Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  rowboat in a hurricane

  JULIE ANGUS

  ROWBOAT IN A HURRICANE

  my amazing journey

  across a changing

  atlantic ocean

  GREYSTONE BOOKS

  Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group

  Vancouver/ Toronto/Berkeley

  Copyright © 2008 by Julie Angus

  08 09 10 11 12 5 4 3 2 1

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800 -893-5777.

  Greystone Books

  A division of Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.

  2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201

  Vancouver, BC V5T 4S7

  www.greystonebooks.com

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Angus, Julie

  Rowboat in a hurricane : my amazing journey across a changing

  Atlantic Ocean / Julie Angus.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN-paperback 978-1-55365-337-0

  ISBN-ebook 978-1-926812-25-0

  1. Angus, Julie—Travel—Atlantic Ocean. 2. Atlantic Ocean—Description and travel. 3. Boats and boating—Atlantic Ocean. 4. Marine ecology—Atlantic Ocean. 5. Rowers—Canada—Biography. I . Title.

  G530.A52A52 2008 910.4' 5' 092 C2008-903327-2

  Editing by Susan Folkins

  Cover photographs courtesy of author

  except image of clouds: Gerald French/Getty Images

  Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West

  We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts,

  the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book

  Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing

  Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities.

  TO COLIN,

  my partner in life and in adventure

  CONTENTS

  1 Taking the Plunge

  2 Rowboat Preparations in Lisbon

  3 Leaving Land

  4 Our First Day at Sea

  5 A Near Miss in Busy Waters

  6 A Sea of Molten Metal

  7 Our First Hurricane

  8 Through the Canary Islands

  9 The Great White Shark

  10 Encounters with a Lovestruck Turtle

  11 Our Second Mid-Atlantic Birthday Party

  12 A Blue Christmas

  13 One Hundred Days at Sea

  14 Magnificent Frigatebirds and Flying Fish

  15 A Caribbean Paradise in St. Lucia

  16 The Final Leg to Costa Rica

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  1

  TAKING THE PLUNGE

  WHEN I WAS eleven, my parents gave me a pet. It wasn’t the dog I always wanted, but a fish—a guppy that swam between plastic fronds in its aquarium home. Glass separated us so that its watery world could exist in mine, and I used to imagine what it would be like if the situation were reversed and I existed in a fish’s world.

  Two decades later, in September 2005, my face was no longer pressed against aquarium glass. Instead, I watched an expansive ocean unfurl before me. I stood on a craggy cliff that was Europe’s second most western point—two hours west of Lisbon, Portugal, by bike—with Colin, my husband-to-be, and together we stared at an ocean we hoped to cross in a rowboat. For the last forty-nine days we had cycled west from Russia’s capital, Moscow, and finally we had reached the end of the road. In two weeks we would trade the security of land for volatile waters and begin a ten-thousand-kilometre journey across the Atlantic Ocean to North America.

  More than a yearning for adventure had led me to this moment. I was drawn by the opportunity to experience the ocean from the intimate vantage offered from the deck of a rowboat. I had completed my graduate degree in molecular biology and had gone on to a career in developing therapeutics, but my personal interests now leaned towards ecology. My bookshelf sagged under the weight of volumes by Carl Safina, David Suzuki, and Sylvia Earle; it was the magnitude of the environmental issues facing our oceans that captured much of my attention. The problems of climate change, acidification, overfishing, and pollution were well documented, yet little progress was being made to solve these issues. And in a way it was easy to understand why. When I kayaked in the Gulf Islands or hiked in the Coast Mountains, I admired the Pacific Ocean for its vastness and permanence, its obliviousness to its own fragility and to the changes occurring beneath its surface. Ignoring the unseen was easy, and the very vastness of the ocean made it difficult to accept that minuscule actions on our part might have a profound impact. Through this journey I hoped to shift my understanding of the ocean to get an intimate sense of the life and dynamism that comprises it instead of viewing it as a vast, impenetrable expanse. I wanted to watch turtles as they migrated across the ocean and pelagic sharks as they hunted for tuna, to see pods of dolphins swim by and whales surface for air. I wanted to experience this environment in technicolour detail. At the same time, I wondered if I would see all the environmental perils I had read about.

  NOW, WITH FORMIDABLE waves growling and slurping metres away, I began to feel nervous. My mind teemed with all the things that could go wrong—running out of food, succumbing to botulism, being attacked by sharks, encountering pirates, colliding with tankers, and contending with hurricanes and a plethora of medical emergencies. Then there was my relationship with Colin, my fiancé; he seemed like the perfect guy (which is why I said yes when he proposed), but would I still feel the same way after five months of confinement in a space the size of a closet? Would he?

  It had been much easier to embrace the concept of rowing across an ocean while ensconced in the comfort of my Vancouver home. There, I could convincingly explain why moving at a turtle’s pace across the sea provided unparallelled opportunities for observing the ocean, and how the months of toil would help toughen me up. But now those justifications were edged aside by a feeling of unease. As I stared across the sea, I wondered if I was making the right decision, and I struggled to distill the chain of events that had led me here.

