

I still have what they call stillness illness.

Once you're on the solid ground, feels like everything's still moving.

Even this morning it still feels like the raft is bobbing around.

Here's what's left of my rain catchment bag.

You know what I could do, especially with a bag like this and the long tube that comes with it.

A water enema, basically.

You can't do it with seawater 'cause it'll kill you, but brackish, slightly brackish water or slightly tainted water.

There was one family kept themselves alive by giving themselves daily enemas with tainted water that they couldn't otherwise drink or it would make them sick.

Fortunately, there are palm trees on this island.

(upbeat music) Oh.

Whoa.

Oh.

All over this island, there are parts and supplies from boats, refuse from ships, as well as the leftovers from the poachers.

Cold hard reality of just about everywhere on the planet, Cold hard reality of just about everywhere on the planet, Cold hard reality of just about everywhere on the planet,.

can always find garbage of some sort.

Huh.

This is one half of the canister that the life raft came in.

The idea is that all the sea water and all the greenery will start to evaporate.

The sea water will evaporate and the greenery will sweat, the moisture out of it will evaporate.

Hit the plastic on the roof, and then hopefully little droplets will drip down, down, down, down, down to the lowest point, which is right up above my little catch cup.

Drinking only the liquid of green coconuts can lead to diarrhea.

I need some solid food.

And the best place for that is the ocean.

Oh yeah, he's in there all right.

This is a conch shell and inside is a delectable treat.

There's no way that I can pull him out of there.

And the shell is extremely hard, but it does have just one, one weak spot.

Did it.

Well, it won't be conk chowder, but after five days without food, it should hit the spot.

There we go.

I'm basically gonna cut away everything that isn't white.

Alright, now, first of all, this little piece here, call that the string of the conch.

Here's what I want: fresh white meat from right out of the conk.

Which you can just eat raw.

And if I found one, I'm sure I can find more.

Smells fresh.

Oh.

It's warm, but it's fresh water.

Who da thought.

It's only an ounce but it's better than nothing.

So the solar still does work.

It's good.

(mellow music) You know, somehow I think I slept better when the bottom of this raft wasn't rock hard.

At least it didn't rain last night.

Cool.

Sea snails.

They're locally known as Willicks.

Gathered a bunch of coconut husks on the island.

We've also got bamboo.

This may be my easiest fire starting challenge, yet.

This, it's one of my hand flares.

(flare fizzing) Okay, that works.

Yep.

Okay.

Flare's died.

Cockroaches are all going running.

I've got the Willicks in there in seawater.

Gonna cook 'em up.

Ah.

Let's get rid of all the entrails.

A little overdone.

Rubbery, but good.

The next few days can be spent gathering sea snails, coconuts, and conk shells.

I've found an old bottle.

There is one thing I could do with it.

It may seem like a cliche, but survivors adrift, even in recent years, have used bottles to send messages.

Notes have been scratched on styrofoam or anything else that will float.

You can only imagine a desperate feeling of knowing that your only chance of rescue may lie in a small bottle floating out to sea Adrift at sea was an experience I approached with trepidation.

For my time out here, I was just a speck on the ocean.

In a storm, even a rescue boat would be powerless against forces of nature.

Before the end of day six, the world's realities take over.

Belize is now in a state of political turmoil.

So the crew comes back to free me from my island prison.

Oh, and the note in the bottle, it has my phone number on it.

I'm still waiting for someone to call.

Directly inspired by his own survival expeditions, journeys and challenges.

World renowned survival instructor Les Stroud brings you survive, essential skills and tactics to get you out of anywhere alive.

Available for 19.99.

In addition, the book will to live Dispatches from the Edge of Survival is available, featuring Les Stroud's own top ten survival stories of all time.

21.99.

To order, please go to lesstroud.ca, and click on shop