No thanks, we'll stick with Netflix and couch-groove marathons …
No thanks, we'll stick with Netflix and couch-groove marathons …
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey decided they were sick of living in boring old England and that they should move to New Zealand. Unable to drive a U-Haul across the globe, they did what any reasonable couple would do and bought a 31-foot sailboat to sail from England to New Zealand.
The trip was going well until an extremely rude whale sank their yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
With little time to act, the couple threw as many supplies as they could into their inflatable life raft and hopped in. Soon they ran out of canned food and were forced to fend for themselves.
Over the next 117 days, the couple floated helplessly in the middle of the ocean with their dinghy rapidly disintegrating. They were forced to eat raw sea turtles and small sharks they caught with their bare hands. Eventually, a Korean fishing boat rescued the Baileys, a mere 1,500 miles from where their yacht initially sank.
Following their ordeal, the Baileys vowed to purchase another boat to determine why that whale was so pissed off. Just two years later, they were back in the open ocean studying whales on a new and improved research vessel.
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Hugh Glass
Few people deserve to have their life reenacted by Leonardo DiCaprio. Hugh Glass’ past is certainly crazy enough to deserve the part — and Leo did just that in The Revenant.
Glass, a fur trapper by trade, was on an expedition in 1823 when his crew was ambushed by Native Americans. Hugh was shot in the leg and his expedition split up.
Soon after getting capped, Glass was hunting when he was attacked by a mother grizzly bear. Glass was horribly injured and on the verge of death.
Two men from the expedition were ordered to stay with him as he lay dying. Soon, these men saw another group of Native Americans and left Glass to die in a shallow grave (Which was really not very nice of them). But glass wasn’t about to let a measly grizzly bear kill him.
Eventually, Glass woke up and realized his crew abandoned him. This pissed him off.
With a broken leg, horrible lacerations over his entire body, and no weapons, Glass began the 200-mile trek south to the next camp.
Six weeks later, Glass showed up at the camp. Angry that he spent six weeks hobbling through the woods and making rafts to float down river, Glass swore to kill the two men that abandoned him. But he didn’t. The movie made that up. Sorry. He was still more badass than you are though.
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Hiroo Onoda
Hiroo Onoda’s story is partially one of survival and partially one of absolute insanity. He was once a Japanese Army officer stationed in the Philippines during WWII. Throughout the war, Japanese soldiers were told to remain loyal to their country and never surrender unless ordered to do so by their commanders. Onoda, rumored to be the most loyal soldier of all time, did just that.
The problem was that Onoda followed these orders for 29 years after the war was officially over.
For nearly three decades, he refused to surrender. During this time, he survived on diet of coconuts, bananas and random supplies he managed to steal from villagers in the dense Philippine jungle. While holding out amongst the trees, Onoda terrorized local villages, occasionally killing local police and innocent villagers. You know, because he thought the war was still going on …
When the war ended in 1945, Japanese planes dropped hundreds of leaflets in the jungle to alert remaining soldiers that the war was over. Onoda refused to believe these leaflets and thought they were enemy propaganda. Years later, the military dropped letters from his family telling him to come home. He still refused to believe. Then, in 1972, the Japanese government found Onoda’s old commander.
His commander ventured into the jungle and finally told Onoda to surrender. Onoda, confused as to why it took his commander so long to show up, begrudgingly gave up.
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Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
In 1972, a Uruguayan rugby team chartered a flight to Chile for an upcoming match. Unfortunately, the pilots miscalculated their flight pattern while flying through a terrible storm in the Andes Mountains and crashed into a peak hidden by thick clouds. Of the 45 passengers, 12 died as a result of the crash.
Over the next few weeks, more passengers died from their injuries and an avalanche that swept through the wreckage site. This left 16 survivors stuck in the Andes Mountains at 12,000 ft. elevation with no survival equipment, cold weather gear, food or real shelter.
Three countries searched for the wreckage, but terrible weather made finding the crash impossible. The survivors were trapped. Though they had a functioning radio that let them hear everything about the search mission, they had no way of responding.
As weeks passed without rescue, the survivors agreed that the only way to survive was to consume the human flesh of those that had died. They also determined that their only chance for rescue was to find help on their own.
Two men trekked down the snowy mountain range hoping to find signs of civilization. Eight days later, they found help. It took two days for the Chilean military to recover the remaining survivors. In total, 16 passengers were rescued 72 days after the plane had crashed.
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Steven Callahan
After successfully designing and building his own 21-foot sailboat, Steven Callahan successfully sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, solo, at age 29. Though an impressive feat on its own, Callahan is most known for surviving in a life raft for 76 days after a whale sunk his homemade boat 800 miles off the coast of Africa.
This is where Callahan learned to live like an “aquatic caveman,” according to his own words. Because if you’re badass enough to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a boat you made yourself, you’re certainly badass enough to survive in a life raft for a few months.
Luckily, he was able to retrieve a spear from his sinking sailboat, which allowed him to hunt fish from his raft. Plus, he made devices to turn seawater into drinkable fresh water and would occasionally catch and eat seabirds that would fly around his raft. None of his signaling devices worked when boats passed by him, but that didn’t matter, because Callahan had this raft life figured out.
Eventually he was rescued on his 76th day in the raft, 1,800 miles from where his boat sank on the opposite side of the Atlantic. He then spent just one afternoon in the hospital before hitchhiking on boats through the West Indies. Callahan’s story is often considered one of the best examples of how to handle a survival situation. Which apparently involves one strategy: Be a badass.
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