You won't believe what these people did to survive on a deserted island.
Lets tallk about that.
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good mythical morning. - Sometimes when you're at a part-ay or a
get together somebody will be like "hey guys, what one thing would you take if you
- were stranded on a deserted island?" - That is such a good question for this
- party. - I got you at this party, didn't I?
- Yes. - I'm the king of the party now.
- (laughs) - What do you say when somebody asks that
- question? - I say "Dude, come up with a better question."
- Really? - I mean come on, if you really wanna talk
to me just be sincere, lets talk about something that
- can actually happen. - I say a briefcase full of all of the
- things I'll need. - But what's my answer?
- Yeah. - My wife.
- Oh. And my wife. My wife's in the - You know, she's my true companion.
- briefcase. I take it back baby. - (click noise) My true companion.
Okay, now but the thing is is that when you're at this party and people are asking
this question, you know what people have actually survived on deserted islands and
we're gonna talk about some of the most amazing stories that we have ever heard
- about people surviving. - You think you're gonna do like party talk
- about these, these people lived it! - Yeah, this ain't no party.
- (laughs) - We're talking about October 1704,
Alexander Selkirk. He's on the crew of a ship called the Cinque Ports, Cinque Ports.
- Well he was doomed to start with. - Yeah.
- Did it sink? - Yep, well that's what ends up happening.
He ends up stopping first at the Archipelago of Juan Fernández which is west of Chile.
- And so Selkirk says "you know what, this - Thanks for the geography lesson.
boat is in bad shape and I--" he had a feeling that it was
- going to sink. - And it's got sink in the name.
And he was like "I'm not going on with you guys, leave me here on this island."
- He chose the lesser of two evils, huh? - So the captain said "okay." and he left
him along on shore with some clothing, a musket, some tools, a bible and tobacco.
- Hm. - So the first thing he did was he just
hung out at the shore like you do when you've been stranded.
- Like a vacation. - Like on Lost. The hung out on the beach
- Right. - first, right?
- Waiting for people to go by. - That crashed plane is really messing up
- the view, but-- - But then the sea lions started mating.
- Oh-- At what? - And you know what happens when sea lions
start mating.
- They're big, and they're mean, - A-- Action?
- and they were in heat. It was ugly and - Oooooh.
it was nasty, and I guess they thought it was a sea lion.
- No. They were aggressive. - Did he look like a sea lion?
They drove him inland. He took off his sea lion suit,
- (laughs) - and went into the jungle where things
got better. And this is where it gets awesome!
He found feral goats-- That's wild goats. He hunted them, he ate them,
and he used their skin for clothes. So he's walking around there,
- I-- - goat skin clothes, eating goats!
Question: How hard is it to hunt a goat?
- I mean, really? - Have you ever killed a goat?
- I mean-- We'll they're just-- - Have you ever killed a goat?
- No, but they're just standing there, Rhett. - These are feral. They're running.
- They ain't gonna take it. - They went like (makes goat sound).
- They're gonna take it like a goat. - Ooooh.
He one chased a goat off of a cliff-- Went off of a cliff
- After it? - with the goat.
Because it was like a jungle cliff. He didn't see it coming,
- and he survived because he - (unison) landed on the goat.
- No! - I'm not making this up people!
But he was. He made it up.
- That's the key. - And he didn't just stop with feral goats.
There's nobody there to corroborate
- any of this. - He bef-- well that's true.
- He befriended feral cats and trained - (laughs)
them to become domesticated, to fend off the rats that were bothering him in his
little hut that he built for himself at night.
- Alexander. (click noise) - And twice Spanish explorers came to
rescue him, he said (Scottish accent) "No, I won't go with you."
Because he was Scottish and he didn't wanna go with the Spaniards because he
thought that they would kill him and so he waited.
He was there for 4 years and 4 months and eventually he was picked up by another ship
and he went on to be kinda famous and he is the purported inspiration for what?
Robinson Crusoe. You heard it here, Robinson Crusoe was
a Scottish dude that dressed up like a goat, and was afraid of mating sea lions.
(banging) Learn something new everyday.
- What have you got? - Somebodies at the door can you let that
- person in? - (laughs) What you got over there?
- I've got Tom Neale. - Uh oh.
- Now, my last name's Neal. - It is.
- This one has an E on the end so there's - Eee.
no relation, except maybe in the past there was some relation.
- This guy's in New Zealand. - Maybe, maybe.
The interesting thing is I think I can see you being this guy more than me.
For a couple of touch points, okay? - Touch points.
See if you can pick up on these. He decided one day,
here's the interesting thing about him. He actually wanted to be stranded on a
- deserted island. - Yeah, I do.
- He made a decision to do it so he gets - Yeah, I get it.
on a boat that's going past some islands and then "hey, drop me off there."
- Just like your last guy. - Yeah.
So they dropped him off on this deserted island.
Spoiler alert, it's not a des-- it doesn't have a dessert on it.
I just wanna be clear for the rest of the video.
