Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  A LARGE WAVE crashed over the boat, wrenching me off the rowing seat and away from my thoughts. I grabbed the lifelines for balance and struggled back onto the rowing seat. I glanced quickly at the navigational equipment to ensure we were still on the correct course.

  We relied on a brand new chartplotter/GPS (Global Positioning System) that we’d affixed outside, alongside the compass. The GPS was undoubtedly the most important navigational tool we had, indicating our coordinates, speed, and direction using satellite technology. Because of the one- or two-second delay in the GPS output, it was easier to keep the boat on course by looking at the magnetic compass, which reacted instantly as the boat moved.

  “What do you want for dinner?” Colin asked, propping the hatch door open so he could access the single-burner alcohol stove that sat between the cabin hatch and the sliding seat.

  I questioned the feasibility of cooking in these rough conditions, but Colin seemed optimistic, and he was the one with the extensive seafaring experience.

  “We’re going to be eating pretty limited fare until it gets a little calmer,” he said. “Most of our food is stored under the deck hatches, and there’s no way we’re going to get to it until things calm down.”

  I surveyed the constant flow of water sluicing over the decks, ebbing and flowing as the waves passed by. Our boat felt unnervingly like a submarine sitting at the surface: barely buoyant, and ready to go down at any time.

  “I didn’t realize having this much weight in our boat would be such a problem,” I said.

  “We’ll be eating forty pounds of food a week. We’ll be sitting higher out of the water in no time.”

  Colin decided on a menu of stew and rice. The rice simmered in a pot of water. Just before the grains were fully tender, he added a can of stew, which would be hot by the time the rice was completely cooked. The appealing scent of garlic and gravy wafted across the boat. Then, just as I was savouring the prospect of our first hot meal of the voyage, a sinister snarl announced a larger-than-average wave bearing down on us. It hit the side of the boat with a surly thwack, and buckets of salty water cascaded over me and the open cooking pot.

  With delusional optimism, Colin stuck his spoon into the stew-turned-soup and brought it to his lips. His face scrunched up in disgust and he spit the contents of his mouth over the side. Sputtering more words of disdain, he tossed the stew overboard, and we postponed our hot meal to another day.

  The ocean’s mineral concentration includes 3.5 per cent salt, which offends more than our taste buds. In large quantities, salt becomes a toxin; twelve grams is enough to kill a human being. The daily recommended limit is five hundred milligrams, which means a single teaspoon of seawater contains enough salt for the whole day.

  Salt toxicity is not a problem in civilization, where even the most ardent enthusiast of pretzels and bar nuts could not come close to consuming a lethal amount. On the ocean, however, sodium chloride has claimed countless souls. Lost sailors on a desert of brine often give in to temptation and greedily gulp at the sea beneath them. These fleeting moments of pleasure—filling their bellies with cool water—are soon replaced with their final wretched moments of agony and despair. When salt enters the body, it is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream. If there’s too much sodium chloride, our cells and organs give up their water to dilute it, becoming dehydrated and eventually dying. Meanwhile, the kidneys try to filter out the salt, but they shut down when the accumulated salt levels are too high. Finally, the salt-poisoned become delusional as their brains swell, and they are racked with seizures until death from kidney failure or multiple organ collapse.

  Instead of salty stew, we dined on peanut butter sandwiches made with heavily processed white bread. The expiration date for the bread was still three weeks away, and it contained enough preservatives to sink a small rowboat.

  “If we eat any more of this bread, we’re going to have multiple organ failure anyway,” I said. But unless the weather improved, we would not be cooking anything; really, we were lucky to have brought such a large supply of bread to see us through.

  SHORTLY BEFORE 9:00 PM, darkness enveloped the boat. Colin was rowing, and I peered outside through the hatch door, grateful to be inside and wrapped in a blanket. The overcast sky shed little light, and the moon had not yet risen. I could still see the surface of the water, but barely.

  “Can you turn the boat lights on?” Colin asked. I flipped the switch for the compass light, and a faint glow illuminated the dial. The button for the strobe light was in our electrical panel, and I searched before locating the right one. Bright, pulsating light washed over the boat and into the darkness. It would be hard for other boats not to spot us; I just hoped they wouldn’t misinterpret our flashing light for a distress signal.

