I have, on a couple of occasions in the past, orchestrated scenes where I was tied to some immovable object under the mud. In the best ones, I was barely able to reach the surface for air, and those were like living out my darkest fantasies.

A long time ago, I tied myself such that I had to dive under the mud to untie the knot that was holding me, but it was very tight and my buoyancy was holding tension on it. It took me countless attempts to work it loose and untie it, while barely being able to reach the surface for air between attempts, and often undoing my progress, as the knot would tighten again under the tension.

More recently, I tied myself to a board that I had driven into the thick mud, and that time I could not reach the knot at all. I had assumed I could wiggle the board free, or dive down to untie the knot. It turned out the knot was in thick mud and my legs were in the wrong position to allow me to reach it, even if I could have pushed my hands into the thick mud while bound under the surface with no way to breathe, my fingers would not have had a chance to untie the knot. Wriggling the board free was my last hope, and I nearly exhausted myself before I managed to break it free of the mud.

This past Thursday, I went into the swamp with a mission. I was going to set up one of these scenes and tie myself as deep in the mud as I could go. I took a breathing tube so I would not be deprived of air if I was held beneath the surface, and I made sure I had a knife available to cut myself free. Having planned carefully, I didn’t have any life and death struggles. If I hadn’t taken extra precautions, I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it.

I spent well over an hour getting everything setup and getting tied down three separate times. The deepest I went, I needed the breathing tube to breathe, but I could still get my eyes above the surface, so I could see a bit. The closest I came to being stuck was on the 2nd go, and I had to use the knife to cut a rope. I’m not sure escape would have been possible without a cutting tool.

After all that struggling and near drowning, I spread myself out on top of the mud, still tethered to that immovable board, and had a bit of a pleasure stretch. The video is very long and a bit spotty, since most of the time I couldn’t even get out to move the camera, and I was mostly focused on seeing how close I could get to the edge without going over.

I won’t be keeping this web-site up much longer. It’s taking too much valuable time and sales have been dismal. I’ve been talking about the winding down of this project for a while. I think we’re down to the last season, and the season will be over in a couple months. I’ll be sure to post something as my plans solidify.