Underwater Foraging

 Underwater foraging.

 Food is a hot topic at the moment. We are being encouraged to eat less meat and fish, and eat more plant based foods and insects.

Unfortunately, the plant based foods are not organic, locally sourced goodness, it is highly processed garbage designed to keep you sick and docile.

 So, if we want to remain fit and healthy, we need to start obtaining our food in more traditional ways, and I will be exploring a lot of these in coming posts.

I am lucky, that I live relatively close to the coast, and there is an abundance of food in the seas around the UK. You just need to know where to look, and how to catch it.

 I have decided to learn how to forage underwater. There is plenty of food that can be foraged along the shore including shellfish, crustaceans, and seaweed, but if you want to increase your chances of finding food, you have to venture a little way out into the sea itself.

This is not easy. But that is what make this such an attractive proposition. As proper food becomes more scarce, people are going to start looking to the wilds to feed their family. They are going to go for all the "low-hanging fruit" so to speak. The stuff that is easy to find and collect.

This is why it is important to learn how to do the difficult stuff. The stuff that the masses are not capable of doing. 

Underwater foraging can be done in stages, so you don't need to be able to dive to 10m and hold your breath for minutes at a time to begin with. 

So, with this in mind, I am going to start with snorkelling at my local beaches,  just to see what I can find.

This week, I bought enough equipment for me to start exploring the shallows, around the Cornish coast.

I am very lucky to live in Cornwall. Cornwall is one of the best places in the UK for spearfishing and underwater foraging. Because we are almost surrounded by sea, it is normally possible to find somewhere sheltered enough to safely go snorkelling. 

Cornwall also boasts the largest spearfishing shop in the UK.

Spearfishing UK is in St Austell, and this is where I headed, to get kitted out. They have a massive range, but the staff are extremely knowledgeable, and will really look after you. They know that you are going to be a long time customer, and you will probably end up diving with them at some point, so they will do all they can to look after you.

I was very well looked after by ADD NAME LATER. He explained what each piece of kit is for, advised me on what I needed to go snorkelling, and spent a lot of time making sure things like my boots and fins fitted properly. At no point did I feel like he was trying to steer me to buy more expensive kit, or kit I didn't need yet. You are encouraged to try stuff on to ensure a good fit.

Spearfishing UK also does kit hire, and Spearfishing courses.

The equipment I bought, just to get me started, are a mask and snorkel, fins and boots, a crab hook, specimen gauge, line cutter, catch bag, and a bag to carry it all in.

At the moment, I don't have a wetsuit. I am used to swimming in the sea, and I won't be staying in the water for long periods at the moment. I think I will ait until I have done a spearfishing course before investing in a wetsuit.

There are a few laws and regulations surrounding spearfishing,  and I know what you are thinking,  "I thought this blog was about avoiding government overreach", but most of the rules are there to protect stocks, so there will be creatures to catch in the future. I will do a future post about these regulations.  They do tend to be quite local, so you need to look up the rules for your area.

There is no licence needed to buy, own or use a spear gun in the UK, as long as you are over 18.

So, what can you expect to find, just off our beaches in the UK?

Well, in shallow water, with the kit I have, I should see:-

Crab, Lobster, Scallops, Oyster, various fish like Bass, Pollock, Wrasse and Mackerel. I will see a lot of edible seaweed etc.

Obviously, I will not be catching any fish until I get a spear gun and learn how to use it. 

But, there should be plenty to see.

So, this is as far as I have gone on my underwater foraging journey. I will be going in the water for the first time this weekend, and I will write a post about that, soon.

I will also be signing up for a freediving/underwater foraging course very soon.

Check out the resources section for links to things associated with this post.

Later.

DIY Off Grid, Gravity Fed Water Filter

 

At the time of writing (April 2023) a 23Lt Berkey water filter will set you back £465in the UK. Now, that is a lot of money to find, especially with everything else costing a fortune at the moment.
What if I told you, you could make a similar filter in under an hour for around £50?

Well, that is what this post is all about.

We are living in a time when we cannot trust our Government. They are poisoning our air, our food, our medicines and our water.
We need an abundant supply of clean drinking water. You can go weeks without food, but deprive your body of water for a couple of days, and you will start to suffer.

With this filter, you can produce, 23lts of clean, drinking water, in about 8 hours. Fill it before you go to bed, and you will wake up to safe water for you, your family and your pets.

You are going to need a couple of water filter candles, just like the ones used in the Berkey water filters.
The ones I used are from a UK company call Wrekin Water Softeners. They produce very economical filter candles that also filter out 'Fluoride'.
These will cost you £42 as of April 2023 including VAT and delivery.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

You will also need a tap that will bolt through the side of a bucket. The ones used for water butts will do. I used this one from eBay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The last thing you will need is a couple of 25Lt, food grade buckets with lids. Look on Facebook marketplace or similar for fermentation buckets used in Home Brew. Some of these come with a tap fitted.

The only tools you will need are, a drill and some drill bits. I recommend the 'step' drill bits as they leave a really clean hole in the plastic buckets, and you can easily drill the hole the correct size without having to swap drill bits. You can get these from any local tool store or on eBay.

Make sure your buckets are nice and clean. Take one of the buckets and put it upside down on a flat surface like a table. Place one of the lids, upside down, on top of the upturned bucket. We are going to drill two holes through the lid and through the bottom of the upturned bucket.

Make each of these holes about halfway from the centre of the lid to the rim. The holes need to be just big enough for the stem of the filter candle to fit through.
Now, remove the wing nut from the filter candle, making sure to leave the rubber washer in place, and push the stem of the filter candle through the hole from the inside of the bucket, through the lid, and screw the wing nut on finger tight. Do not over tighten this.
Do this for both filter candles, and you should end up with something that looks like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is the main part of the project done. All we need to do now is fit the tap.

Place the second bucket the right way up on a flat surface. Offer up the tap so that no part of the tap is below the bottom of the bucket, and mark where to drill the hole. We don't want the tap to protrude below the bottom of the bucket because it might snap off if you were to put the bucket on the floor for cleaning etc.
Drill the hole for the tap and screw the tap into place, finger tight again. You should have a washer on the inside, and the outside of the bucket. If you only have one washer, then make sure it is on the inside of the bucket. You can see the washers in red in these photos.

It is also a good idea to drill a hole near the very top of the bucket to allow air into the bucket as the water drains out through the tap. It will still work without this, but flow through the tap could be very slow.

 

Now all you need to do is put the bucket with the filters, on top of the bucket with the tap and fill it with water. The first time you fill it, you should discard the water, as it can contain dust and particles from the manufacture of the filter.
After that, you can have nice, clean drinking water for about a year before the filters need replacing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may find that the water flow through the filters will slow down after a while. All you need to do, in this instance, is remove each of the filters and clean them with a soft brush under the cold tap, and they will start working again.

It is recommended, that you replace the filters, about once a year.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.

Shed The State.