Rowboat in a Hurricane (11 page)

Colin stopped rowing and pulled the oars on deck. We stuffed blocks of closed-cell foam—cut out from one of our fenders—into the scuppers to prevent water from flowing onto the deck and into the open hatches. I read out the desired bounty from the list, and Colin retrieved it. The food piled up in the cabin: a bag of rice, six apples, a pouch of dehydrated potatoes, a box of tapioca, five sachets of pudding, two cans of green beans . . . Thankfully, very little water had leaked into the starboard compartments.

But at the fourth hatch, Colin reached in, grimaced, and pulled out handfuls of bloated, dripping pasta. The hatch was full of water. Some of the food was in sealed cans, but much of it wasn’t. We had lost ten kilograms of precious noodles—half of all our pasta—and a bag of flour. Although we still had rice, dried bread, and dehydrated potatoes, we’d lost a significant portion of our carbohydrate supply. The cans exposed to the corrosive salt water were quickly rusting, so we would have to use them soon. The rest of our compartments had fared better, although some of our lemons and cabbages had started to rot from dampness, leaving a horrific smell. The malodour of the cabbage was especially pervasive, and even after we tossed the rotting vegetable over the side and washed the compartment with bleach, the smell lingered for the remainder of our Atlantic crossing. We lovingly called this compartment the “cabbage cupboard.”

We had budgeted for two hot meals a day, breakfast and dinner. Lunch was a variation on sandwiches: dried breads with meat, cheese, peanut butter or jam. The first meal of the day was pudding or porridge followed by instant coffee, both heavily loaded with full-fat milk powder. We rotated between rice pudding, oatmeal, semolina, and tapioca, with caramel, banana, or vanilla pudding mix sometimes added in. My favourite was tapioca; Colin preferred vanilla rice pudding. For special occasions, we had pancakes with whipped cream that came in small Tetra Paks. Dinner was a carbohydrate, such as instant mashed potatoes or rice, and a protein (usually canned tuna or canned beef stew), with canned vegetables on the side every other night.

The calm weather continued into the next day, and we persisted with overdue chores. Colin did several phone interviews with newspapers back home and wrote in his journal. We wrote an update for our website and dictated it to Dean Fenwick, our de facto home-base coordinator, who in turn read out e-mails people had sent us. We called our parents. I poured vegetable oil over Colin’s hair and worked out two massive dreadlocks. We lathered ourselves up with buckets of water and rinsed with quick dips in the ocean—quick because of the danger of sharks and because of our rigorous rowing schedule.

Things were starting to take on a sense of normalcy. We’d wake up at
6
:
00 AM
and row until
2
:
00 AM
. I had the first shift, Colin the last. Colin made breakfast and I prepared dinner. Lunch was fend-for-yourself. We brushed our teeth twice a day and bathed when we could. Despite cramped quarters and round-the-clock slave labour, we fell into comfortable routines, and I couldn’t help but marvel at the ability of humans to adapt to extreme conditions. Around the world, people have learned to cope with temperatures from minus fifty degrees Celsius to plus forty. Homes are made out of whatever material is at hand, whether snow, mud, straw, or leaves. And now Colin and I had finally adapted to life in a quarter-inch plywood rowboat in the middle of the ocean.

Back in Canada, while researching our proposed voyage, I had contacted several ocean rowers. I clearly remember the words of one cynical rower from Britain who offered this advice to help me envision the ocean rowing experience: “Climb under your kitchen table and don’t come out again for three months.” I had laughed at the time, but now I was realizing how true this statement was. It takes time for the mind to adjust to such a bizarre reality. I felt my mind simplifying in order to cope with the small world we lived in. Basic things like eating a cookie or watching a colourful sunset gave me immense pleasure. I found it intriguing how differently identical experiences can be perceived, depending on mood and environment.

