Ms. Jelinek Pi Reporter

Ms. Jelinek Pi says he spent 227 days as a castaway at sea. Back on the raft and lifeboat, Pi kept himself busy with tasks. His daily schedule includes chores and activities. He fed himself and Richard Parker, kept the vessel functioning smoothly, and stimulated his mind with prayers and writing. Of the months at sea, Pi says he survived only because he managed to forget the very notion of time.

Pi’s clothes decomposed over time, and the constant wetness causes sea boils. He had to lived stark naked except the whistle that dangled around his neck. Pi read the survival manual, he tried to understand the mysterious clues about navigation, but he is confused. He continued to fish, he used his bare hands to grabbed the fish and chopped their heads off with hatchets. He learned to train a net in the water as a lure, so some days he caught more fish than he can eat. He also learned that turtles are a relatively easy catch, but turtles are heavy to lift onboard. Pi spent many hours observing the sea life and collected on the underside of his raft and ate some of it. He described the smell of signal flares, which was never responded by anybody.

Pi butchered a small hawksbill turtle and drank its blood, which the survival manual recommended as a nutritious and salt-free thirst quencher. Because the turtle is too unwieldy for the raft, Pi had to do this butchery on the lifeboat tarpaulin. He decided that he needs to train Richard Parker to allow him onto the lifeboat more regularly. Pi presented a training manual for taming a wild creature in a lifeboat at sea. Then he described his training attempts, during which he goaded Richard Parker by stomped on the middle bench of the boat and blew the whistle. He had a turtle shell for a shield. During the first training practice, Richard Parker knocked Pi into the water, but Pi persisted and he conquered his fear against water. Before each practice, he caught another turtle and made a new shield. Finally, by the fifth shield, he was able to force Richard Parker back into the bottom of the boat by blew on the whistle and rocked the boat to make Richard Parker feel nausea.