*BOV Bug-Out*

By Jaden & Nerisa

03 October 2003

Well the other day was kinda drizzly and rainy so we decided it’d be a good night to go Bug-out. Decided on a BOV breakdown scenario.

Driving thru the dirt road back streets here and the BOV dies. Can’t fix it. Help won’t arrive until morning.

So we drove out into the woods and found a nice quiet spot and shut the BOV off. Deal was we could use anything in the truck. Anything was fair game.

Well in the BOV bag where some of the survival gear is kept is a tent. Oh crap, the tent’s got a big hole in it, need to use something else for a shelter. Ok, tarps will work.

The BOV bag and contents (more has been & being added)

Here it is about 2130 hours and pitch-black dark. Rain has more or less stopped, but water is still falling from the trees.

We found a fairly flat spot and laid out a ground tarp. Then ran a rope between 2 trees and hung a second tarp over it.

Nerisa coming out of hibernation

Using the multitude of bungeeeeeeee cords we bungeed the roof tarp down and bungeed the floor tarp up. We made the bottom one into a bowl by raising all four sides. (Used the rope between the trees to attach to.) This allowed the top tarp to extend over the bottom and provide better shelter AND if it rained in the night (and it did) the water couldn’t get inside, it just ran underneath us. We were totally dry all night.

Once shelter was made I taught Nerisa about building a fire with soaking wet (or is it?) wood.

Scraped around camp (amongst a bunch of hardwood) and found small tinder and a bunch of it. Then start working up into bigger fuels. Got to the ½" diameter stuff and the surface of it was wet. Gave it a snap and it easily broke…that means it’s dry inside. SO… using my Coldsteel knife I rapidly shaved the bark off. The wood underneath was bone dry. Then I CAREFULLY used the knife to split it. I used a big root as a chopping block.

Hold the knife on the end of the stick then while holding both the knife and stick, tap the bottom end of the stick on the root until the knife starts to penetrate. Then let go of the stick and pound a little harder and soon you have a split piece.

WATCH YOUR FINGERS!!!!

About 10-15 minutes from the time I lit it

Splitting the wood

Building a fire on the wet ground and with wet wood takes a lot of patience and practice. I’ve done this before. It took like 30 minutes to build up to a good size. Nothing big, but enough to that I didn’t have to nurse it along anymore.

Remember to BUILD your fire BEFORE you light your fire. Have enough small tinder and other fuel on hand. Don’t light the fire and then start running around looking for wood.

So, this was a simple short over nighter. Using anything in the truck meant many options for fire starting, shelter or whatever. Sometime soon we hope to do a Bug-Out-Bag bug out and strike off into the woods with just the packs and having to build a shelter and live from the BOB’s. That will be a lot of fun.

Jaden & Nerisa