I have hoarded too many books on how to survive the apocolypse. But one of my favourites is "Sailing the Farm" by Ken Neumeyer. Subtitled "Independence on thirty feet" and "A Survival Guide to Homesteading on the Ocean" this little tome tells the reader how to grow crops and forage for food while at the same time bobbing along in a little sailboat.
Obviously a man who relished the odd challenge now and then, Neumeyer seems to have become a vegetarian and thus even refrained from fishing. No coincidence, then, that he's included a rather comprehensive guide of edible seaweeds.
Written shortly after the oil crisis of 1973, the author sees The End of The World as We Know It looming close by, and also has suggestions on stuff to bring along that can be bartered in hard times. (Gold, weapons and tobacco, to name a few.)
He also has some instructions on how to make sills to destillate water from brine (pictured above), and this seems to be the part that has secured the book some after-life on the internet.
I bought my copy immediately after seeing it mentioned fleetingly in the "Heirloom Technology"-column in Make magazine, judging by the prices on Abebooks the demand has risen considerably since then.
But what a wonderful, weird little book this is.
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