Now I couldn’t help but reassess my needs. What did I really need in life? What was most important to me? What made me happy? It seemed strange that, despite such a precarious existence, all I needed to be content was some food in my stomach and calm weather. I wasn’t sure if my sudden inner peace was a result of removing the complexities of life in civilization, or if it was the same happiness that comes when the hammer stops pounding your cranium. After all, for the first ten days, I had been miserable, scared, seasick, and malnourished. Regardless, I now felt pleased with our new lifestyle and no longer dreaded the expanse that lay ahead of us.

One of the reasons I like long self-propelled journeys is because they help me to view the world and myself differently. I don’t know whether it’s the lack of distractions, the rigorous exercise, or the new experiences, but I come away from these journeys wiser and happier. I thought back to when I was trekking through the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal. A young boy had ran up to me and asked, “Why are you travelling alone, where are your friends? I will walk with you.” As we walked through the villages, he waved to everyone he saw, saying, “That is my sister, that is my aunt,” and so on. For the Nepalese, as in many less developed countries, family is the centre of their existence. Families live together, work together, and eat together. No one has a four-figure salary, car, or home with appliances, but they do have a very strong sense of community.

While Colin rowed and I daydreamed, I suddenly noticed a shape in the distance.

“What’s that?” I said.

Colin paused on the oars and squinted in the direction I was pointing. “What?”

“It’s gone now, but I think I saw a fin,” I said.

“Was it a shark?”

“I’m not sure. It was quite big.”

I peered into the depths looking for any sign of the animal, but saw nothing.

Colin had a distant look in his eyes, and I knew he was about to reflect on his sailing days, “I actually knew of a boat that was attacked by a sha . . . ”

PHHHHHHHHAAAAAART

A sudden exhalation, like the airbrakes on a semi, made me jump. Colin fell right off the rowing seat in fright and rolled onto the deck. A shower of spray shot into the air six metres away from us.

Between bursts of laughter, I managed to squeak out, “It’s a whale.”

Another burst of spray shot into the air and the unmistakable odour of foul fish wafted our way. The whale’s back rose out of the water like a submarine surfacing. The mammal was dark grey and looked to be about six metres long. We watched in awe as it swam next to us, though I was a little concerned at its close proximity. But Colin assured me that all whales are excellent navigators (they use both sight and sonar) and that the chances of it mistakenly hitting our boat were very low. After an all-too-short visit, it dove under our boat and disappeared into the depths for good.

“I think that was a minke whale,” I said excitedly, flipping through the pages of our guidebook. I knew that minke whales lived in these waters and that this whale was relatively small and narrow, which is typical of the species. “They’re the second-smallest baleen whales; adults are on average seven metres long and weigh five tonnes,” I said after looking in our guidebook. “They may be small by whale standards, but they’re about the length of our boat and six times as heavy.” The ocean is the only environment on Earth where animals can grow to such proportions.

Minke whales have earned themselves the unfortunate but appropriate nickname “stinky minke” among whale watchers. Their halitosis stems in part from their astounding ability to hold their breath for up to twenty minutes, allowing them to dive to great depths in search of food. They eat tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill as well as other crustaceans and fish. To catch prey, the minke whale has hundreds of baleen plates that hang down from the roof of its mouth. The baleen plates work like a sieve, filtering its meal from the copious amount of water that passes through its mouth.

The minke whale is known for being curious towards boats, and it generally travels solo unless it is in feeding grounds. Our visitor was most likely a northern minke, which inhabits much of the Northern Hemisphere and has a distinguishing white band on its flippers.

The minke’s small size is partially responsible for its relative abundance, as it has made them of little value to large-scale whaling operations in the past. Ironically, their name immortalizes the inept Norwegian whaler Miencke, who accidentally harpooned one instead of the coveted blue whale. Minkes weren’t desirable to whalers when their larger counterparts, such as the blue, were plentiful, but that has changed as those populations have declined and restrictions were implemented. The International Whaling Commission, a governing body that protects whale populations, established a moratorium on commercial whaling in
1986
. Nonetheless, a quick browse through the reports on the IWC website shows that minke whales continue to be hunted for different reasons: in Japan for scientific purposes and in Greenland for aboriginal sustenance. Anti-whaling groups are critical of some of these practices. In
2007
the
WWF
published a report titled
Japanese Scientific Whaling: Irresponsible Science, Irresponsible Whaling
that concluded, “Overall, the scientific research conducted by Japan is nothing more than a plan designed to keep the whaling fleet in business.” But others argue that minke whale populations are robust. Norway, for instance, resumed whaling in
1993
, and its embassy website states that minke whaling is an “environmentally sound means of food production.”

