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I've soon reached the flat land and the beach, and I really need to put my game face on. I can only imagine how far the smell have already been carried, but the wind is pushed up from my camp, so I'm mostly worried about flying animals.
I want to go further away, but I don't dare to move far away as I've heard plenty of animal noises I really don't like, and I try to find animal tracks. I decide to put two snares at the edge of the jungle. I have no idea about the snare loop size, and the bait will obviously attract predators, so I do two different sizes. I test the triggers and they seems to work well. The important part is obviously to not be to hard to pull out, but two flat cut hooks means the bait can be pulled out, and then the sear hook will be pulled away from the ground hook and that release the bent branch with the snare. I make sure to add branches around the bait so that the bait can't be reached from other directions. I have cord left so I just make a snare a bit over the ground on a small animal trail. I cut notches in a Y shaped branch and tension holds the sear bar in place for an A style trigger. No bait, but if the snare is moved, the bar will move and release the tension, so a small animal should be lifted way of the ground. At least this will be good trap practice.
As I wash myself by the sea shore I hope that my smell won't make animals avoid the traps. I did rub my hands with dirt before setting the traps, but I might have to figure out something better. I fill my pockets with stone and pebbles, and see a few big seashells too. Might be good for something, and is the closest thing to a bowl right now, as long as I grind the edges soft. I climb back up, and bring the other mudballs along. I should remove a few branches and add a few handholds to make this trail a bit easier, and make a ladder. So I spend some time doing that. To make me feel slightly more secure, I brace a couple of branches behind me to block a passage of the trail when it goes along the cliff side to my shelter, and I spread out the small pebbles on two other sections. If something steps on them I might hear the pebbles tumble down. Not likely, but any little thing helps. I seriously want to kill that screeching bird as he attracts attention to me every time I come close, but he seems to calm down as long as I stay on the flat area. Not like I have much choice considering how steep and high the surrounding cliffs are.
The last thing I bring is springy branches and dry leaves to make a bed for the coming night. There is no way sleeping will be easy, but I must try to sleep. My brain needs the sleep even if it's bad sleep, and being sleep deprived will just make everything harder. I'm contemplating about using my earplugs. They will probably mean I get a better sleep, but also that it will be harder to wake up if something tries to sneak up on me. Which is a life or death issue here. I will bring up that ladder and try to use it and a few big thick branches to make my sleeping spot harder to reach.
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It takes far too many attempts and time to light a fire with the bow drill, but it is my fault. Trice I fucked it up, and it wasn't in the construction. Then again, how hard is it to combine a springy branch with something for string, a stick with a point and another stick with a V shaped grove and cutout? Two times I couldn't get the smoke to stay, and I guess I blew too hard or something. The third I didn't feed it slowly enough to really catch. But sitting by a small fire and waiting for bird meat on a stick to slowly grill is a huge moral boost. It honestly feels kind of manly.
The shadows are growing long and my camp no longer have direct sunlight. The cliffs means that I won't see the sunset, but I should see the setting sun on the hills and cliff above me, which is good as I need to mark the sunset. Since I won't see the sunrise I can't really make it perfect, but good enough will help, and I can use any marker and selected one at the cliff wall. The timer is ticking.
"I can time the night and day and find out how long the day is, and reset my watch for it. As long as it works it will be very helpful, and I really want to figure out if the day is longer than the night and the how much longer and so on. It helps to find out the time of year and if it's spring, summer or autumn. I should track the sun height too to figure out latitude, since Earth has about 23 degree tilt."
It feels kind of silly talking to myself with a low voice, but it makes my reasoning feel more solid. The fire is small, and well shielded from both direct and indirect reflected light, but I won't dare to keep it lit at night. Something with good night vision will be able to notice it from far away, and there is a lot of unpleasant noises reaching me as it is.
For the same reason I hate sitting here knapping, and I won't do that much more as the sound is distinct even when I try to muffle it by using leaves, but I need to use my time and daylight effective, and I need tools and weapons. I need to know if it will work. And it keeps my mind busy. The broken stone is flint or something close enough for my use. I have a memory of actually knapping flint when I was a teenager and my school visited some kind of living history museum, but that was a long time ago and far away. But my small knife cannot be used for everything, and I would really like something axe like and a spear or two with flint heads. Some kind of bigger knife would be nice too, even if it is in stone. A bow would be really nice, but is some steps away. Maybe those dried animal parts will work well for the string? It's quite likely that I will try and hunt another bird or two over on that rocky knoll, but my bad spear used as a club seems to work for that. If they make themselves easy prey I won't complain, but next time I will try to spear one instead of beating it to death.
