Survivorman Blisters

From my write-ups on Dual Survival, I’m obviously a fan of the survival shows out there. Obviously, I have a vested interest in Dual Survival because of Cody Lundin’s barefootedness. But the one I think the most “authentic” is Survivorman.

And there are new episodes.

As I said, I think “Survivorman” is the most authentic. Les Stroud does not have a camera crew come in with him; he does all the filming himself. Contrast that with “Dual Survival”, in which it is clear that they are using staged situations throughout the show (as opposed to just starting out a scenario at the beginning). I particularly noted that when I wrote Dual Survival Deception. In a real survival situation, they would never have built that boat (and the “coincidence” of finding the tarp was laughable). In addition, the map they used supposedly telling us where they were was for a region 25 miles away.

With Les Stroud, WYSIWYG.

The recent episode that I want to comment on is from “Survivorman — 10 days”. The episode is “Ten Days: Mexican Desert Island”. This one is a two-parter, with 5 days in each part. He is on the isle of Tiburon, in the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez).

Because of the location, Les does a fair bit of barefooting. Obviously, he’s not a barefooter like Cody Lundin, but he also doesn’t insist in using footwear when it is not needed. (Though, because of tender feet, I suspect he does use it at times when he could get away without it.) But at least he is not paranoid that he never goes barefoot, as so many others are.

The first look at Les barefooted is when he is getting ready to abandon his damaged sailboat.

On the Damaged Sailboat

From there he takes his kayak to shore, but for some inexplicable reason, he seems to think he needs flip-flops there.

Setting Up on Shore

But he is back to bare feet again when he is walking through the tidal flats looking for food (and finding and washing clams).

Clam Washing on the Tidal Flat

Then later on the beach, he finds a squid that has washed up.

Finding the Squid

Excellent find. Squid’s good eating (especially when you call it “calamari” instead :-)).

So, he takes it back to his kayak/camp to cut it up, and . . . wait. Why the heck did he bother to put his flip-flops back on again?

Cleaning the Squid, With Foot Protection (?)

Although he doesn’t mention it, maybe the sand is really hot in the hot desert sun.

He later does a more extensive food search on the tidal flats, when all of a sudden, with no explanation of where they came from, he’s talking about nasty blisters he’s acquired.

Blisters

Discontinuity.

It really just surprised me, and others who have watched the show are also wondering how the heck he got those.

When I first starting thinking about it, I guessed it was his leg shields.

When he went into the tidal flats the second time, he was concerned about stepping on a sting ray and getting whacked by its tail. So, he made himself a pair of calf protectors.

A String Ray Calf Protector

And you can see him walking in them here.

Calf Protectors In Use

Obviously, he was still barefoot. So, I guessed that somehow the bottoms of those protectors were rubbing on his heels.

But that doesn’t look right, either. I just don’t see those things doing the kind of damage we are seeing there.

So, as another possibility, I am really suspicious that he wore his hiking boots out into the water. There is nothing worse than wet hiking boots for giving blisters. So maybe that happened instead (and he didn’t want to admit it).

Regardless, for me, au naturel would’ve been the way to go.