Epic adventurer Lifestraw

My Lifestraw was delivered today!

A Lifestraw is a very cool device for personal water filtration. Its guaranteed to deliver 1000 litres of clean safe drinking water from any dodgy water source. The Murray River is one big dodgy water source, so a it fits the bill perfectly.

It looks like this, and weighs almost nothing.

According to the packaging, it does what all the other water treatment methods claim or better.

Apparently, my little Lifestraw removes 99.9999% of waterborne bacteria, 99.9% of waterborne parasites, and provides a minimum of 1000 litres of clean drinking water.

I also bought a PermaNet 2.0 mosquito net that not only claims to keep mosquitoes at a safe distance, but also kills them when they land on it. That means the world health organisation thinks its ok to use me as bait.

Fair enough I guess.

So basically my Lifestraw is a stack of tiny straws crammed into a tube with a sippy cup mouthpiece at one end. You stick the blunt end into a stock trough, or creek you dont quite trust, and drink through the mouthpiece as if it were a gigantic straw, and bam! you keep living.

My PermaNet 2.0 is a mosquito net.

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Epic adventurer Solar fail safe kill switch

Ive been worried about all my dodgy electronics on my solar boat, so I figured I should have a master kill switch that couldnt fail, and came up with a fuse holder and a 6mm bolt, tied to some artfully arranged paracord in the form of a survival bracelet that my brother made for me.

Cut the threaded bit off the bolt, tie a nice grippy paracord handle to it, then put the bolt in the fuse holder that connects all the electrics to the positive terminal.

One pull and everything stops.

It should work.

If it does, I should also be able to clip onto it with with a 2m bungee cord when I want to move around the boat if Im under way. That way if I fall off, the motor will stop. I think its called a dead mans switch. I was originally planning to create one digitally, and I still might if it turns out to be a pain, but if I need it, Ill build it on the boat. If I did it digitally, Id make a simple sonic tape measure with a PICAXE chip that would notice if I left my chair. Then it would beep in 60 seconds, then kill all power to the motor if I didnt wave my hand in front of it within 15 seconds.

I think I prefer paracord and my bolt fuse.



120 Things in 20 years realises a solar deadmans switch sounds like safety overkill, but Ill have junk everywhere, no side rails, and 2000km is a long way to chase a boat moving slightly faster than I can swim on the Murray River.

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