Getting water out of difficult to reach places

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Settler
Jan 2, 2005
611
0
Central Brazil
clearblogs.com
One tool I’ve found extremely helpful extracting water form difficult places is a simple 60 ml syringe. I set it up with a 1-meter tube and a 25 cm tube. The syringe allows you to suck up water from very shallow or silt laden pools without disturbing them.

Combined with the short tube it allows you to suck trapped water out of plants. Most plants that collect water also collect debris. The syringe and tube allows you to collect it without disturbing the junk at the bottom.

Once on a high waterless ridge in Brazil there were nearly 100 bromeliads that had between 100 and 200 ml of water trapped in each. Heavy fog condenses on them and they fill with water each night. This was the only water available and tipping them over would have killed them for sure. The syringe allows you to harvest water without damaging the ecosystem.

During dry season I once threaded the tube down a series of 1 cm holes in a huge boulder. Each one had about 100 ml of water trapped in it but you never would have guessed it. I had previously tested these same holes with a weed on a previous dry season trip and knew they contained water. I was able to suck up about a half liter. While Moses did a better job with a stick a half-liter of water could really make a difference.

The 1-meter tube can be attached to a walking stick via rubber bands and extended down into rocks and crevices that are too narrow or deep to dip out of with a cup. This water probe is good for getting water out of rock fields, ravines, or along cliff bottoms where it can be out of reach.

My state in Brazil is loaded with deep erosion gullies that run for a km or more, the water just out of reach. There are places I can climb down into these gullies but they are nasty places with evil little creatures in them. The probe keeps me up on the nice ground.

I was reminded of this watching “Into the Void”. The water was running down in the rocks but he couldn’t get to it and it was driving him crazy. I had been through a similar situation in PA. We could hear a raging river of water in the valley below but when we got to it, it was deep under a rock field. We could find places where we could see it a half meter down but had no way to get to it.

The 60 ml syringe can be a bit tedious filling it some 20x to get a canteen full. I’ve found it saving me a walk to lower elevations to find free flowing, reachable surface water many times. Rainy season or dry it is a permanent part of my kit.

I’m planning to try a replacement, a new fuel flow squeeze bulb from an outboard motor. I think it would give a constant feed of water and may reduce the tedium a bit. Has anyone tried this yet? Mac
 

bambodoggy

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 10, 2004
3,062
50
49
Surrey
www.stumpandgrind.co.uk
I often carry a 3 foot length of plastic tubing like my dad used to use in his wine makings when I'm out and about in the great outdoors.... I also often wrap black electrical tape around one end of it to about a foot along it (Just a handy place to store the tape).....then if I'm unsure about the drinkability of the water I use the tape to tape the tubing onto the end of my survival straw to reach those hard to get to places.... :eek:):

It's not really hard to find water in the Uk as it does like to rain a fair bit but this is still a usefull and light thing to carry as the tubing is only about 1/4" wide.
 

match

Settler
Sep 29, 2004
707
8
Edinburgh
Carrying something like a siphon tube is often a good idea, both for bushcraft tasks (such as water extraction) and for more everyday tasks, such as siphoning fuel out of tanks etc for emergency fire-lighting etc.

I tend to always carry a piece of plastic tubing with me, in that I often use a platypus for carrying water, and the one I bought came with a tube drinking attachment with mouthpiece. Removing the mouthpiece turns it into a siphon tube. (Note: Always remember what you've used it for siphoning, and remember NOT to then attach it to your fresh drinking water if its had muddy water/fuel in it! :) )

In terms of wicking, there are often many forms of wicks that can be used that most people have in their kit - string, cord etc. However, A good natural source of wicking is sedge grass, which has a pithy core that acts as a natural wicking (its also very useful for oil lamp wicks).
 

Stuart

Full Member
Sep 12, 2003
4,141
50
**********************
tucked about my person when i am in the bush I always have 2 meters of surgical tubing.

its incredibly useful stuff not only for pocuring water (which was the original reason I started carrying it) but this stuff is extremely stretchy and can be used for all manner of bindings, catapults and spring snares
 

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