20 Zi'da 721
Dan watched from the shore as rowboats launched from a ship, wondering how in the world he had ended up being roped in to teach a gaggle of Biqaj children who lived their lives at sea how to survive on land if necessary.
The boats grounded on on the empty beach, and the youngsters piled out onto the sand, followed by a handful of adults. Dan looked around and then beckoned them to join him on the lip where the ground dropped to become the beach. It was the right height to make a decent seat.
The older men and women strode briskly across the beach toward the treeline behind Dan, trailed by a cluster of children, some of whom stared at their feet and some of whom stared at him and some of whom stared around at the land itself.
Dan eyed them as they stopped on the edge between beach and jungle and dropped down to sit in the sand and the tussocks of salt-tolerant grass. "You do know why you're here, don't you?"
"They said it was for survival training, in case we wash overboard in a storm and wind up on a beach?" One of them - a girl called Asha - said, disbelief clear in her voice.
"They said correctly," Dan told her, as he bent and picked up a coconut. "Tell me what this is."
"It's a coconut. We had some in the galley the other day."
"And?"
"You crack it open and scoop out the meat inside?"
"And?"
"Empty the water? Oh! You can drink the water!"
"Yes," Dan agreed, "but you shouldn't just drink from coconuts, because if you have too much of it, it goes straight through you and out the other end dragging all the goodness with it."
Asha nodded, taking it in. "You could find a stream to add to the coconuts?"
"You could. You'd probably have to follow it up to the tree line to make sure there wasn't salt water flowing upstream and tainting it, and doing that risks being caught by predators that lurk around streams. You can, of course, catch rainwater when it rains or gather snow if it snows. Half a coconut shell makes a good bowl to catch it in, or a large shell. If you tie cloth around your ankles and walk through wet grass, the cloth will soak up water that you can then wring out into a bowl." Dan paused and looked to see how well the youngsters were taking in this flood of information.
Asha lifted her head, her mane of curls bouncing off her shoulders and met that look as best she could. "Coconuts," she said, ticking the options off on her fingers, frowning in concentration. "Streams. Rain. Wet grass. Got it. What else?"
"The other options require more equipment than you'd probably have, but there's no harm in covering them." Dan stopped and looked around. "The most important tools for survival are your mind and your will. Those you are guaranteed to have. If you also have something waterproof and flexible - a good coat or cloak, or a tarp, or a length of waxed leather - you have more options. You can dig a hollow, line it with the cloth and you have a much bigger 'bowl' for rainwater, for example."
Asha nodded quickly. "You'd have something like a rock pool, only you made it yourself and it's fresh not salt. Can you carry water in the cloth too?"
Dan grimaced. "You can try if you really have to, but it's difficult, especially alone. There are better ways to use it - you can use it to pull water out of the ground if you know how."
"You can?" Asha leaned in, eyes and face alight with curiousity. "How? Can you pull it out of the sea too?"
"Not really, the sea is too big to cover." Dan picked up a thin stick and began to draw in a patch of clear sand. "Look, this is what you need to do. You dig or find a hollow slightly smaller than your cloth. You put an empty bowl in the middle, raised up a bit on sticks or stones. Then you cover the whole set up with the tarp, weight down the edges so that they stay put, then you drop a small stone into the middle of the tarp so that it dips down right over your bowl." He looked sideways at Asha and grinned. "Then you just walk away and do other things for breaks, or for a trial and when you come back, your bowl has water in."
Asha stared for a long moment, hugging her knees against her chest, her mouth open. "That's way too much like magic! It can't be real... can it? You're pulling my leg like everyone else."
"Oh, it's true enough." Dan gave Asha a sharp look. "Are the other youngsters picking on you?"
Asha shrugged and didn't answer. "So how does the magically appearing water work then?"
"Well, you see, everything breathes even the land itself. Your breath has a little water in, that's why it looks like a cloud on cold days. The land's breath has water in too. It rises out of the pit, hits the tarp and runs down the inside of the slope to the dip. Then it drips off into the bowl - that's why you need to make sure that the dip for the drip is over the bowl. All those little drips add up. For more drips, you can throw green leaves from trees into the bottom of the pit and catch the breath-water of those too."
Asha frowned, trying to take it all in. "Ok, is that all the things I need to know?"
Dan shook his head. "Once you have found your water, you need to make it clean and fit to drink. It may be muddy, it may have all kinds of things in, and drinking bad water will kill you just as surely as drinking sea water. Understand?"
A glum expression took over Asha's young face and she sighed and nodded, and pulled her legs up to where she could hug her knees. "I'm listening."
"Good," Dan said, and went on with his list and lecture. "You start with the biggest things and work down to the smallest. Begin by picking out any obvious leaves or twigs or stones, or any other stuff floating in your water. That's the first stage of cleaning. Second stage is to filter it to take out any mud and disolved filth. You can pour it through tightly woven cloth - that works well - or you can find a piece of hollow bamboo or other wood and pack it with layers of dried moss and charcoal from your fire. Pour the water in one end and let it soak through the layers. It will take some time to come through, so you must be patient, and wait. If you don't have a fire and you can find sand away from the beach, you can use that instead. Don't use beach sand for a filter, because it will only make your water salty, and then you can't drink it at all and you will have wasted your effort.
"Cloth or charcoal or sand that isn't salty..." Asha echoed. "But aren't beaches the only places with sand?"
"No, they are not. You can find sand in some streams and rivers, and even patches of it in the soil occasionally." He looked at the clearly unhappy child, curled in on herself, and offered the barest of smiles before he went on, "Once you have all the obvious bits out of the water, and you've filtered it, the next step is to boil it. Boiling water for at least three bits kills the part of the dirt that make you sick. It does not do anything to get rid of salt though, so don't try it. I know aboard ship you use Salt Bouy to do the same thing, but you aren't likely to have any if you're shipwrecked, so boiling it is.
"Get your fire lit and if you have the time and the fuel, let it burn down to cooking coals. It isn't quite as pretty or showy as open flames, but it is just as hot, or hotter, and the heat it gives is steadier and more even. You also wind up with charcoal for your water filter that way. Take your container, whatever you have managed to gather and hold your water in. If you can prop it directly over the fire, that's the best, but don't run the risk of it falling and spilling your water. If it's metal or pottery and can take the direct heat, you can just set it down in the middle of your cooking coals. Otherwise, put it by the edge of the fire, and turn it every so often so that it all gets the heat."
Dan looked over at Asha, and patted her on the shoulder. "That's all for now. You'll get other lessons - fire and food - but those can wait a little. Go stretch your legs."
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