Cedar Bark
Willow Branch
Ranger Joanne had a gun
State Indian Museum
SHe had seen castaway
easier with two people
lint
Ishi using a single stick
Hand drill thing

hand drill didn't reciprocate, just unwound

3rd day
I was sure I would succeed today
, Mike helped with photographs, got a bit of smoke, like from 3 idle cigarettes, but it got dark so I gave up for the night.
first rope broke.


4th day
I was sure I would succeed today. Almost bought a hardwood dowel

nothing straight & thick enough
rope was stretched out enough to be very snug against the bigger stick. felt very very promising. 
river trip
scary area with homeless
straight hard dry sticks
cut one short, thick as a drummers drumstick, when I dropped it, it sounded like a drumstick.
wider and stronger, it looked very promising.
Bottlecap was hot this time.  Promising...ok, annoying. 
red ember!!!! , smoking by itself. blew and blew and..the waiting seemed to do as much as the blowing. got a tiny flame as big as a cat's tongue ..blew too much and it went slowly out.

ten cigarettes of smoke.

I tried one more time, got a smaller ember & blew that one out faster.  It is so great to see the smoke still coming up after I stop spinning the shaft.

5th day camera ran out of film

6th day bought a redwood stake a half-inch thick.

The secret is to grind out a small pile of extremely hot powdery sawdust, which will foster an ember. It needs to be about the size of the pink eraser on the back of a pencil. Making this little smoldering pile requires the whole violent heat-generation process to be stationary enough to allow a small pile to collect.  This is where slow, careful engineering comes in. Also, the graceful touch that comes with practice allows it to happen gently.