- Don't get your hopes up, there's no - Some of them probably do.
- dessert on any of these isands. - some of them are probably covered in
- whipped cream. - This was 1952, it was off the
- Cook islands a deserted Suwarrow island. - Cook islands.
He promptly fashioned a bandanna into a g string.
And then from there he's like "now what do I do?"
- I've done that. - He had with him two cats, some tanks of
water, a hut and some books. when you know you're gonna be stranded
- that's all you bring? - Yeah, should have brought some goats.
I mean, this guy goes hard! There were some World War 2 left overs
on the island and some wild pigs and chickens running around.
- Easy. - He killed the pigs instantly because
they were nuisance. I'm sure he ate them.
He spent 6 months building a pier and he took 1 day off to celebrate and after that
1 day a storm hit and just totally obliterated the entire pier.
- Totally Rhett, right? - You just totally
- Sprayed you? - spit all in my face.
- Sorry, do you wanna use my purple-- - I hope I don't have an outbreak or
- anything. - An outbreak of what?
- (both laughing) - I'm not gonna go there.
Alright, I am sorry. Can we just pause?
I didn't intentionally spit on you but I mean I glad I did.
- You can apologize, it's fine, thanks. - I'm just joking.
You can survive on spit, maybe he did. He threw out his back in 1954 throwing an
- anchor over the side of the boat - I've done that too.
- And he was semi paralyzed for 4 days - You're laughing at this guy?
- Paralyzed on a deserted island? - It's like what happened to you.
People on a yacht came by and found him and they took him in-- Back to shore.
He had to heal, and in those four years when he
stayed there, he got married, he had two kids,
but in spring of 1960 he left, then went back to the island.
- And then-- - This guy couldn't get enough.
And then pearl divers started coming in there.
He wasn't alone so he left, but then he wrote a book and took the
money from the book and went back a third time and stayed there 'till 1977 when he
- got some sort of stomach cancer. - Oh, that-- Well.
This last one also has a horrible ending. I'm gonna go ahead and get you prepared.
This is Juana Maria. She's known as a lone woman of
- San Nicolas Island. - Okay.
The channel islands; Some islands right off the coast
of California here. You've got, like, Catalina.
This is one of those. It's not inhabited now.
- Oh, really? - But back in the 1800s,
there was a Native American tribe-- Her tribe was the Nickelinos
that were on there, and Russian otter hunters--
Always causing trouble, those Russian otter hunters
show up and kill everybody in her tribe except for, like, 20 people.
- Oh no. - It's a bad day.
Spanish missionaries hear about this and they say,
"We're gonna go and rescue the remaining Native Americans and bring them to the mission."
Well they had some weather problems. They had to end up leaving
a little bit early. She didn't get on the boat and she was
by herself. She lived on the island by herself.
She was deserted because she was the only one there,
but she was kind of living in the place she had grown up,
so she kinda made-- She made out.
- She lived there for 18 years. - That's so sad though.
In 1853, another otter hunter, not a killing one,
just a guy named George Nidever finds her and she's living in a hut made of
whale bones, surviving on seal blubber that she makes,
like, into beef jerky. Well, seal jerky.
- She made a hut out of whale bones? - I would like to have seen how that
worked out, but he ends up taking her to this
- Santa Barbra mission. - Can't get those at RAI.
So she's lived on this island for 18 years. He takes her to the Santa Barbra misson,
she's fascinated with all this new culture, all this new food, all this new stuff that
she's never seen. She dies 7 weeks later
- Oh man. - of dysentery.
Nidever says "Her fondness for green corn, vegetables and fresh fruit after years of
such nutrient-laden food-- Little such nutrient-laden food caused
the severe and ultimately fatal illness." So he thought that vegetables killed her.
So kids, now you can tell your parents every time they ask you to eat your veggies
- Oh. - have you heard of the lone woman of
San Nicolas island, mom?
Oh, well but the truth is she was sprinkling dysentery on her vegetables.
- Oh, that's a big mistake. - I mean that's the clincher right there.
- (crew laughing) - We'd like to thank our sponsor godaddy.com
(Rhett) Visit godaddy.com and enter code "GMM" to get a domain for $1.99,
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I sneezed in your face when I was talking survivors and I'm sorry dot com
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You know what time it is.
- Hi, I'm Emily. - And I'm Caroline.
- And we're from Windfield, Massachusetts. - (both) And now it's time to spin the
wheel of mythicality.
Do you wanna learn how to do things in 2 easy steps?
Well, go to twitter.com/rhettandlink or just follow us on twitter and you can
- learn those things. - Click through to Good Mythical More,
I've got one more amazing survival story. The Robertson family sailing around the
world, you're not gonna believe what they did to survive.
Unisong about hot dogs.
Okay, unisong, this is where we sing in unison about--
(both singing) Oh I wish I had a hot dog, I can put some ketchup on top of it.
'Cause baby you know how much I love relish!
[Captioned by Whitney and Hayleigh: GMM Captioning Team]