Day Two
I can’t say that I’ve ever drunk my own
urine before. I’ve not had the inclination or
need. So it was probably a sign of the desperation that
Ellen and I had got at the end of day 2 that drove me
to sample my own bottled water.
Things had started well, with Ellen and I leading Kate
to look for water up one of the main dry stream beds
that winds up into the hills from the playa. Again there
were signs of past flowing water in the smoothed rock
surfaces, and as we press on Ellen spots the gradual
vegetation changes that indicates the water table is
getting closer to the surface. When it looks like it
is a metre of so down, we can dig for it, and in the
end the sign is pretty obvious – a small pocket
of lush vegetation and trees growing in damp soil. It
looks as if the water is leaking up from a natural spring
below, probably coming out at the contact between the
sedimentary rocks (shales and sandstone) that we’ve
been trekking through and the volcanic rocks (which
appear to be dark basaltic lava) that start immediately
upstream of the spring. The contact looks like a geological
fault, a deep crack in the rocks that is a natural pathway
for water. Still, we could have done with flowing or
ponded water, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Kate, encouraged by our find, leaves us to dig. We
film a spoof Iain-lets-Ellen-dig-the-holes sequence
and then get on with really digging a few holes. Ellen
actually does end up digging most of the holes, albeit
under careful geological instruction, but they are dry.
The trouble is that we can’t dig exactly where
the lushest vegetation is. An archaeological warden
tells us that our spring ‘oasis’ could be
the site where there might be native American or other
historical cultural remains. The historical cultural
remains seem to be limited to a rusted iron pipe that
once fed water to a mine close by, but our permits for
filming are strict. We dig just down the slope, but
there is no water.
Although we don’t hit water, the wet soil gives
Ellen the idea to convert the holes to solar stills.
This is where you stretch transparent polythene across
a shallow hole and leave the sun to dry out the moist
soil and organic matter – the evaporated moisture
condenses on the underside of the plastic sheet, and
trickles down into a collecting jar in the centre of
the hole. Although we do a few solar stills, we’re
both not confident about the amount of water that we’ll
get, so we come up with a couple of further ideas. Ellen
goes off to ‘bag’ a tree (covering it in
plastic sheeting so that moisture ‘exhaled’
by the leaves condenses) while I go off to pee in one
of my holes.
Now it is rather unnerving being asked to urinate to
order, and an even stranger sensation having a film
crew record it for posterity. For me, it was a potential
BAFTA-award-winning moment for cameraman Keith and sound
recordist Rob, but for them, a clear low-point in otherwise
esteemed professional careers. The objective was to
see if artificially adding ‘moisture’ to
the soil in the hole might get that solar still to yield
a greater amount of water. It is the same principle
as before - the sun’s heat should evaporate off
the water from those salts and chemicals that so spoil
the taste of natural urine, leaving condensed moisture
that is drinkable. Drinkable, that is, only by the provider,
because this process doesn’t filter out potential
biological nasties. In the end, I don’t think
Ellen minded missing out. Still, although a few hours
of solar heating released only a trickle of ‘Scottish’
water, it wasn’t half bad.
(Producer's note: Sadly for Iain, his heroic sacrifice
was sacrificed on the cutting room floor – there
just wasn’t time to show it.)