  “How is it out there?” I asked.

  “The waves are building, but we’re making good speed. We’re doing between 2.8 and 3 knots.”

  “I’ll plot our position if you can tell me what our coordinates are,” I said.

  I turned on the cabin light and unclipped the rolled-up chart from its hold on the ceiling. We had several charts with us, including those of Portugal, Lisbon Harbour, the Canary Islands, and Miami Harbour. I unrolled a large-scale depiction of Portugal’s coastal waters. The chart took up most of the room in the cabin, so I balanced awkwardly above it and used the straight edge of a book to find the intersection point of our latitude and longitude coordinates. I marked it with a tiny X.

  “Our direction is perfect. We’ve travelled forty-six kilometres southwest of Lisbon,” I announced.

  “That’s great. Let’s hope these winds keep coming from this direction.”

  We were angling our boat so that we could get away from the Portuguese coastline as quickly as possible. As long as we were near land, we were in danger. Since we had no motor or sails, we relied on the relatively feeble power of our oars. The winds could switch at any time and, if sufficiently strong, they could push us into the rocky coast to be shipwrecked.

  Sustained strong winds from the west, northwest, or southwest within the next two days would spell trouble.

  By the time it was my shift again, the darkness was complete, broken only by the glow of Lisbon in the distance and the navigation lights of several far-away freighters. These ghostly reminders of civilization served only to make me feel more alone in the inky blackness. The roar of waves filled my ears, but I could no longer see the features of the water. In the darkness the ocean felt wilder, and cold tendrils of fear enveloped me. I would not spend my first night ensconced in a warm secure bed; instead, I would bump along in a wave-tossed rowboat, thousands of kilometres from land.

  I wondered why humans seem to have a primal fear of the dark. Was it an evolutionary adaptation to help keep us from harm’s way while sabre-toothed tigers and other nocturnal predators hunted? Even though we no longer need to worry about prowling cats, there’s no denying that things get a little creepier at night—whether on a walk alone in the woods or during a night house-sitting in a lonely farmhouse. Darkness makes you feel alone, vulnerable, impotent. Unidentifiable sounds tease the imagination and set the heart racing. On land, darkness is bearable. But on the ocean, where the very act of being suspended by liquid thousands of metres above the sea floor feels unnatural, the mind truly struggles with the absence of light.

  I listened to the waves, trying to decide which one would be big enough to soak me. Phoooshhh. It was loud, and I cringed with anticipation. Nothing. Another whoooshhh. Then an odd, sudden silence preceded a thunderous crack, and churning water foamed over the boat. Cold water soaked my hair and dribbled down my shirt. I shivered in the cool night air and picked up my speed to warm up. I knew the waning gibbous moon would be rising now, but its radiance was obscured behind a thick curtain of clouds. I stared out at the waves, trying in vain to discern their size. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something in the water, but I couldn’t be sure. It looked large and had a different motion from the
waves. Was it a shark? I knew the chances of a shark attacking a person—let alone a boat—were minuscule, but suddenly, in the darkness, it seemed all too likely. What would I do if a shark attacked the boat? I tried to calm myself thinking about statistics I had read earlier.

  According to the International Shark Attack File, between fifty and eighty shark attacks occur annually around the world, resulting in an average of five deaths per year since 1990. In other words, only one person out of a billion dies from a shark attack annually. You are at a higher risk of being killed by lightning, bee stings, dogs, toasters, and farmyard pigs. Of course, one might argue that you can’t compare terrestrial and marine injury statistics. R. Aidan Martin from the ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research found that even in the water, shark attack is among the least likely of perils—140,000 people die from drowning each year, and surfers are more likely to injure themselves on their boards than to be injured by a shark. Yet in the darkness I found little reassurance in risk assessment statistics. Instead, my mind replayed scenes from the horror movie Jaws as vividly as an IMAX screen.

