Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean
289
Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean
289eBook
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Overview
In 2005-06, Julie Angus and her fiancé Colin rowed 10,000 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean—from Lisbon to Costa Rica—making Angus the first woman in the world to travel from mainland to mainland in a rowboat. The 145-day journey gave Angus, a trained biologist, a unique perspective on the ocean. The slow-moving boat became an ecosystem unto itself, attracting barnacles, dorado fish, trigger fish, turtles, sharks, whales, birds, and more, which she was able to observe and document.
Angus also saw unmistakable signs of the ocean’s devastation, with far more plastic bottles, wrappers, toys, and bags than sharks or other once-common sea life. Four cyclones, including two hurricanes, hammered the small boat so intensely that Angus and her companion weren't sure they would survive. Rowboat in a Hurricane records this amazing journey in meticulous, dramatic detail, in the process offering a personal record of an awe-inspiring ecosystem, its fascinating denizens, and the mounting threats to its existence.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781926812250 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Greystone Books |
| Publication date: | 12/08/2020 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 289 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
From Chapter 4:
By the morning of day seven, we had been cooped up in the cabin for 36 hours. Imagine spending a day and a half lying in your bathtub (which has more room than what we currently had available in the cabin). At first it's somewhat comfortable, even a relief to just relax. But then you start shifting, trying to find a position that is comfortable. You lie on your back until an ache in your lower vertebrae forces you to roll onto your side but soon your hip bone is sore from the pressure. You try to shift the weight more onto your thigh by extending your leg, but then you kick your partner who also is sharing the bathtub with you. You both grumble about how small it is. Then you discuss body arrangements that might lead to more comfort, and through a coordinated effort you switch positions so that your head is now at the other end of the tub. You still have your partner's feet in your face but you don't care because surprisingly they smell less than you remember.
Finally, on day eight the low pressure system moved on and the violent motion of the boat began to diminish.
"I think it's getting better," I said.
"It seems to be. I'll haul up the sea anchor and try rowing," Colin said.
"Sounds good, I'll make breakfast."
With great effort I propped open the hatch to reach the stove. Something was wrong. Instead of looking out into a heaving sea, a solid wall of blue lay to my left. For a split second I thought a rogue wave was about to destroy us. Then I realized it was even worse—the hull of a freighter was about to crush us. The wall of blue was steel and it was metres away. I screamed—a long, loud, piercing scream.
"What's going on?" Colin yelled.
I kept screaming. The tanker was aimed directly at the center of our boat. In seconds our home would be splintered. The ship was so close I craned my head back to see the top of the bow. I desperately hoped to see a human looking down, a crew member who might witness our boat's destruction and pluck us from the sea if we survived. Instead I saw nothing, apart from streaks of rust below an anchor cinched tight against the hull. The tanker created a surging wave with its bow and this mass of water was about to hit us.
I was still screaming and Colin was thrashing around in the cabin, trying to turn around so he could see outside. Our boat would be crushed before he even knew what hit us. I grabbed both sides of the hatch bracing myself for the impact. We rose on the bow wave. But instead of splintering against thousands of tonnes of moving steel, the surge of water pushed us to the freighter's starboard side and the steel hull slid past, inches from our boat.
Colin finally scrambled around and shoved his head out next to mine. His jaw dropped in disbelief as he stared out at the wall sliding past, still a metre from our boat. The sheer length of the ship, about 300 feet, meant that it took almost a minute to pass. Waves crashed against the steel, the spray and whitewash deflecting back against our own boat. Without another word, Colin ducked back inside the cabin and emerged with the video camera.
I inhaled the acrid scent of combusted diesel and rusting steel, and listened to the not-quite subsonic rumble of an engine churning out thousands of horsepower. Our own boat rose and fell on the confused seas. A wave could easily slam us into the freighter, fracturing our boat or sucking us through its giant propeller. Then finally it was over; the transom of the giant ship passed by and it continued on its course—oblivious to our existence and our narrowly averted destruction.
"The boat was a foot away from us; I'm not kidding." I said in a shaky voice. "It was coming straight for us."
As the freighter moved on, we stared at the name and home port printed on its stern. Norca from Hong Kong would forever be emblazoned on our minds. Later research revealed that the steel tanker weighed in at 28,000 tonnes empty—35,000 times more than our fully loaded boat.
"Thank god our boat is so light and a freighter is so powerful," Colin said, "It takes a lot of force to displace that amount of water. If we were much heavier the bow wave wouldn't have tossed us to the side so easily."
The irony of that; saved by our own insignificance. Despite our inconsequentiality, the story might have played out much differently had we been a little farther ahead or the tanker on a slightly different trajectory. If the bow wave had instead pushed us onto the port side of the tanker, our drogue line would have been run over and caught on the tanker's hull or propeller. We would have been dragged behind the boat like a forgotten family dog tied to the departing motor home. We had been very lucky indeed.
We were parallel to the Strait of Gibraltar, a place where numerous shipping lanes converge to create some of the busiest waters in the world. Because of our limited vantage from inside the cabin we made a point of regularly opening the hatch and scanning for boats. But from the depths of a trough the outlook was restricted and even when we crested a wave neighbouring waves limited our view. We had a radar reflector meant to enhance our signal on a ship's radar. The problem was that we had no lofty perch on which to mount the reflector, minimizing its effectiveness in the high waves. It was terrifying to think that we had been unable to spot an oil tanker, and they had been completely oblivious to us.