  I WISH I HAD a quick and easy answer like It came to me in a dream or A fortune teller told me, or even better, I’m a world-class rower and I thought this would really challenge my athletic skills.

  No, my answer is more convoluted, as many things in life are. I am not an adventurer or an athlete, and I am most certainly not a rowing protégée (my first time in a rowboat was only a year earlier). In fact, for most of my life I considered the outdoors a place where unknown dangers lurked, a place best avoided. I grew up a “base brat,” an only child with an air-force father and homemaker mother. We moved every four years or less and lived mostly on military bases in rented PMQs (private military quarters). My parents shunned uncultivated wilderness, and they considered sports unnecessary distractions from academics that would expose their only child to wanton dangers. I grew up a timid girl whose biggest risk was a collision with a telephone pole as I walked home from school with a Stephen King novel pressed against my face.

  It wasn’t until the age of twenty-one, when I moved from Ontario to British Columbia for my graduate studies, that I became interested in the outdoors and athletic pursuits. I went on my first real outdoor adventure in 1998, during my inaugural spring in Victoria. A friend said, “We’re going to climb Warden Peak. Do you want to come with us?”

  The trip was much harder than I expected. For
the first time in my life, I wore crampons, gripped an ice axe, rappelled down a sheer wall, and, while climbing that same cliff, nearly fell to what would have been a very messy landing had the belay rope not saved me. I was alternately terrified and mesmerized. For the first time I truly felt the allure of nature and the stillness of a place devoid of people. But most of the time I just thought, Please just let me get out of here alive. To my surprise when we emerged from the forest, the first words out of my mouth were “I can’t wait to do this again.”

  And so the seed germinated and sprouted. It grew slowly, spindly at first and with many offshoots. I liked being in the mountains, snowboarding on groomed slopes and travelling with alpine touring skis in the backcountry. I trudged up Mount Baker, crossed its glacier while roped to a team member, and climbed its sulphurous peak. I tried rock climbing, kayaking, and surfing with little to moderate success. My repertoire of outdoor skills grew, but to be truthful, I lacked the coordination and grace that accompanies those who are athletic from a young age. I didn’t really care though. I was just happy to be outside enjoying the wilderness.

  When I first heard a news story on ocean rowing, I thought the rowers must be insane, bordering on suicidal. It was a sport for adrenaline junkies and lifelong athletes, not me. I couldn’t row. Sharks scared me. I lived in an apartment and worked a nine-to-five job. How could I even contemplate such a journey? Yet I did, eventually. I couldn’t help myself. I just kept returning to the thought—like an annoying song you can’t get out of your head—of a little boat slowly crossing the ocean alongside whales and dolphins. I knew I was romanticizing it, but as these daydreams became more frequent and compelling, I couldn’t stop myself from further exploring the possibility. I was hooked by the sea’s wildness. Its promise of unknown adventures drew me in. As the narrator in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Secret of the Sea” says, “my soul is full of longing / For the secret of the sea, / And the heart of the great ocean / Sends a thrilling pulse through me.”

  So I started collecting stories on small-boat adventures and began journeying vicariously across oceans. In Kon-Tiki, I voyaged the Pacific Ocean with Thor Heyerdahl on a balsa wood raft. Between the pages of Adrift, I suffered with Steve Callahan after his boat sank and he endured seventy-six days in a life raft lost on the Atlantic. In David Shaw’s book Daring the Sea, I rowed alongside the two Norwegian fishermen who, in 1896, became the first people to row across the Atlantic.

  Between that first transatlantic rowboat voyage from New York to England and my planning in the summer of 2004, 208 additional rowers had succeeded in crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Six people had died trying, and dozens had required deep-sea rescues. The number of successful ocean crossings is low, especially when compared to other extreme endeavours such as climbing Mount Everest and skiing to the South Pole. Most oar-powered voyages connect the Canary and Caribbean islands, a distance of about 5,000 kilometres. A handful of journeys have been longer; most noteworthy are those of Sidney Genders, who in 1970 rowed 9,660 kilometres from Britain to Miami in three legs, and John Fairfax, who in 1969 rowed 8,550 kilometres from the Canary Islands to Miami. As in many extreme sports, women still tend to be a minority, but our numbers are increasing. Before I planned my attempt in 2004, eighteen women had rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. However, none had yet crossed the Atlantic from the mainland of one continent to that of another, a distance of nearly 10,000 kilometres.

  The statistics told me little apart from the fact that a determined and properly outfitted individual could row across an ocean. What I really needed to know was what would be required in the way of gear, finances, knowledge, and support. Even more importantly, did I have what it would take? Was I strong enough? Was I tough enough? Would my years in an office combined with an overly protective childhood render me a physical and emotional wreck as land disappeared in the distance?

