Rowing for My Life

by Kathleen Saville

  Once safely clear of the port, we climbed down to Excalibur while Fritz prepared a long towing rope. With it securely tied to Jangada’s stern and Excalibur’s bow, we untied the lines that held us to the port side of their boat. The rowboat gave a sudden jerk when the slack on the towrope was taken up by the forward motion of the sailboat.

  Finally, after watching the island recede for a short while, Curt turned toward Jangada, waved his arms, and shouted to Fritz to stop and let us off. Fritz once again cut the engines and pulled us in with the tow rope. We reached up to shake hands and thank him and Kerrie for all the help they had given us in the islands.

  “Good luck, man,” Fritz said, clapping Curt hard on the shoulder, “and remember to check your batteries once a day and watch your power consumption.”

  Kerrie ducked below deck and came back with an envelope containing a transparent white shell she had found on a beach back home in New Zealand for me. “Here’s something for you; I hope it brings you good luck.” I thanked her, and we hugged and kissed goodbye. We had become good friends in a short time.

  Curt cast off the tow rope, and I sat down to row. It was 1600 GMT, April 21, 1981. The open Atlantic portion of the row had begun.

  CHAPTER 12

  With the Atlantic in Front of Us

  April 21, 1981

  WE ROWED ON THROUGH CHOPPY seas away from Hierro. Soon, the local south wind effect caused by the island gave way to the persistent northeast wind of the stationary North Atlantic high. We rowed smoothly together in spite of the three-foot waves and occasional breaking wave crests. As our sliding seats that faced aft like a regular racing boat moved up and down the tracks, the pressure on the oar blades strong, we felt happy to be on the move again. The rowing stations were actually the most comfortable places in the boat. Here, we could watch the waves and compensate for their motion by leaning to one side or the other to slip the oars in and out of the water. And here, in our rowing seats, sometimes on top of the specially made foam pads an acquaintance had created for us based on the contours of our bums, we could best control the motion of the boat as we pulled steadily toward our goal.

  As we watched the green-gray mass of Hierro recede in the distance, Curt said, “Last land for a long, long time.” I said nothing in response but continued to row, setting the pace from the stern. But occasionally both of us would look toward the distant hillsides.

  No turning back

  Curt’s log: April 21

  I knew there was no turning back. The persistent trade winds and waves were too strong to row back against. Hopefully we would follow them far out into the Atlantic and across to the other side. I wondered about voyagers long ago. How many had seen that last island recede in the distance and wondered what lay ahead for them? Columbus certainly. But Columbus was unique. He came back. Some of his men thought they might sail off the edge of the earth, though they believed that chance preferable to life in prison. [Many sailors of that time were convicts offered a way out of prison by crewing on the government-funded ships of exploration.]

  We rowed on for two hours until we were safely clear of the island. Then we stopped, took in the oars, and tied them to the edge of the deck. “I’m hungry,” I said, and Curt agreed he was as well. I went forward to the bow cabin to get out the stove, and Curt went back to the aft cabin to get fresh food supplies. He later told me, as he leaned into the cabin, bracing himself against the motion and looking for potatoes and carrots, a wave of fear passed through him as he thought of the distance of this undertaking. Even if we steered a reasonably straight course, more than three thousand miles lay between us and the nearest islands in the West Indies. It was a very weird sensation. He said he felt as though he had been here on the open sea before and died many times.

  Enough of such thoughts! It was a time to celebrate. We were at sea again in Excalibur! Taking the fresh food, he closed the hatch and moved toward the forward cabin holding on to the safety lines. I leaned out of the forward hatch, and Curt passed the food in to me.

  “Are you coming in?” I asked.

  “No, I think I’ll stay out on deck for a few minutes,” he answered. The sky was beginning to grow dark, and he wanted to sit on deck and think.

