Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  Why can’t I ever meet guys like this? I mused. But it was more than Colin’s love of the outdoors or his willingness to explore its remotest corners that captivated me; it was his compulsion to do things that at first glance seemed impossible. And I loved that he didn’t take on these challenges rashly. Instead, he diligently researched them and acquired the needed skills before reaching the conclusion that Yes, this is possible. Then, despite setbacks, limited finances, and opposing public opinion, he stuck to his plan and never gave up.

  I walked out of the theatre, passing the table of his books in the foyer, and thought, Hmmm, I guess I should support his next journey. I bought Amazon Extreme for twenty dollars and went back into the theatre to get it signed. A group of people circled Colin, asking questions about his journey. I hovered at the perimeter, waiting my turn. He turned to glance at me while listening to a question. He did the same thing during the next question. My ears started to feel hot, and I had the sinking suspicion I was blushing. There was a slight pause in the questioning, and he turned to me.

  I racked my brain for all the questions I had, but, afflicted with acute amnesia, I resorted to probably the most frequently asked question: “So, ahhh, ummm, what was your favourite part of the trip?” He graciously answered my lame query as if it was the first time he’d heard such a brilliant inquiry. Finally my neurons haphazardly started to fire, and I remembered the things I was curious about. “How long did you have to stay with the armed men who captured you in Peru? How did you get your stolen video camera back? What is your upcoming expedition?” Shyness prevented me from asking the question I really wanted to ask.

  “Who should I make this out to?” Colin asked, reaching for my book.

  “Julie.”

  “Do you have any trips planned?”

  My mind blanked, and I panicked. I was supposed to climb Mount Rainier during my holidays the following week, but that had been cancelled. What were those ski trips I wanted to do this winter? Does going home to visit my parents at Christmas count? “Turkey, I’m going to Turkey next year,” I blurted, relieved that comprehensible words had exited my mouth.

  I’d been to Istanbul once and had long dreamed of returning, but that was as far into planning as I had ventured.

  “Well, I hope you have a good time,” Colin said, handing the book back to me.

  “Good luck on your next expedition.”

  There was an awkward pause, almost like neither of us wanted this chance encounter to be our only time together. Well, I could say with certainty that one of us felt that way; less than a year later, I found out it was mutual.

  The next time I saw Colin was on a drizzly spring morning in Vancouver. I was standing at the bus stop, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Two other Lycra-clad people waited at the street corner with me. We all had numbers pinned to our chests, indicating a shared destiny for the next three hours. The fourth person to join our group walked up with one of the most extreme duck-footed strides I’d ever seen. He was fit, but based on his footwear, which looked more like five-dollar Kmart sneaker cast-offs than proper running shoes, I wrongly deduced that he wasn’t running the ten-kilometre Vancouver Sun Run. And with a walk like that, who could blame him?

  We all waited quietly. Occasionally one of us would excitedly blurt, “There’s a bus—maybe we’ll get on this one.” That was swiftly followed by, “This one’s full too.”

  Bus after bus passed, packed full of runners, while the drivers shook their heads at us.

  Then Duck-foot said, “At this rate, I don’t think we’ll make it in time for the start of the race. Maybe we should start walking and then try to catch a bus on Burrard Street, where it might be less crowded.” So he was doing the run.

  “Great idea,” I said.

  As we walked, chatter flowed, and I overheard Duck-foot say, “I haven’t been running much lately, because I’ve been on the road doing film presentations.”

  The bulb went off in my head. “I saw you talk at the Ridge Theatre last year! Your show about the Amazon was great.”

  He looked at me, eyes focussed. “Hey, that’s right. You were going to Turkey.”

  I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe he remembered me. He must have met thousands of people on his tour and hundreds that night alone.

  “I actually never went to Turkey, but I’m going to Nepal next week,” I said.

  “That’ll be amazing. I’ve always been interested in Nepal.”