  Ironically, from a logical standpoint, sharks have more reason to fear us than we have to fear them. Each year, humans kill 100 million sharks. In a single century, we have had a much more dramatic impact on the shark population than millions of years of natural challenges. Oceanic white-tip sharks that used to be commonly sighted in these waters are now increasingly scarce. The IUCN lists these sharks as vulnerable and reports tremendous declines—99.3 per cent since the 1950s in certain regions. However, the exact number is under debate because changing fishing practices complicate the analysis. Sadly, many species of sharks have suffered a similar fate. All species of large coastal sharks—nurse, bull, lemon, blacktip, sandbar, hammerhead, and great white—have declined between 50 and 90 per cent since the 1970s, according to a study that appeared in the March 30, 2007 edition of the journal Science.

  The impact of losing this great predator of the sea should be more frightening than the remote possibility of actually encountering a hungry shark. Large sharks are at the top of the ocean food chain, which means they play a key role in regulating the populations of other species. But their numbers are now too low to fulfill that obligation. As a result, populations of creatures they feed on—rays, skates, smaller sharks, and others—have exploded.

  Nothing leapt out of the water at me, and I tried to subdue my hyperactive imagination by focussing on rowing. I maintained my course by keeping Lisbon’s glow at a forty-five-degree angle to my stern, and occasionally squinted to calibrate the compass heading. Tomorrow, we would be too far from shore to see those lights. Instead, we would be surrounded by a horizon of uninterrupted black. For navigation, we would rely completely on our compass or GPS. I practised using our GPS now, but found it much more difficult than using a distant reference point. It was a little like driving blindfolded while your passenger relays instructions.

  It took all my energy to keep rowing until the end of my shift. I couldn’t remember ever anticipating bedtime with such enthusiasm. I woke Colin, slipped into the warm spot he vacated, and passed out. Two hours later, at 2:00 AM, Colin joined me in the cabin. He had lashed the oars to the deck and tightened the rudder. We would free-drift for a few hours while we both caught some shut-eye. Since we were moving with the prevailing winds and currents, we hoped we wouldn’t lose too much ground. We still wouldn’t sleep soundly, as we would have to take watches for ships every half-hour. Colin would be on watch duty tonight. He set the stopwatch to thirty minutes. I closed the ceiling hatch and locked the main hatch in the vent position. The vent position gave us just enough air circulation to breathe and, if a big wave hit, it would prevent the cabin from being flooded. We had already turned on our bright strobe light, which would keep other boats at a safe distance as long as no one was tempted to investigate.

  “Congratulations on your first day—you’re doing amazing,” Colin said as he struggled out of his damp shirt.

  “You, too, babe.”

  I lay my head on Colin’s chest, wrapped my arm around him, and murmured, “I love you.” It felt strange and familiar at the same time: just another night sleeping in our usual positions. I was surprised at how safe and comfortable I suddenly felt. The boat rocked at a rate somewhere between cradle and carnival ride, but we were held in position by the encroaching gear and barely moved. Colin’s heart beat reassuringly against my ear; his breathing deepened with sleep’s arrival, and I soon joined him.

  5

  A NEAR MISS

  IN BUSY WATERS

  IFUMBLED FOR THE off button on my beeping wristwatch alarm, relieved at the return to silence. Just as if I were on holiday, waking up in a strange bed, I felt momentarily puzzled: Where am I? It didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t dreaming anymore, that I was finally on the ocean. My grogginess vanished in a heartbeat, replaced with enormous satisfaction. Now, instead of tedious preparation and worrying that we’d never leave in time, I looked forward to an incredible adventure.

  But my euphoria was short-lived. I soon realized I was to take first shift on the oars. It was 6:00 AM and still dark. The waves outside rumbled threateningly. I yearned to pull the blankets over my head and sleep for another hour. I enviously eyed Colin’s sleeping form as I rummaged for my windbreaker, pants, baseball cap, and cycling gloves. I ate a handful of crackers before reluctantly crawling out of the cabin. A shrill wind whipped through the cables while the waves slurped and gurgled like a hungry monster. I gripped the safety line as I moved about the deck to unfasten the oars. The open-cell foam rubber padding on the rowing seat had absorbed water like a sponge. As it compressed under my weight, water squirted out, soaking my pants. The shoes, too, were wet and cold, and I cringed as I slid my bare, blistered feet into them. There was no point in wearing socks, as they would be soaked in minutes. I leaned back, gripped the oar handles, and slid them outboard until the collar hit the oarlock with a satisfying thunk.

