This morning’s view as I sit at my new ergonomically correct spot under a cabana by the pool. |
“Sightings on the Beach in Bali”
This morning, three dogs running and playing on the beach. |
Today’s story is about saving your life, the lives of your loved ones and the lives of others in the event of a disaster when a fresh water supply isn’t available. But first, a little background on how Tom (and eventually me) came to a point of following Bob Rinear’s daily posts, not unlike how many have many readers throughout the world have been following our posts.
Tom has been reading Bob Rinear’s financial newsletters, Invest Yourself, for the past eight years. The first few years Tom only read the free edition and later, convinced it was well worth the expense, signed up for the for a lifetime membership for access to the full site and more in depth newsletters. It’s served us well.
Bob’s newsletters not only discuss financial issues in the US and the world, but also includes topics relevant to many of us far beyond the scope of financial matters.
Although Bob is not a stock broker or a licensed financial planner, he shares with his 1000’s of readers “what he does” not what “we should do.” Thus, there’s no pressure to buy investments from him. He doesn’t sell them, nor give advice. However, his wisdom is vast, and we’ve learned a lot from Bob continuing to do so over time.
The first view of the ocean of the four to five hour harrowing drive. |
Today’s post is not intended to advise our readers to pay for a website. That’s entirely up to you and we reap no financial or other gain should you eventually decide to do so.
You may or may not agree with some of Bob’s philosophies, although his well thought out, researched concepts and opinions make for some interesting dinner table conversation. You can decide on that.
What makes us excited about Bob are the truisms he espouses that at many times can easily be incorporated into our lives of travelers. On August 24th, he posted a story about how to save lives in the event of a disaster when fresh water supplies are unavailable.
In reading his post, we were literally in awe of the wealth of information and we encourage our readers to read his post as we’ve shown below, quoted directly from his site, the post entitled: The Water Story.
Next view of the ocean during the long drive to the villa. |
Here’s Bob’s post (although very long), is well worth reading in its entirety:
“8.24.2016 – Financial Intelligence Report
Water is the most amazing fluid on earth, and yet we take it for such granted that no one gives it a moment’s thought. It isn’t just the “cool” facts about water that make it intriguing; such as the fact it is one of the only substances that exists in three states, being liquid, solid and gas without needing extreme temperatures to create each state. Water, for instance, is the only natural substance found in all three physical states at the temperatures that naturally occur on Earth.
During the long drive, we crossed over many rivers, streams and waterways. |
I could go on and on about the mystery that is indeed plain simple water, but for today I want to focus on the importance of it when we’re faced with a situation where there doesn’t seem to be any. Imagine for a moment if you will, a power outage that stops the town pumps from operating or your well from operating. Or maybe a disaster situation such as a flood, or Hurricane, or tornado.
While we take for granted the availability of water; when something ugly happens, water soon becomes a very serious focal point in your immediate life
A stream we crossed on the long drive. |
If your home is secure, meaning you can live there, then, any old water will do as far as flushing the toilets. Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it from the pool, a stream, a retention pond, a creek, a lake, Rain water you’ve collected etc. It doesn’t matter, you’re simply dumping it to flush the toilet. While certainly not convenient, just about everyone lives within a short walk of “some” body of water. Be creative in your thinking. When Sandy hit in NJ, and knocked my house down, my son and I had to move into an RV we had in a local campground. We had to take turns carting water from a small lake nearby, to keep the toilets functioning. It sucked… But it works.
This morning as the tide rises. |
Some people have heard of the “life straw”, but many haven’t. While not the ultimate solution, this thing is cheap, works incredibly well and will keep you alive in ugly situations. It is a filter used by one person, to get a drink out of creeks, lakes, ravines, you name it. For 20 bucks a pop, it is something that everyone should have a few of. But they also make bigger units for filtering enough water for families to use.
Ocean view when we stopped for one break during the drive. |
On the site, they show the inventor drinking out of a polluted tank that they’ve tossed garbage in, rabbit poop in, you name it. He puts the bottle in, pumps the handle and drinks the clean water. It is quite amazing and yes,they have a larger version for more than personal use. It costs 209 dollars, and holds 18 quarts at a time. It too comes with the guarantee of removing virtually everything that can hurt you from a supply as ugly as swamp water. Amazing technology. Find it here…
Now for the more “handy man” of you out there, you can actually build something fairly similar to the Lifestraw family 1, for about 40 bucks. All you need is two food grade 5 gallon buckets, and a couple of these filters…
What you do is take one 5 gallon bucket and drill two holes in the bottom. Take these filters, and “stand them up” so the black plastic flange goes through the holes you just made and use the nut that comes with them to hold them in place. Take that bucket and place it on top of the other bucket. Pour your dirty water in the top bucket, and it will be forced by water pressure through the filters and drip into the bottom bucket. While certainly not as well as the lifestyle or lifesaver, if you started with relatively clean water, all you’d need to do is boil the cleaned water for 3 minutes and you’d have perfectly drinkable water.
If you really want state of the art filtering, then you want one of the true life savers like the “big Berkey”. It will filter out the chlorine and other chemicals you don’t want to be drinking. They’re expensive units, but pretty attractive and work very well. Many people buy them just to run their household water through to get rid of fluoride and chlorine, etc. This is my favorite system, especially for a family.
So obviously here’s my point folks. Yes, you should have some bottled water on hand for an emergency. But if the emergency outlasts your supply, you have to have some way to make water for hygiene and drinking/cooking. Those methods exist and they’re what I’d consider dirt cheap.
The river created by high tide waters next to the villa which is filled at low tide as well. |
So here’s an action plan for you all. Get one lifestraw for each member of your family.They’re 20 bucks a piece. Keep them in your glove compartment or your kids backpack or whatever. They’re for emergency use only, of course, and not the most elegant way of getting water. But if you were stranded somewhere, it could keep you alive.
Tom reads Bob’s newsletters aloud to me a few times each day. After reading this newsletter about water we, along with many of his other readers, were appreciative of having this invaluable information.
Today, continuing our time in Bali, water surrounding us more than ever we find ourselves grateful for this useful and meaningful information. As a result, today’s new photos are all about water since we arrived in Bali a mere four days ago.
You can easily sign up (without any spam) for Bob’s free newsletter, if you’d like by clicking here.
Have a safe and refreshing day with ready access to a fresh water supply at your fingertips.
Photo from one year ago today, September 5, 2015:
The sun rising over Yorkeys Knob, photo taken from our veranda as we wound down our time in Trinity Beach. For more photos, please click here. |