  “I’ll be hiking to Everest Base Camp, and then travelling in the Annapurna mountain range. I’ll be travelling solo,” I added, trying to hint at my single status without sounding like I had no friends.

  I was about to put my foot in my mouth when Colin mercifully interjected.

  “Maybe you can show me your photos when you get back?”

  “That would be great.”

  I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. The next day I told a friend at work, “I’ve met the guy I’m going to marry.” I’ve never really believed in love at first sight, and I’ve always been rather bad at gauging people from initial impressions, but this time was different. It seemed like uncanny good fortune, or what some might call fate, had brought us together. We wooed each other with canoe trips in Indian Arm, hikes in the nearby mountain ranges, and runs along Kitsilano Beach. Ten months later we were engaged, and two and a half years later, I found myself on the Atlantic Ocean with my beloved duck-footed runner.

  BEFORE I KNEW it, the sun was fully above the horizon, and my two-hour rowing shift was over.

  “Good morning, Colin,” I said in a loud, happy voice.

  “Your congenial greeting is a very, very thin veil for what you really wish to communicate,” Colin quickly retorted without a hint of grogginess as he peered between greasy smudges on the hatch. “How are things out there?”

  “The winds are the same as yesterday, about force three, and they’re still coming from the north-northeast. Our speed is great, 2.5 knots. But it’s not easy rowing; it’s choppy, and the boat keeps pulling to the portside.”

  “Have you tried adjusting the rudder?”

  “Yeah, but it didn’t help,” I grumbled. “We need an autopilot.”

  “Or how about a big outboard?”

  “Maybe an outboard and a bigger boat,” I said.

  “Damn,” Colin laughed, “we should have got a big power boat with a bunch of servants on board. That’d be the way to cross the Atlantic in comfort.”

  “God help us,” I said, glancing over our submersible-cum-rowboat. “Why did we do this to ourselves? We’ve put a man on the moon, and yet we two morons decide to step back a few millennia in technology and row across an ocean.”

  I was feeling good now. Somehow, making fun of our enterprise was delightfully satisfying, especially with the prospect of my shift about to end.

  “Yeah, but those astronauts could barely walk when they got back from the moon. Just think how much exercise you’re getting. In three or four months when we get to the other side, you’ll be looking like the Governator.”

  Three or four months! I still had trouble comprehending this reality and would have been really disturbed if I knew the journey would take even longer. I tried not to think about it, and instead pondered what I would make for breakfast.

  Unfortunately I was feeling just as nauseous as the day before, and my appetite was weak. Seasickness is an insidious condition brought about by contradictory sensory stimuli.

  Normally the information from our eyes and inner ears that we use to maintain our balance matches, but in a boat, all that arithmetic goes out the window. The boat appears to be still, so our eyes tell us we’re stationary, while the receptors in our ears report vigorous motion. The brain has trouble interpreting this conflicting information, and the result is a feeling of extreme nausea, lethargy, and sickness—like a bad hangover without the fun of the night before.

  I’d spent the previous day hoping that mental fortitude could conquer seasickness. Now I relinquished that misguided
theory and took a double dose of dimenhydrinate (more commonly known as Gravol). This drug suppresses feelings of nausea and sickness by blocking histamine levels. For good measure, I added a painkiller to quell my caffeine-withdrawal headache.

  Colin, too, opted for treatment and applied a medicated patch behind his ear, where it would release a continuous stream of scopolamine for three days. Scopolamine is a drug derived from plants in the nightshade family; it works by interfering with certain nerve receptors in the ear. How it works is not fully understood, but the theory is that the slight interference in balance receptors helps the brain to better cope with the conflicting signals.

  After half an hour, I felt marginally better. I was still far from completely recovered, but the rest of the day progressed with less discomfort. The day blurred by in a medley of rowing, eating, and sleeping. Our last ties to land and civilization quickly faded. I could no longer see the coastline of Portugal or the lights of Lisbon. We saw no fishing boats, only the occasional outline of a larger boat far in the distance. Nature was gradually replacing the creations of humankind. We watched birds soar on air currents, and in the sea we saw infrequent glimmers of silver—the majestic tuna.