  Kathleen’s log: April 21

  I was glad to have a few minutes alone, even in the cramped little cabin. A lot had happened this day, and there was much to think about as I organized the kitchen equipment below deck. We had finally started out across the Atlantic. I felt a little scared about what could happen out there. Did we really know what we had gotten ourselves into? I thought of my family and wondered what they were doing now. Even though it was getting dark now, it was still light at home, in Rhode Island. I felt so far away.

  The space in the forward cabin where we spent part of our days out of the sun, did the navigation and radio communication, slept, and ate was tight. The interior was about six feet in length, with four under-deck compartments for stowing clothes, navigation equipment, and immediate food stores. It was approximately three feet wide at the widest point and six inches across at the very bow, where it was so narrow that when we rolled out the sleeping pads and pulled the sleeping bag over us at night, we had to stack our feet on top of each other’s. Along the sides it felt like a pup tent, but it had a rounded ceiling that allowed us to sit up completely only down the middle. The bulkhead or front of the forward cabin was canted slightly toward the bow so the bow rower would have room to lean back at the end of a stroke. The cant of the wall was so slight, though, that it didn’t really diminish the space inside.

  As we sat in the cabin after dinner, Curt remembered it was time for the UK net. We had agreed to meet Fritz on this DX maritime ham radio network operating out of the United Kingdom in the evenings. Curt reached up and switched on the radio, tuning it to the right frequency. The round of amateur ham operators checking in had already begun. Soon we heard Fritz.

  The net control who was leading the evening’s meet said, “Jolly good, perhaps Fritz can tell us more. What news do you have of the rowers? Over to you.”

  “Well, yes, we’ve done our best to kick them across the Atlantic. I wonder if Excalibur is copying us?”

  “Roger, roger, this is Excalibur. We copy you loud and clear, we’re doing fine on our first night out on the Atlantic.” We looked at each other, smiling. We could just imagine Fritz and Kerrie sitting in Jangada’s salon below deck.

  The next voice we heard was familiar to us. John Wilhelm, our friend Peter’s brother from Rhode Island, checked in. The reception was remarkably clear considering the great distance and the boat’s closeness to the water. John had talked to Curt’s father in North Carolina, who said all was well at home but expressed some concern about the state of our solar panels. Apparently, details in the press had been sketchy about Excalibur’s problems with the wiring. The Rhode Island papers had been following us through the Wilhelms’ ham radio contacts with us and sometimes through my parents, though the primary source of information about us came from the Wilhelms. The Explorers Club had initially put out press releases about our row, and some of their press contacts regularly contacted our parents and the Wilhelms. Stories in the Vermont papers as well as the Rhode Island and North Carolina papers were picked up by the wire services. I was beginning to suspect that the hams we spoke to and the many who just listened in were probably sharing what they heard with their newspapers as well. I was glad when Fritz explained the work he had done to correct the corrosion issue. John responded by promising to call our families. I could tell Curt was happy to hear that, because he didn’t want our families to worry too much.

  When the net schedule was over, we switched off the radio to save power and sat back, basking in the glow of good news, and smiled at each other. It meant a lot to receive these good wishes and the news from home. We were on the Atlantic, and all was well.

  CHAPTER 13

  Night Stories

  April 1981

  CURT AND I STOWED THE kitchen equipment bel
ow deck in the center hatch. While he rolled out the sleeping pads that took up all of the cabin floor space, I went on deck to stick the dirty dishes in a cloth bag with the intention of washing them later. The odds were probably very small that a shark would come up and grab me and those dishes when I stuck them in the water, but I was never sure. The same went for calls of nature. Curt was lucky he could stand on deck, holding on to a safety line to pee. I had to take my chances by sitting carefully on the gunwales, bottom extended just far enough.

  I opened the cabin door and crawled in. Curt was stretched out, writing in his log. When I finished filling in mine, we turned off the light and pulled the lightweight sleeping bag over us. In companionable silence, we listened to the wind and waves slapping against the hull. The conditions were choppy, because the islands nearby disrupted the regularity of the waves.

