My blisters show the difficulty of rowing through the wild Galápagos Islands’ currents in July 1984.
Curt preparing to take sun sights with the plastic Davis sextant. This photo was taken before he fell overboard one morning and lost that crucial navigational tool. Behind him on the aft cabin is the Autohelm, housed in a plastic bag to protect it from the constant salt spray.
Curt’s Pacific navigation logbook. I would record the stars and timings that Curt “shot” with the sextant. When he finished, he calculated our latest position using H.O. 249 tables commonly used by sailors and aviators before satellite navigation and GPS.
Callao, the Peruvian chicken we bought at a market in the port city of that name. She never produced any eggs but was good company as we rowed north in the Humboldt Current to the Galápagos Islands.
After losing the sextant on the Galápagos to Marquesas Islands passage, we came up with several substitutes, including a crude astrolabe that Curt made from the deck hatch in the forward cabin. He is trying to take a shot position with it at noon.
The stress of the long passage from the Galápagos Islands to the Marquesas shows in Curt’s and my faces after fifty days. The passage eventually took sixty-seven days.
When we arrived in the Marquesas Islands after a couple of months navigating like Polynesians, we ordered two new sextants, including this fancy metal one from Plath.
All our fresh water was kept in the hatches below the nine-foot-long open deck. Every day, one of us would pump out a gallon for cooking and drinking.
Cooking an omelet on Curt’s old camping stove in the bow cabin.
Sketches from my notebook, clockwise from top left: bugs in bananas; Curt climbing; Curt with his tuna catch; me cooking.
Sitting by the aft cabin late in the day on the South Pacific.
We used heavy-duty canvas sea anchors off the stern of the boat to slow us down when the wind and waves were adverse. I made several, including this one I am holding, to handle the challenge of navigating through the Great Barrier Reef in July 1985.
Rowing Excalibur Pacific in Pago Pago harbor, Tutuila Island (American Samoa) in May 1985.
Tying up the boat ropes in Cairns, Australia, after successfully completing the Pacific row on July 31, 1985.
The happy couple posing by Excalibur Pacific after completing the Pacific row.
By 1986, we had become landowners in northern Vermont. Excalibur Pacific rested behind the house in between boat shows and future boat jaunts.
Four-year-old Christopher. After our 1988 row and sail down the Baja California coast, we became interested in using solar panels to power an electrical motor for voyaging. Curt took the model of Excalibur Pacific he had built in 1982 and added an ama, an outrigger hull, to increase space for extra solar panels.
Curt leaving solo on Solar Eagle from Casablanca in early 1991. He abandoned the expedition almost a month later when the boat was damaged in a storm off the Moroccan coast.
In late summer of 1991, we returned to the US with only a few bags and no rowboat. We are standing at a UK train station on our way to Heathrow with the only gear we were able to salvage from the failed solar electric voyage.
To symbolically complete the Solar Eagle ocean crossing, we bought a beautiful handmade wooden electric boat and traveled with her along the coastal waters of North Carolina.
Rowing for My Life Page 35