Survivor: Abyss Island – Day 15 Immunity Challenge

The challenging challenge course.

Abyss Island: S1E6 – Nice Cans

Life on the island of late has been pretty good. The spice kit reward has been a tasty boon to my existence and my persistence with the fishing gear finally paid off – I caught a tiny lobster tail!

With my win in this week’s reward challenge I also picked up the second clue to the location of the hidden immunity idol. The clue said something about “stinkin'” and a place where I do my “best thinkin’.” Methinks I should prioritize my search patterns to the bathroom.

On the actual show persnickety survivors start looking for the idol even before they have clues. And somehow, against all odds, there have been times when they’ve been able to find the damn thing even before clues have been released. I smell a rat. (Oh, wait. That was season one.) The producers wouldn’t influence the action, would they?

I can assure you that at least on Abyss Island the producers show no favoritism. It’s sink or swim. Find it your own damn self.

Unlike my televised counterparts, I take a more lackadaisical approach. Even so, I decided to carefully check the bathrooms. I noticed a few things that have been there for years as if seeing them for the very first time. I’d bring them to my wife and say, “This must be the idol!” and she’d heartily laugh at me.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” is the only cryptic response I got. Damn.

So no hidden immunity idol for me just yet. Meanwhile my wife loves tormenting me about it. She just keeps repeating, “You think you know Survivor? I don’t think you’d do so good on the ral thing.”

This weekend, exhausted from my search, I decided to have my lobster catch for dinner. I took the tail and cut it lengthwise cutting the back spine into two pieces. It was the first time in my life I’d ever broken down a lobster. Carefully I peeled off the shell. A quick rinse in the water and I had two nice halves of meat. I diced them up and made a variation of the only recipe I’ve learned this season so far: Lobster Fried Rice. It was delicious.

Finally it was time to check tree mail. Another immunity challenge was at hand. It would be the second one I’d face. So far in challenges I have a record of two wins and one loss. I was looking forward to extending my streak.

It may be heavy, it may be light
If you’ve got the power, you can stand and fight

Don’t let it fall, don’t let it drop
If you do you’ll soon hear the pop

Intriguing. I imagined it might be some sort of balance challenge. If so, I’d probably be screwed. I put on my buff, proudly hoisted my tribe flag, and brought along the tribal immunity idol. It was time to march back into battle.

I should take a quick moment to give a little praise where praise is due. I’d been talking about doing a 39-day Survivor diet challenge for some time. Like most times I shoot off my mouth, nothing was ever going to come of it. Soon, though, my wife starting giving me odds looks. “Are you really going to do this?” she’d ask. Or, “If you’re going to do this, you should do it right. But I don’t think you got the guts.”

It wasn’t long until she was bringing up ideas of her own and egging me on. Coming up with rules, concepts and challenges has all been her doing. In fact, she’s also the one who set date and made it finally happen. I think this is because she had many devious ideas and couldn’t wait to torment me.

My lame idea was “eat like a Survivor” for 39-days. Her idea was to make it more fun. She’s in charge of challenge design, testing and execution. Additionally she takes care of other surprises like tree mail and handling the logistics of bonus items that I’ve been awarded along the way like a small tomato, some kiwi, tangerines and even a little rock lobster tail. It’s more than I bargained for but I have to admit, it has made the experiment a little more interesting and fun.

She’s also the official unbiased and certified arbiter of my success on Abyss Island. If she says I actually did it then it is so. I sure as hell wouldn’t expect you to take my word for it, would I?

So props to my very own Probst, the Abyss Survivor host with the most. Thanks for all of your hard work on this.

OK, enough mushy stuff.

I showed up at the appointed time and place and found a table, a balloon, a pizza peel, and five cans of vegetables, chicken broth, beef broth, etc. This was the sneaky part because I sure as shit thought I was going to be taking those cans home. Mmm, beef broth. Wrong!

Doing an impersonation of Probst, my wife demonstrated that the pizza peel had pins attached to the bottom. My job was to hold the board above the balloon without popping it. Every 30 seconds I’d be required to place a can on the board until all five had been placed. I then had to hold it 30 seconds more.

Success would mean safety for one more week. Failure would mean an instant trip to dreaded tribal council.

I was like, “Oh, shit! No way! A challenge that requires muscles? This is bullshit!”

Summoning my world famous strength of will and determination, I made it through and came out the other side. I was victorious! That’s right, baby, I’m battin’ .750 in challenges now, although I almost injured my baby at the end when the cans went flying right after she announced I had done it. Sorry about that. I’m sorry about denting one of your cans.

Much to my dismay the cans were put away and not sent back to camp with me to join the spice kit. Dammit!

Next up: A reward challenge that my wife hints is really going to be worth playing for. My guess is a field trip to visit the indigenous natives on Abyss Island, perhaps for all-you-can-eat BBQ ribs. Because there has got to be an episode where I overeat and get sick, right? Or maybe I get Skupin-drunk on BBQ sauce. She also hinted that, if I win, I’ll have the option to save my reward for Super Bowl Sunday, so maybe it’s just snacks.

We’ll see!