  We kept waking up during the night due to the incessant rocking of the boat back and forth. Each time one of us woke up, we would open the hatch and scan the horizon for ships. Excalibur was still close enough to land that the danger of being run over by a freighter was real. Once, in the middle of the night, Curt went out on deck to check the Autohelm autopilot and compass. He clipped his safety harness to the lines suspended between the cabins and worked his way back to the aft cabin. I switched on the anchor light that Fritz and Curt had fixed with a brighter bulb. The added brightness would enable us to check on things on deck at night without carrying a flashlight.

  Curt made a small adjustment with the autopilot’s compass setting to improve our course. Even though we did not drift with any speed when we weren’t rowing, the Autohelm, attached to the tiller of the rudder, helped us to drift in the right direction and probably gave us better time, which meant increased safety. In the past, seafarers would tie off the rudder to approximate the direction they wanted to go in and hope for the best.

  Curt’s log: April 22, 1981 0630

  This morning when I woke up I expected both of us to row but Kathleen said she wasn’t feeling well; seasickness was bothering her again. I went on deck and untied the oars and fitted them into the oarlocks, and looked around at the choppy waves pushed by a steady breeze. I began rowing and enjoying the warmth of the sun filling the air. There were a few clouds on the horizon to the east. They looked as though they were hovering over land since there was a dense quality about them. I looked closer and could just make out the distinct profile of Hierro Island. Gradually the sun climbed higher in the sky and the cloud formations above land grew thicker until I couldn’t make out the shape of the island from the thickening clouds. I thought how this last sight of land made me feel sad.

  After about three hours, I took a break to see how Kathleen was doing. I left the oars tied crosswise on deck so they would be ready to go again. In the cabin, I saw that she was already up and making breakfast.

  It was later in the day when I saw the faint purple smudge on the eastern horizon that was to be the last sight of land for two months. I sat on deck, the ocean waves jostling the rowboat from side to side, watching with apprehension as we drifted steadily in a westward direction, away from land. Though I had the advantage of a few hundred years of history behind me, I was sure that my feelings were the same as other mariners when they left the Canary Islands with the ocean in front of them as an immense mystery. Would we survive our row in twenty-five-foot Excalibur from Hierro Island, the smallest and most western island in the Canary archipelago, to the Caribbean?

  Later, after we left the boat to drift in a westerly direction, I followed Curt into the bow cabin, ducking under the orange bird of paradise flowers tied to the ceiling that the Hierro harbormaster had given me. I would study them every night above my head and think of land. In the morning, in a passion play of my own making, I would take a flower, drop it overboard, and watch as it slowly drifted off. The informal ceremony helped me to readjust to life at sea again while saying goodbye to land. In the end, the tiny bugs that lived in the flowers quickened the rest of the bouquet’s departure from the cabin. The cellophane covering that mimicked the sound of raindrops was stuffed in the back cabin for possible reuse.

  For a half hour, we wrote in our logbooks until I turned off the overhead light and pulled the sleeping bag over us.

  The next morning, I still couldn’t row because of my seasickness and I called out to Curt, “My stomach doesn’t feel so good. I don’t know if it’s from the boat’s motion or a bug I picked up in the islands.” I was sitting up cross-legged in the cabin, opening the deck hatches below where we slept to take out the stove to make breakfast in the cabin.

  “Sorry to hear that.” He called back. “Are you going to have some breakfast?”

  “Maybe something light. Want some hot chocolate and bread? We should keep eating the bread before it goes bad.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let me know where I can come in.”

  When the flame was blue and steady, I put the cook pot on to boil.

  “Is it ready? Can I come in?”

  I held up a finger. “In a minute … Okay, be careful, I’m holding the hot chocolate.” I turned the stove off and put it below deck.

  “God, my legs are killing me. They’re cramping.”

  “Stretch them out. I’ll hold your cup until you’re settled. Phew! That’s awful,” I told him. His feet smelled terrible. “Can’t you move your smelly sneakers out of here? I feel awful and your stinky socks in my face aren’t helping either.”

