Desert in the swamp?

[Robert Sobczak]

There's the dry SEASON ...
and then there's the DRY season.

And then there's the "desert in the swamp:"

http://www.gohydrology.org/2012/03/desert-in-swamp.html

[Swamp Hunter]

Good to know about charcoal, thanks. I imagine if I searched online I could find directions.  You can always boil. But as thirsty as I was, there was no way I was going to wait for water to boil and cool down again lol.  Besides Im not sure my tinfoil cups would have held up under fire. I was thirsty and I couldnt wait. I can respect your ability to hold back drinking. I was lucky to find a deep clean water hole. Im not sure I could have made it back without water.

[Michael Palozzola]

There is a very important word in your story Dale... FLOWING. If the water has a current to it and you are confident there is no waste deposit up river GENERALLY you are fine. There is always a chance for pathagins tho. I have drank everglades water plenty of times as well as stream water from the mountains of both NY and NC. The MAJOR issue comes into play when dealing with stagnant water in small puddles bogs pits etc.

[Michael Palozzola]

You can actually sterilize water without boiling ... if i remmember rights its 140degrees for 45min ... not hot enough to melt many containers... but takes even longer then boiling obviously. And haveing the ability to keep my hair/face and shirt wet with cold well water was the only think keeping me from having to constantly drink more.

[Swamp Hunter]

I understand.  I could have gotten sick. I dont believe the park rangers would advise anyone to drink swamp water today.

 

The water underground is almost always flowing slowly South or SW. Thats why the old timers scratched out wells by digging holes and waiting for it to filter in. But its almost impossible to dig a decent hole without a shovel.

 

Somebody mentioned the pump went dry on Frog Hammock so it wasnt very deep. You were smart in not drinking it. I may have drank it and got very sick. I understand exactly your situation. It gets like a desert out there. "Desert in the Swamp."

[Swamp Hunter]

Good to know thanks.. I remember watching a video about actually boiling water in a plastic jug held high above a campfire.

[Michael Palozzola]

And all in all, being found alive and spending the next week in the hospital with parasites, is better then being found dead.

[Michael Palozzola]

I actually brought the left over water to one of my professors who was doing a lecture on micro organisms the next week. He took a look at the water and said  there were no visible organisms, granted this does not eliminate ALL possibilities since he was just using a regular microscope but it does eliminate the larger organisms

[Swamp Hunter]

You got me to thinking so I did a little reading.  http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/water.html

[Michael Palozzola]

You have to be careful with what you read online though. You can literally scare yourself into a bubble. Unfortunately that article doesn't give any information on size of the parasites it mentions.

Parasites in the world are filtered out by even a .3 micron filter(many water filtration system available in outdoors stores around the country have at least a .3micro filtration) because most parasites are large, 2,5,10+ microns. What you really have to watch is virus's which can be as small as 20 nanometers which is .02 microns and unfortunately there are not many readily available civilian water filters which can do that. BUT in North America viruses are VERY VERY rare in all but the nastiest sewer water.

[Swamp Hunter]

Will my simple coffee filters filter out large parasites?  When I used my shirt, I was mainly trying to filter out insect larvae, fish poop and dirt.  I always cover my water jugs but I wonder if mosquito larvae is even dangerous to ingest?   

Ill have to read about viruses.

[Michael Palozzola]

Looking around I found this on Backpackinglight.com:

So it appears paper coffee filters have a pore size of somewhere in the range of 15 microns or less. Of course, each brand of paper coffee filter is no doubt made to different specifications, and given the cheapness of these paper filters and the fact that the application is not critical, don't be suprised to find a 100 micron hole in a filter now and then. If you want guaranteed pore sizes for a paper filter, then you'll need to use laboratory filter paper, such as that sold by Whatman Corporation.

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My web searching research some months ago revealed a nominal 5-15 micron pore size for paper coffee filters. However, just like you said pore size is not controlled, so an absolute largest pore size number is NOT even given.

Many parasites will slide through under that 15micron filter. Are coffee filters useless? No I would say some filtration is better then none, I'm sure there are parasites which are larger then 15micron and those would all be removed, also you will remove dirt, insects, larvae etc.

I doubt ingesting mosquito larvae would be dangerous. MANY animals eat the larvae as a food source, so I would assume your stomach would simply digest those larvae like any other protein.