  I wrestled with the oars, slowly pointed the bow southeast, and fell into the rhythm of the row. Exertion pumped heat into my body and cleared the dread that had set in with the night. My monochrome world gradually transformed, and a pink glow hinted at the coming sun. I watched, mesmerized, as the sun slowly rose, alighting the clouds and casting a lone beam of light across the sea.

  Colin slept soundly in the cabin, wrapped up in the blankets, with the hatch firmly shut. His long blond hair poked out from beneath the blankets, but that was the only part of him I could see. I loved watching Colin sleep. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I imagined his relaxed face, his partially open mouth and deep breaths, his chest gently rising and lowering. I don’t know why, but it made me think about how much I loved him.

  Before leaving, I had been filled with worry about what this journey would do to our relationship. Some of my friends’ relationships have disintegrated on vacation. When I told my father my plans, he said, “Don’t do it. You will never get married if you go on this expedition together. Stay home and wait for him.”

  Colin and I first met three years before, when we both lived in Vancouver. On a drizzly Friday night in September, I was bored and half-heartedly perused the guide from our local second-run cinema. The show that night read, “Special Event. Raft the Amazon with Colin Angus—tickets $10 (advance)/$12 (door). Show: 8:00 PM.” I looked at my watch; it was 7:40 PM. I had never heard of Colin Angus, but it sounded more fun than sitting at home.

  I arrived just as the show was beginning and took a spot near the front of the Ridge Theatre’s seven hundred seats. The theatre was full and my prime real estate was courtesy of being a party of one. The lights dimmed and a young guy stepped on stage. He must be the introducer, I thought.

  “Thank you for coming out tonight. My name is Colin Angus . . . ”

  I was surprised. He seemed too young . . . and too small. When I thought of adventurers, I pictured Grizzly Adams or maybe Indiana Jones. At least he (or she) had to have wrinkles and look capable of
fighting off a grizzly bear, barehanded at that.

  As Colin’s tale unfolded, I became entranced, and not only by his descriptions of the Amazon Basin. When Colin was eleven years old, he decided to sail around the world. He was inspired by a library book—Dove—written by a young man, Robin Lee Graham, who did just that as a teenager. But Colin lived in a blue-collar mill town in British Columbia, with a single working mom who was raising four kids; there was little to drive his dream except his own will. At fifteen he bought a small sailboat with his paper-route earnings, and four years later he bought a slightly larger boat with his tree-planting money. When he left Vancouver Island in his decrepit boat, almost everyone thought he was foolish, stupid, or both. People told him he would die, and when that didn’t dissuade him, they told his mother he was suicidal. The mantra “100 per cent demise, guaranteed” played in the minds of his farewell party. Colin spent five years sailing, meandering south along America’s west coast to Mexico, across the Pacific Ocean, around Australia, and amid tropical islands.

  When he returned to Canada, Colin—unable to stay away from the library—became seduced by tales of the Amazon River, and decided to raft it from beginning to end. Lacking the ability to whitewater raft did not cross his mind as a serious hurdle, nor did gun-toting rebels, class-five whitewater, or a financially challenged bank account. He found facts in books, saved his pennies, and learned to raft while becoming a guide on the Kananaskis River near Canmore, Alberta. Only one previous team had successfully navigated the full Amazon, although many had tried and failed with fatal consequences. And all these expeditions were well financed, equipped with cutting-edge equipment, and teamed with experienced athletes.

  Again, despite popular advice to the contrary, Colin and two friends left with a whitewater raft, a video camera his sister had given them, and almost no money. Colin read the camera manual on the plane, and in Peru he hit the record button for the first time. Five months later they reached the Atlantic Ocean and he returned home. The documentary I watched came from that footage and was edited on his home computer with trial software. Somehow he had also managed to write a book during the time he wasn’t working his day job, editing the film, or planning his next adventure. Three years had passed since his Amazon voyage, and since then, he’d been on a few more hair-raising adventures, made another film, and written his second book.