  He responded defensively. “I’ll try to put them out of the way. But they need to hang up to dry properly.” He had taken off his damp socks and hung them in the yellow hand straps attached to the ceiling.

  “Right, but they’re not doing me any good! You know,” I decided to goad him, “you don’t really need shoes. You should go barefoot. It’s healthier.”

  “No, it’s not! We’re going to be here for a long time, and we have to be careful of salt sores.”

  I could tell I wasn’t going to win this one. Someday he would realize I was right. For now, all I could do was look out the port window and watch the waves go by.

  In the late morning I rowed, stretching out my leg muscles by pushing back hard against the weight of the waves, and soon my stomach began feeling better. I loved the craziness of rowing through rough, tumbling waves in the emptiness of the ocean landscape. With each stroke, though, the wind increased and the waves crested white while the sky took on a gray blanket of thick overcast.

  When I crawled into the bow cabin, I saw that Curt had already turned on the radio for Norberto time and was tuning to the right frequency. There was a lot of static today, but there was no problem finding our friend. We were delighted to hear Fritz was also on the frequency. He explained to Norberto the new radio schedule that we devised while in the Canaries.

  “I have told these Americans that they use too much power without any thought as to where it is coming from. They have to be very careful of their power consumption.” We were interested in Norberto’s response, since a good part of our “too much” power consumption had been due to our initial, heavy, three-times-a-day schedule with him until we had reduced it to once a day.

  “They will be making contact with you on Mondays and Thursdays at 1130 hours GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), over.”

  “Si, si, muy bien. I will be on the air with them on those days. I will tell Mr. Hadi at the American consulate. They always look for information on the rowers. They have put up a map of their course.” Norberto’s English was improving.

  Curt couldn’t stay silent any longer and got out the microphone. He sent 73s—or “greetings,” in ham radio parlance—to Norberto and the others in Casablanca.

  After a light lunch of liverwurst, two overly ripe tomatoes, and some stale cookies bought from a Val Verde bakery, we went out on deck to row.

  “Curt, do you think the wind has picked up any?” I asked.

  He thought about this for a few moments, turning his face to both sides to feel the wind, as we pulled the oars t
hrough the water, and then said, “Yeah, it has.” After a few minutes he added, “The clouds don’t look too good either. I wonder if the bad weather in the Canaries will catch up with us.”

  A small twinge of anxiety touched my stomach. Curt was anxious about the weather too. We rowed on for most of the afternoon, pausing to have a snack of figs and prunes from the food stores we had bought in Casablanca and cups of sweet instant lemonade from the Gilster-Mary Lee food company, one of our sponsors. By the early evening, the sky was almost all overcast. The increasing winds pushed the waves to six to seven feet high.

  “We better make sure to tie down these oars good.”

  I took the rowing seats, put them in the stern cabin, and grabbed a packet of noodles and cheese for dinner. Before leaving the Canaries, we had taken the new precaution of putting perishable foods in the back cabin or on top of the water containers below deck so that any water that leaked in could be pumped out before rising high enough to damage the food. I worked my way across the deck to the forward cabin, holding on to the safety lines. As I ducked under Curt’s arm where he was holding on to one of the safety lines, I saw the worried look on his face. He was looking out across the sea. When I was back in the cabin, I called out, “Do you think you’ll get any sights tonight?”

  “I’ve seen Jupiter through breaks in the sky. Pass me the sextant, and I’ll give it a try.”

  After dinner, Curt worked out his sights of Jupiter and Capella using the HO 249 Sight Reduction tables. Though the HO 249 tables come in three volumes and were originally designed for air navigation, volume one is used by marine navigators as well. Because volume one contains the altitude and true azimuth values of seven selected stars that are considered first-magnitude stars whose brightness is sufficient for navigation, HO 249 has always been considered an easy and fast way for sailors, or ocean rowers in this case, to calculate their positions. Satellite navigation was in its infancy in 1981, and we didn’t have the money for such a system. Our navigational tools consisted of a sextant, a compass, the Nautical Almanac, and the HO 249 tables.