  It was exciting to see the tuna jump, and the first few times I yelled for Colin to come on deck to watch. A few different kinds of tuna live in these waters, including bluefin, bigeye, albacore, and skipjack, and it is possible to distinguish between the different types by their coloration, size, and length of dorsal fin. But I wasn’t able to, and since Colin had spent time working on a B.C. fishboat, I hoped he would have more success than me. Unfortunately, the fish were too far away, and he could only guess. Given that we were still in subtropical waters not far from the Mediterranean, we hypothesized that some of the tuna might be Atlantic bluefin, which spawn in the Mediterranean and then migrate across the Atlantic. These fish can travel up to seventy kilometres per hour and cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than sixty days. I was rather envious of their speed.

  It is hard not to be enamoured of these lightning-fast creatures, by their beauty and grace—and by their taste. This last attribute causes the bluefin tuna much trouble. The size, colour, texture, and high fat content of the so-called “king of fish” make them highly prized, especially for sushi.

  Bluefin tuna are harvested in great numbers, both legally and illegally. Modern fishing practices are extraordinarily efficient and, according to California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, have caused the world bluefin population to plunge 90 per cent since 1970. Scientists and conservationists are working hard to reverse this trend, by encouraging the lowering of fishing quotas, cessation of illegal fishing, and protection of breeding grounds. But so far, not one unified organization or government has implemented the required changes.

  The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is responsible for the management of tuna, but according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), they don’t do a good job of it. The WWF criticizes the ICCAT for setting irresponsibly high quotas—in 2007 they were twice as high as scientifically recommended—and for continuing to allow fishing during peak spawning season. That’s not to say firmer regulations would help much; many nations flaunt the laws, and, with no one to adequately monitor and enforce regulations, illegal fishing is rampant. Many believe bluefin tuna fishery in the East Atlantic and

  Mediterranean is out of control, that the most basic requirements for fisheries management are absent, and that the industry is in fact unregulated.

  “It is the most scandalous case of fisheries mismanagement currently happening in the world,” said Dr. Sergi Tudela of the WWF in 2007. The industry was rife with fishing during the closed season, illegal use of spotter planes, massive over-fishing, and an international ring of corruption to conceal illegal catches.

  The small school of jumping tuna had long disappeared from our sight. I hoped they would lead long lives. They were off in chase of flying fish, herring, and sardines, flitting beneath the water at speeds we could only dream of. I wondered if they swam nearby or were already miles away. It was impossible to see more than a few metres into the water directly next to us. What lay beneath the water seemed such a mystery.

  THE FORCE OF the wind grew. It created intimidating waves that rammed the oar handles into my bruised shins. The waves toppled onto the boat, striking me with their foaming plumes. I was suddenly scared of the sea, of how quickly it had grown. The darkness of our third night out settled in, and I felt no more comfortable now than I had the two nights before. On the contrary, the sea seemed even more wicked tonight.

  Colin agreed, and we lashed the oars to the boat at midnight, two hours earlier than we would normally have. We huddled in the cabin—Colin on his back, me on my side—trying to get comfortable in our unbearably cramped quarters. Sleep did not come easily, so I listened to the powerful wind and waves.

  In the morning I climbed out of the cabin and into the gusting winds. Waves sprayed me as I unfastened the oars and settled into the rowing seat. But I struggled to keep the boat on course. I cursed the rudder. If only I could control it while rowing, keeping the boat on course would not be such an issue. But I had only the oars to pivot an eight-hundred-kilogram boat against forty-kilometre-an-hour winds and two-metre waves. After almost an hour of futile and exhausting rowing, I gave up. It was time to deploy the sea anchor.

