Stranded in the ocean for days–one of my many childhood irrational fears (little did I know college applications and choosing a major would be much worst, and some days I’d rather be stranded in the ocean).
But anyways, here’s a couple tips on how to survive if you just so happen to be stranded in the middle of the ocean.
First of all, you just realized that you are unfortunately stranded in the ocean. You do not know whether or not some sort of rescue will be arriving anytime soon. This is what you should do in a quick summary:
- Stay afloat and keep calm
- Find shelter during the day (hopefully you have some sort of floatation device, however, some people have survived fourteen hours floating on their backs)
- Wait to see if rescue arrives (hopefully it does—insert grimacing emoji here)
- Travel at night in one direction until you reach civilization.
- Find a source of food (fish, crustaceans)
Now, floating is the most important part of survival at first. You need to find any type of floatation device that will support you. If you do not have anything to float on, follow these steps:
For calm water:
- Lie on your back if the ocean is calm.
- Always keep your head above the surface of the water.
- Continue until you find land.
For rough water:
- Lie face down in the water to allow your body to float.
- Continue to float this way until you need to breathe.
- Lift your head from the water only to take a breath, then go back underwater to exhale.
After floating, water is the next important step. The following tips are meant for people who are stranded with floatation device. Mind you, the body cannot survive more than 3 or 4 days without water. There a few different ways to find water when stranded. First, there are people who have drank their own urine to survive, which is not recommended because the salts in urine dehydrates the body, making you even thirstier. But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. Rain water is one of your best methods of drinking water. Set out anything that will collect the rain water (make sure the rain water does not mix with any of the ocean water). If it does not rain, you need to try to catch fish (use your hands if there aren’t any tools handy). Once you have a fish, you need to extract the liquids found in the fish’s flesh, eyes, and spine by cutting open the flesh and breaking the vertebra, then sucking (this is gross, but would you rather die????). DO NOT DRINK THE OCEAN WATER.
As for food, try to find fish. If you can’t find any, pull in any seaweed that floats by because shrimp, crabs, and fish occasionally get stuck or hide in the seaweed.
Now for the main concern. Predators. Obviously you will want to avoid sharks at all costs, so do not get any blood in the water.
To increase you chance of survival, stay close to the area that will most likely be search. For example, if you were in a plane crash, stay close to the site where the plane crashed.
Also, if you are super intrigued/worried about getting stranded, here’s a nice article that gives more tips and tells the stories of some people who survived being stranded:
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survive-at-sea.htm
Thanks for reading, hopefully no one ever has to use these tips!
This was such a creative post! My favorite shows all have to do with the castaway theme: Lost, Survivor, Gilligan’s Island so I had so much fun reading it. I hope I’m never in a situation where I would need to use these though.
Oh my goodness it would be terrifying to be in this sort of situation. Movies like Life of Pi and Unbroken always make me think about how people actually survive crazy situations like that. This is definitely good information to know, so thank you for sharing. I believe in hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst! Although if in a situation like that, I would probably die, let’s be real. So let’s hope that never happens. I liked the joke about the college apps, it gave me a good laugh.
It is an absolute fear of mine to be stranded in a large body of water! Personally, I get tired after swimming a couple laps in a pool and predators lurking around freak me out. I think that this article is incredibly helpful and soothing to people like me who fear being stuck at sea.
Every time I fly I have a bit of this fear that my plane will crash and I will be stranded. So I really hope I never have to use these tips but at least I know what to do now! My biggest fear while just floating there would be sharks as a major predator which is just a scary thought. But if no sharks I at least know what to do now!
Even though being stranded in the ocean is fairly unlikely considering our comfortably landlocked college experience, it never hurts to know what to do in that kind of situation. I love the ocean, but a healthy respect for what it can do is always warranted. Last summer I was at the outer banks with some friends and we were in the ocean. It was a little rough, but too much that we didn’t get in. We kept being pulled strongly across the beach, but there were some pretty yellow flags near where we put our stuff so that we would be able to get back to our starting point. Turns out those flags were signals for dangerous rip currents. We were all fine, but it could very well have ended up that I needed the tips from this post!
I really hope that I am never stranded in the middle of the ocean, but if I am I now know how to survive! You cover the basics which, in a time of desperation while stranded in the ocean, the basics are all you need. If I were to be stranded, I would be most afraid of sharks just waiting to eat me..