I hoped our spouting friend would have a long life and that its visit would mark the start of regular visits by other marine mammals and fish. We had seen very little wildlife in the sea, whereas just a few decades ago, adventurers who had crossed oceans in similarly slow-moving boats—such as John Fairfax in his ocean rowboat or Thor Heyderdahl in his
Kon-Tiki
raft—had seen whales, dolphins, turtles, sharks, and fish on a regular basis. It certainly felt as though I was observing the declining biodiversity of our world’s oceans with my own eyes.

The whale didn’t stay as long as we would have liked, and soon we were alone again. But our solitude wasn’t lengthy.

“There’s a boat coming towards us,” Colin said.

“Well, get some clothes on,” I said. “I’m sure that whoever they are, they’re not going to enjoy seeing your hairy ass.”

I tossed Colin a pair of shorts through the hatch and he stopped rowing to pull them on. I wiggled into my swimsuit. We had stopped wearing clothes because of salt sores. Continual spray from the ocean made our clothes unbearably salty, and the fabric chafed our skin. With limited fresh water, we couldn’t wash our clothes. The only solution was to abandon clothing altogether. The salt sores had disappeared, but I worried we were being exposed to far too much
UV
radiation. The sunscreen we applied several times throughout the day seemed to wear off much too quickly from sweat and waves to be able to contend with the intense subtropical sun.

I craned my head through the hatch and watched as a small ship approached our vessel. A line of crew members stood against the rail looking towards us, making it obvious they were not on a collision course. A rumbling diesel propelled the wooden vessel, which looked like a fishboat. Two dogs barked excitedly, tails wagging; they looked as though they were about to jump over the side.

“Buenos días,”
a man yelled from the wheelhouse.

“Hola,”
Colin responded, casually continuing to row.

Our craft looked very similar to a lifeboat, and several freighters had already radioed to ask if we needed assistance. This crew of salty fishermen probably thought we were a couple of castaways. We did our best to look and sound like two people nonchalantly and purposely rowing across the ocean.

“Bonita día,”
I yelled, not even sure if I was speaking in Spanish.

The man in the wheelhouse fired a series of incomprehensible questions while he steered the boat in circles around us.

I smiled and pointed to their boat.
“Español?”

“Si.”

When the captain realized we were not in distress, his face broke into a broad grin.
“Loco, loco.”

I turned on the video camera and emerged from the cabin to film our visitors. By now they had gotten over their bewilderment, and the entire crew burst into applause. They excitedly shouted unintelligible questions. We must have been quite a sight to these hardened fishermen. I looked like a typical bikini-clad tourist, while Colin sported the beard and wild hair of a castaway. When we managed to explain that we were bound for Miami, another bout of cheers erupted. After more hand-waving and barely comprehensible exchanges, they left and we were alone again.

OUR NEXT VISITORS
were even more unusual. I was rowing when I saw what looked like a housefly buzzing over the stern of the boat. It landed on the railing, took a few steps, and then flew to another part of the boat. This would seem perfectly normal if we were tied up at the dock, but the nearest land was four hundred kilometres away. I wondered whether it had been with us the whole time, but that didn’t seem likely. I puzzled over how it had ended up so far away from land.

Later that day we saw a small white moth and another fly (or perhaps the same one). A hoverfly and a dragonfly appeared the following day. We couldn’t understand it. The nearest land was the northwestern tip of Africa, but it was hundreds of kilometres away. Insects rarely fly ten kilometres from shore, let alone four hundred. We theorized that perhaps an unusual meteorological wave had swept them high into the troposphere and deposited them over the ocean.