  In rough, stormy conditions it is best to point the bow of the boat into the wind and waves using a sea anchor or drogue. A drogue is essentially an underwater parachute connected to the bow with a long shock-absorbing line. As the wind pushes the boat, the boat naturally weathercocks towards the drogue. A regular anchor would also cause the boat to swing into the wind and waves, but of course, using a conventional anchor isn’t feasible in the middle of the ocean’s depths.

  I struggled to the front of the boat through driving rain and spray and opened the forward compartment where the drogue was stored. Our boat was currently broaching (sitting sideways to the waves) and in a very vulnerable position. Waves crashed over the boat, rocking it violently. I tied the loose end of the rope to an eye ring on the bow and then slipped the conical canvas drogue into the water. The ghostly shape slipped into the distance until it reached the end of the line. Suddenly there was tension on the line, and the boat began nosing into the waves. The result was a little disappointing. We had hoped that, with the drogue, the boat would be perpendicular to the waves. Instead, it sat at about a sixty-degree angle to the ideal angle of attack.

  I climbed back into the cabin, absolutely drenched, and huddled against Colin’s warmth as the whistling wind increased in intensity. We ate our breakfast of salted soda crackers, cheese, and cured ham. Neither of us felt like doing any of our daily chores (plotting our position on the charts, writing in our journals, making water with the desalinator). Instead we lay sandwiched together in the cabin, bumping into each other and the walls as waves collided with our boat.

  “I have to go pee,” I informed Colin glumly.

  “Yeah, I have to offload some cargo myself, but I think I’ll . . .”

  Colin was interrupted by the thunderous explosion of an enormous breaking wave. Our vessel rolled almost ninety degrees, and I was thrown on top of Colin. Books, charts, boxes of crackers, and waterproof electronic cases toppled onto us. Slowly the boat righted, and I could see the water gushing off the decks through the scuppers.

  “Holy shit, that was a big one,” I said.

  The pressure in my bladder was greater than ever, and I feared another giant wave might trigger the inevitable. There was no way I could pee in a bucket in the cabin. (I had trouble peeing in those little jars doctors issued, and that was in the privacy of an immobile bathroom.) Even when the weather was calm, I’d had trouble dealing with my toilet needs on this trip. Initially, I’d imagined we would use a bucket on the deck. (Colin always talked about the “bucket and chuck it” days back in his sailboat. He forgot to mention the importance of partially filling the bucket
with water in advance, and my first attempt had been very messy indeed.)

  I soon learned that the best way to go to the bathroom on a rowboat was to hang my derriere over the side while sitting on the outer rail. The lifelines made a secure backrest, and it was much more relaxing than using the bucket. Now, however, in gale-force winds, just being outside was a precarious experience.

  “I’m going out. I can’t hold my bladder any longer,” I informed Colin.

  “Just make sure you tie yourself on,” Colin said, looking worried.

  I nodded. We had a thick six-metre length of rope with one end secured to the boat for conditions like this. I tied the free end around my waist with a secure bowline knot. If I was washed off the decks, this would be my umbilical cord to safety. I waited for a lull between waves and quickly dashed out of the cabin, shutting the hatch securely behind me. I sat on the outer rail and relaxed my bladder—relief. Momentarily incapacitated by nature’s call, I watched in disbelief as a perfectly formed cresting wave reared towards me. I tightened my grip on the safety line. The wave poured over me and the boat rolled portside from the impact, dipping me up to my waist in the ocean. I clung to the lifeline while the boat slowly righted, and then I pulled up my dripping spandex shorts and scurried back into the cabin.

  “All is well?” Colin asked.

  “Better than well.” I was feeling invigorated. “I’ve learned that our classy bathroom is not only self-flushing, but it also comes with a powerful bidet.”

  BY MID-AFTERNOON THE weather had not changed. While Colin rummaged for food, I decided to make some space for him by going outside to check the drogue. I tugged on the line, surprised at how little tension there was. Concerned, I began pulling in the remaining eighty metres of rope. I hoped for a logical explanation that would include a sea anchor at the rope’s terminus. Perhaps the lines had tangled and the anchor collapsed.