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I move on to try to make something from the clay. I need containers and something to carry water in. To boil water in. I knead the clay and cut it in half and fold it over. My mother have done night courses in pottery and talked about it, so I know even bought perfect clay needs to be worked and this won't be close to good. Feels kind of nice though with out any large pieces in it, and squishy. There is still a lot of water in a couple of big puddles, and I take water from the smaller one to keep my hand moist. The big seashells help there. Then I split the clay into many pieces, take a flat slate stone, lay a big leaf and form a base from a large piece of clay. Then I roll long pieces and build up layer after layer and form a big cup, and I smooth out all the edges and layers as I go up. This is all going by 'it looks okay', so the end result remains to be seen, but I'm good at working with my hands and I try to make it pretty and useable and I rub a flat stone against both the inside and outside to try and make it as smooth and nice as possible. Should probably do it when it starts to dry too. But it needs to dry slowly, and I need to store it out of direct sun and rain. Then it should be fired real hot for a long time, with probably a long cooling time and slow ramp of heat. I carefully lift my cup from the stone and set it aside. This feels good and I'm going to need so much clay if this works. And it is something to do. I turn over the meat pieces again, take another flat stone and start to form a far higher and more 2 liter bottle looking pot.
The narrowing neck is hard, but it will help keep the water in the bottle as I move around and climb, and I hope to make a conical clay stopper in the top that I can tie down. There are four small loops for it to improve my chance that they stay attached. I'm afraid the bottle will sag as it dries, but I've tried to keep the clay at the top thinner. I also realise that I won't be able to clean the inside, so I will try to make a more vase looking thing next, and I might have enough clay for a 0.5-1 liter size bottle after that. The smell of the meat makes my mouth water and it seems ready, so I take a break to eat. The meat taste bad and wonderful at the same time. Any type of seasoning would help, and salt will be important for my body and help stuff taste better.
Other good news is that I actually have a bit of metal with me, although I have no idea how good it will be for tools and weapons. Stabbing with any of the two screwdrivers will reach deep, but they're not a quick killing weapon and for uncomfortably close range, and the 8 inch adjustable wrench isn't much better. The wrench doesn't have print on it that say what metal it is, but it's probably iron. The screwdrivers chrome vanadium might be a bitch to try and forge, and the extra carbon might fuck it up. And I need to make a forge. And coal. I actually have other metal with me; keys; stainless steel buckle for my belt; metal zippers, buttons and snap buttons on the pants; that stainless steel carabiner; a dozen copper and so called Nordic Gold coins in my wallet; the spring steel in my 3 meter Stanley tape measure. Probably steel toe caps in my shoes. In the end most of that don't have much value or is critical to keep even if I actually can return home, although I will keep the shoes, the pants and the belt as is. I hope I can turn the screwdrivers to a knife blade and a chisel, and the wrench to an axe. The irony is that I probably need to make stone tools first to make the forge and cut the wood and so on.
My smartwatch have a compass, barometer and altimeter, but it requires power and will die. So I need to make a compass or two. There is a trick I can use if I chose the right magnetic iron. Heat it up really hot and then cool it while having it pointing due north. It 'locks' the magnetic field in the needle and make it work as a compass. I can also rub a needle against something as that should make it weakly work for a while. Floating on a leaf in water or hanging from a thread will be good enough to see if it works.
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The night have fallen and I lie in my shelter looking on my shelters roof. I'm tired but sleep eludes me, and listening to the light rain tapping on the leaves doesn't help. It seems to be a quite bright night even with light rain clouds, and since the moon rose over the mountains it has become even brighter.
Screeching wakes me up, and I instantly go from sleep to awake as adrenaline surge through my veins. It's another sound than that bird nesting close by, but I have no idea how close the new sound is. I lie and listen too it and it sounds like below me somewhere and close, but not too close. After a while my curiosity takes over as I hear weird noises and I slowly and quietly sneak out and look down. Holy shit, I think a snare has caught something as I hear trashing and the occasional angry noises from that direction. I just crouch and is amazed that it worked. Holy shit. That feels good. Success! Yes!
The noises and thrashing really turns up a notch and I realise there is something moving along the jungle edge. Through the light rain I can see a darker shape against the lighter green and sandy grass. Something big. At least cow or horse big. Something prowling. The dark shape rush the snare spot and strikes forward. Fuck! Those are not good sounds, but they are quickly over. I stay still and watch the dark shape move back up along the edge of the jungle and disappear up river.
Setting snares might be a really bad idea if it attracts big dangerous things, as they might come to expect a meal here. Bad idea. It also makes me very uncomfortable to go back down there tomorrow even in daylight as I now have proof there are large predators lurking here.
Shit!