  Between books and talking to people, I gained much of the theoretical knowledge needed. Hundreds of books have been written on crossing oceans in small boats. Most concern sailboats, but much of the same information applies to rowboats. I became familiar with nautical navigation, ocean dynamics, food storage, first aid, and emergency procedures. As for the mechanics of rowing, I learned that propelling an ocean rowboat is not dissimilar to propelling a common rowing shell. I practised in a friend’s rowboat and later joined one of Vancouver’s rowing clubs. Information specific to ocean rowing was available online, posted by others who had done similar adventures and by the British-based Ocean Rowing Society. Much of this information was related to a gruelling five-thousand-kilometre rowing race from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean, which, interestingly for me, was advertised with the catch phrase “No experience needed.”

  After months of wavering, I finally made the decision: I will row across the Atlantic. But saying these words and making the journey a reality were worlds apart.

  The next crucial step would be to find a partner to do the journey with. Although many have rowed an ocean solo, doing it in tandem is more efficient, and I imagined much more enjoyable. I compiled a list of the ideal characteristics of a rowing partner and realized they were surprisingly similar to the traits I had looked for in a boyfriend. The ideal person would be calm, rational, determined, athletic, and not too insane (skeletons in the closet are a no-no when you are cooped together for months on end in a tiny boat). My fiancé, Colin, had all these traits, but I did not consider him a candidate for two reasons. I didn’t want to risk losing our relationship (a disproportionate number of couples break up on sailing trips, and a rowing trip of this type would be far more stressful). Plus, he had already left on a two-year expedition and was therefore unavailable.

  I told a few friends of my new plan and sought their help in my search for a partner. The idea of my journey raised a few eyebrows and led to the occasional joke about my sanity, but most of my friends were overwhelmingly supportive. But unfortunately for me, those who had the right traits to join me in this adventure also had responsibilities or obligations that would not allow them to spend so many months away from their regular lives. I placed an advertisement on a rowing website and canvassed members of the B.C. Mountaineering Club and the Vancouver Rowing Club. Months slipped by and I was still without a partner. My friend and coworker Mary Hearnden was so determined for me to succeed that she shyly admitted, “If you can’t find anyone, I’ll go with you,” even though her passion was the mountains and not the sea. Through Mary, though, on two multi-day treks in the mountains of Manning and Garibaldi parks she organized, I found the ideal partner: Cathy Choinicki.

  Cathy loves outdoor adventure, and that passion has taken her to remote areas around the world. When we met she was in her mid-thirties and working for Environment Canada, which afforded her enough flexibility for travelling, mountaineering, and her latest pursuit: sailing. She listened to my plans with rapt enthusiasm, and when I finally asked her if she would like to join me, she said yes.

  I was euphoric that my ocean row was no longer a solo affair, that I would have someone to keep me company on the sea and to share the workload of preparing for the adventure. It seemed things were slowly coming together.

  Our planned departure date was eleven months away, and within that time we had two tasks: to learn how to row and to raise one hundred thousand dollars to buy a boat and cover additional costs. Learning to row was the easy part. We trained daily, often at the Vancouver Rowing Club, which sponsored us with free lessons and offered us the guidance of one of their coaches, Alex Binkley. We made marked improvements physically, but our fundraising efforts weren’t following the same course. We created a website and a comprehensive sponsorship proposal package. Cathy’s good friend John Rocha, the marketing director for the Vancouver Canucks hockey team, guided us in our efforts. Other experts in marketing and sponsorship generously offered advice, and a team of professionals created a powerful promotional video for us. We sent our sponsorship package to hundreds of companies and placed dozens of cold ca
lls. Months slipped by with little sponsorship success, until finally it seemed the only way to make our expedition a reality would be to ask the banks for a loan.

  By this time, Cathy was growing increasingly uninterested. Then, in mid-spring 2005, seven months before our departure date, she told me the disappointing, but not entirely surprising, news. She would not be rowing across the Atlantic with me. Cathy was concerned about the financial and health risks. She did not want to borrow huge sums of money for such an uncertain venture, and she was worried that an old shoulder injury would be further damaged by many months of constant rowing. I was devastated by such a significant step backwards, but grateful that she had truthfully assessed her commitment now instead of later. Things would have been much worse if she had given me this news just weeks or days before the journey began.

  Crossing the ocean solo had some appeal, and I pondered this new reality. Other potential partners also came to mind. While Cathy and I had been training and planning, several people had expressed interest in rowing across an ocean. In particular, the father of one of my best friends, a sixty-five-year-old Scot with a passion for rowing, seemed an excellent candidate. Liz, his daughter, proudly lobbied on her father’s behalf: “My dad could do it. He used to be the top rower in his class and he’s still got it.” Then she added, “As long as you bring enough rum, he’ll be fine.” I could imagine ocean parties with her father singing sea shanties as we rowed and drank our way across the Atlantic.

  Really, though, things weren’t looking good for my proposed adventure. I had raised absolutely no money, I might have to partner with a senior citizen, and I hadn’t even bought a boat yet.

  As it turned out, I was not the only one with expedition problems. A few weeks earlier, Colin had called me from the chilled depths of Siberia on an Iridium satellite telephone to deliver some unsettling news.