Kathy's Lost At Sea Diary

Production team Day 1

Working with Ellen. A rare delight! We’re making Kate a lifejacket. Ellen’s optimistic. I’m a bit less so. The difference is - she’s seen rubber being tapped and hardened before. I’m unconvinced we can make something completely watertight.

Ellen’s keen to use kapok. It comes from a tree - and is what used to be used for lifejackets. Sounds a promising beginning. It’s pretty good at being water resistant, but will sink if it gets waterlogged.

I’m keen to use something in addition to the rubber we plan to tap to keep the kapok dry.

We have balloons. I imagine filling them with kapok, and blowing them up with some extra air too. And also including some small balloons just with air in to add some extra buoyancy.

The latter idea - great. The former idea - hopeless: to get the kapok in - I had to crush it like mad, which forces all the air out, and defeats the whole object.

We spent the day sewing. It feels hideously girley. I am so lousy at sewing,  too. Ellen’s stitches are all neat & beautiful. Mine all random & all over the shop. We made up a ridiculous orange, flowery lifejacket - all ready to be rubberised.

Kate looked distinctly unimpressed!

Production team

Day 2

Off rubber collecting at 6am. The rubber latex flows early in the day - so we had to leave early.

A gorgeous morning, in a beautiful rubber plantation, watching the sun rise through the trees.

And rubber collecting is AMAZING! You just scrape the sharp tool around a nick in the tree - and out oozes white latex. The nick is diagonal - pointing downwards - so the white goo just pours out and down and into a small tub, perched just below the lowest point, balanced with a twig.

So - you gouge lots of trees; have some breakfast, then return to pick up the tubs of latex.

Easy - if you don’t plough into a nest of giant killer, red ants.

I knew we were in trouble when Tony, the camera man, dropped the camera to the ground and began swearing. He’s tough as nails and regularly kneels on thorn bushes to film without even a flinch.

Soon enough - we all knew what was going on. Enormous red ants, which climbed unnoticed up your trousers, then began biting - viciously - your calf, knees and inner thighs - almost simultaneously. They were agony! And seemingly unstoppable.

Rosie - the director - shrieked “I’m so sorry - I have to take off my trousers”. I only had a couple of bites, so not too bad. Ellen - true to form - once free of ants - went back in for more to let Tony get some on film once he’d recovered.

Next we had to just wander about, tipping the latex into a bucket. It was such a good feeling! It felt like one of the dreams I have, where I’m collecting masses of something lovely.

Freshly oozed out of beautiful trees was this white, somehow “healthy-looking” liquid. It looks just like creamy milk. And we just got to collect it up and take it away and make it useful. What a joy!

Tempted to get bucketfuls. But figured we probably only needed 5 litres.

Back at the set, we had a monster afternoon from hell. We had to coat the material with the latex, then smoke it. We added some sulphur, which, when heated with the latex, gets the rubber to “vulcanise” - becoming stronger, more elastic and more durable.

The lifejacket we’d sewed at such length quickly scrunched up irreversibly into a tacky ball once the latex began to dry. Clearly - that was not the way! We’d have to start again with sheets of material – and made sure they stayed flat. If the material folded over - the tackiness would make it stick to itself - or to other bits of material.

So - making smoky fires all afternoon. Then standing in smoke, turning hot sheets of material over and stoking up the fires. Really hot, exhausting work, on a really hot day. So easy to almost have a sheet done, then add a last layer of latex - and lose the plot and allow a bit to stick to itself.

Deeply satisfying though. Ended up with thick sheets of what looked and felt a bit like leather. Left it out to dry overnight.

Production team

Day 3

Woke up to amazing sheets of rubberised material. Seemed reasonably waterproof - but wanted to try it out properly in the sea.

Sewed up a small bag. Stuck the edges - in the end, after lots of experimenting - using the soldering iron, which seemed to melt and burn the rubber a bit, and make it stick to itself.

We filled it with kapok & balloons, tied on some rocks and took it into the sea. It was great! Stayed up well - and carried many more rocks than we’d imagined.

… But Kate probably weighs a bit more than we imagine too!

We worked like demons, sticking it all together, stuffing the different bits. Just as we thought it was coming together, with only an hour left before Kate was meant to leave, we ran into trouble. Everything was stitched - apart from the holes we’d left to stuff it all. Once the Kapok had gone in though - it stuck to the sheets, and rendered them ‘unsticky’. They just would not seal.

So we scrabbled around, trying to find a glue that would remotely work. It was appalling - if the whole thing was waterproof - apart from a slit - it would be useless.

Firstly found that using the soldering iron to melt glue sticks worked adequately. By now - we’d run out of time. Desperately trying to finish before complete darkness so Kate could be filmed going off with her gear.

Just made it in time. Barely. Had been another long, exhausting day - and we still had to rescue Kate!

Waited around in the dark, admiring the stars and amazing clear Milky Way …waiting for Kate’s signal.

I’d had a restless night - and woken in the early hours thinking it was madness to go off in a boat from shore ‘towards’ where we’d seen a flare. In the dark - how would we tell if we were really going the right way? The stars perhaps … but a compass would be easier. So we made one.

We saw the flare. It was cool …We set off. Although Kate was being carried pretty swiftly along by the current, so she’d probably moved a fair way. We could hear her yells once we’d travelled out some distance.

And her lifejacket worked a treat. She didn’t sound stressed enough really. She was so buoyant and comfy in the water, it made the rescue feel less dramatic.

And when she finally appeared (we’d seen the flashing light long before we saw her) - she looked really angelic - with big, yellow wings and her mop of blonde (dry!) hair.

So - an amazing challenge. Fantastic flare from Mike; lights to come on in water and be powered by water from JJ and our beautiful lifejacket.