Which 3 things?

[Scott Graham]

You and 2 of your fellow passengers have survived a plane crash into the sea. In the distance you see a very small island, before you swim to it you can each take one thing from the wreckage. It can be anything you can think of as long as you can still swim with it except a boat or other mode of transport. Once you reach the island you realise it's only 25 square meters, with one coconut tree on it and the island is 4000km to the nearest land so mobile communications wont work. Due to the commotion of you arriving on the island the sharks have been attracted to the island and are surrounding it. So which 3 things and why?
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[Kitosdad]

Scott, is this a trick question, and do you have a logical answer?

One thing I would take would be a mirror, to attract the attention of any passing ships or low flying aircraft.
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[Scott Graham]

Hi Kitos,
No, it's no trick question, it's just a way to see how people imagine situations and communicate their ideas. For example someone once said to me they would take a bottle, a piece of paper and a pen so they could send for help with a message in a bottle. Where on the other hand another lady said she would take a bikini, some tanning oil and a bottle of rum. So ok a mirror is very sensible and would probably help your chances of being rescued, but what else would you take?
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[Prezbucky]

1) Rope
2) A metal knife, preferably serrated (a saw would be okay too)
3) Matches

With the knife I could saw the palm tree into logs and make a raft out of it, using some of the rope to tie the logs together.

The knife could also be used to kill things... like the fish we catch. It'd also be used to open coconuts.

With the matches, a spear made from some leftover wood and a small torch I could spear some fish -- food. The light from the torch attracts them.

While on the raft we'd keep some kindling around and light it with the matches -- at night the fire would stick out like a sore thumb and hopefully garner the attention of a passing plane or boat.

As for water... we would drink our own urine if we had to.

We'd also have the coconuts, of course, to provide a food supplement to the fish and some liquid to drink.

But the rope is essential -- if we tied up the raft with palm fronds, I doubt they'd hold for a potential trip of over 2000 miles. Probably would be better to use the fronds to make a sail for the raft. The sail would also give us some shade from the sun during hot spells.

Sharks get a bad rap -- they don't generally like eating humans. We'd wait for a few days on the island to let the sharks relax a bit and go back to their usual duties (which doesn't include eating humans). That would also give us time to build our raft and to catch and store some fish.

My biggest worry would be staying adequately hydrated. Hopefully piss, coconut milk and fish fluids would be enough. And hopefully it would rain -- then we could collect water in the coconuts.
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