Other than our near death, the day was going well. The weather was improving quickly and we ate our first hot meal in two days, rice pudding and coffee. After breakfast Colin pulled up the drogue and took the first rowing shift, while I made our daily water supply.
The technology that enabled us to convert salt water to fresh water was incredible. The desalination unit uses a heavy-duty pump to force salt water at high pressure past a semi-permeable membrane. The pressure creates a process that is the reverse of regular osmosis (where a solute moves from an area of low concentration to an area of high concentration) and fresh water passes through the membrane. The final result is drinkable water with 97 percent of the salt and minerals extracted.
This sewing-machine-sized desalination unit almost thwarted our journey before it even started. When we received our boat in Lisbon, we discovered that our water-maker was defunct. It was an older unit and the malfunction stemmed from leaky seals and problematic valves, which negatively affected the pressurizing mechanism. (If the water cannot be brought to high enough pressure, fresh water is not produced.) The motor whined and groaned but no fresh water came out. We had two choices—fix it or replace it. We already knew that none of the marine stores sold compact desalinators so it would have to be shipped in from elsewhere (a process that might take weeks, especially when Portuguese customs was factored in) and would cost $5,000 (money we didn't have).
Our only option was to fix it. After countless inquiries and many dead ends we found a local business that specialized in making gaskets and o-rings—the essential missing components—and two bus rides later I found myself in the industrial section of the city holding the prized rubber rings in my hand. Colin had disassembled the unit and hovered over dozens of meticulously oiled pieces of metal, looking more than a little distressed. Together we cleaned off the various components and replaced the o-rings. The tired-looking valves were swapped with a new set that we miraculously found in the bag that contained the pump manual.
After a full day of tinkering the desalinator eventually sputtered to life and produced fresh water. I felt a pang of anxiety knowing we would rely on this decrepit machine to produce enough water to cross an entire ocean. As a precaution—in case our water-maker decided mid-Atlantic to gush gallons through a gimpy gasket—we brought three backup solutions: a small hand-cranked desalinator, a basic still consisting of little more than a pipe, and a rain catchment system.
Now, after a week at sea, our desalinator still performed flawlessly; its electric motor hummed steadily while fresh water trickled forth. After two hours our ten-litre plastic jug brimmed with clear water that could rival Evian.
We were fervently frugal with our water and used it only for drinking and the preparation of food. Salt water was used for everything else: cleaning, washing, even noodles and rice were cooked in diluted salt water. Our water-maker was our most treasured piece of equipment, even more precious than the GPS. Without food, one can survive for weeks; without water, perhaps three days.
*****
"The GPS went out again", Colin said, "Can you try restarting it?"
I pressed the button on our electrical panel to cut the power supply to our GPS, waited a few seconds, and then turned it on again. "Does that do it?"
"No, I'm still getting that error message that says the antennae connection has shorted."
I leaned out of the cabin and unscrewed the antenna cable from the back of the GPS. It looked okay, but I blew the terminal anyway to clear any hidden debris before firmly reinserted it. Nothing. Although the unit was brand new, the connection had started to cause problems a few days ago and the short was occurring with increased frequency. Now, no amount of cleaning or fiddling would bring it back to life.
I pulled out our small emergency GPS. It was vastly inferior because it was independently powered and thus could not be left on permanently. Instead we would turn it on periodically to check that we were still on course. This meant we couldn't continually monitor our speed, which was important for setting the ideal course to accommodate for the variable currents.
The row had been tough so far. We'd lost our drogue, our main GPS had malfunctioned, a tanker almost introduced us to Davy Jones, and we were still feeling seasick. The experience was very different than my preconceptions, but I wasn't complaining. It seemed somehow miraculous that despite the difficulties we were still afloat, and still healthy. We were making good speed, and it appeared our silver lining had finally arrived. The weather continued to improve throughout the day and the winds subsided entirely, but with a strong favourable current.
Two birds, slightly larger than seagulls, soared above us for much of the day. They were white with shadows of black near their wingtips and head. Their flight seemed effortless. With outstretched wings they glided on currents in the air, a "shearing" flight technique that earned these birds their name—shearwaters. These are pelagic birds—they live on the ocean and only return to land to breed. Their breeding grounds are often remote islands where they lay a single egg, usually in burrows and rock crevices, but sometimes under grass, bushes or even in the open. During their lifetime they fly over one million kilometres, much of it in search of food—fish, squid, molluscs, plankton. They dive into the water to capture their prey, and some can swim even underwater—using their wings and feet for propulsion—to depths of several dozen metres.
Table of Contents
1 Taking the Plunge 1
2 Rowboat Preparations in Lisbon 16
3 Leaving Land 28
4 Our First Day at Sea 36
5 A Near Miss in Busy Waters 55
6 A Sea of Molten Metal 81
7 Our First Hurricane 99
8 Through the Canary Islands 110
9 The Great White Shark 132
10 Encounters with a Lovestruck Turtle 155
11 Our Second Mid-Atlantic Birthday Party 177
12 A Blue Christmas 198
13 One Hundred Days at Sea 214
14 Magnificent Frigatebirds and Flying Fish 221
15 A Caribbean Paradise in St. Lucia 230
16 The Final Leg to Costa Rica 245
Epilogue 262
Acknowledgements 265