Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  At 1:50 AM Colin woke me from a deep sleep. He was outside rowing and I could hear him talking loudly, probably to some dolphins splashing around the boat. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed that he was interrupting my precious few hours of sleep. Trying to ignore him, I slid my head under the pillow.

  “We’ve got a Christmas treat,” he said.

  My bed was warm and cozy. I was still groggy with sleep and certainly not ready for the bow of a ship to come crashing through the wall. I quickly threw on a shirt and opened the hatch.

  “Where is it?”

  “Straight over there,” Colin said, pointing off the starboard side.

  I could clearly see the bright green and red lights.

  “It’s been coming at us for a while. It’s a calm, clear night. I’ve got no idea why they can’t see our strobe light,” Colin said.

  “Maybe it’s our strobe that’s attracting them,” I said nervously. “I’ll try calling them on the VHF.”

  I dug out the VHF radio and a package of signalling flares. Colin propelled the rowboat with all his might in an attempt to move us out of the ship’s path.

  “This is Ondine, a small rowing vessel displaying a strobe light; we are calling an unidentified vessel bearing straight for us. Do you copy?” I said into the VHF.

  I waited for an answer. Silence. I checked the radio to make sure it was functioning and on channel sixteen. The LED function light shone brightly. I tried again but with more urgency in my voice. Nothing.

  Colin had turned the boat several degrees and was rowing a course perpendicular to the lights. Our speed was almost four knots, and Ondine cut smoothly through the flat waters. It soon became apparent that the other ship was changing course to keep coming towards us. The navigation lights were now very bright, and we could also hear the rumble of a diesel engine. We doubted it was an official vessel. If it was, both the coast guard and the police would be monitoring the radio.

  It was impossible to gauge the distance of the vessel until the hull suddenly became discernable one or two hundred metres away. We were terrified. In moments, it would slam into us.

  “STOP! YOU’RE GOING TO RUN US OVER!” I screamed into the radio.

  I ripped the flare out of the pouch. The ship was so close. I could see the form of the boat illuminated by the pulses of our strobe. It was a wooden fishboat, about twenty-four metres long, with a high wheelhouse. Something was wrong. The flare wouldn’t go off.

  “I can’t light it!” I screamed.

  The wooden fishboat was now twenty-five metres from us, moving at full cruising speed. Impact would be in seconds. Colin was in the midst of a turn, trying to avoid the impending collision. Our carbon-fibre oars looked like they were going to snap under the stress.

  Suddenly the fishing vessel turned sharply. They were taking evasive action. It seemed too late, and I braced for the impact. But the vessel missed us by less than two metres. Colin tucked the starboard oar against our boat to avoid having it sheared off. A wave rocked our vessel violently, and then the fishboat continued full speed into the distance, the rumble of its engine slowly fading to silence.

  Colin dropped his oars in relief and exhaustion. He was panting heavily.

  “That was too close,” he gasped. “There was a glow inside the wheelhouse—probably from the instrument panels. I could see two guys peering through the window. The fellow who saw us first wasn’t the one at the helm. He grabbed the wheel out of the helmsman’s hands and cranked it hard.”

  My heart kept racing as I watched the boat’s white stern light fading into the distance. I wondered if they would have stopped if they’d run us over.

  “They may have thought our strobe was marking something of interest, maybe fishing nets,” Colin said. “A strobe doesn’t allow for any depth perception, so they wouldn’t have known how far away we were. They probably figured the light was still miles away.”

  Several boats were still in sight, and we worried about another incident. We pondered turning off the strobe, but instead kept a vigilant watch. The night passed without further incident.

  9

  THE GREAT WHITE

  SHARK

  ANY FLOATING OBJECT on the ocean quickly collects a thick mat of barnacles, seaweed, and algae. Our boat was no exception, and the growth on our hull was significantly decreasing our speed. The antifouling paint we had applied in Lisbon was doing very little to prevent barnacle buildup.

  One day Colin decided to jump overboard to scrub the hull. Armed with a snorkel, mask, and bristle brush, he scraped away five weeks of crustacean growth and algal slime. I peered into the water, watching dislodged crustaceans plummet into the blue abyss and the occasional fish dart after the sinking loot. My job was to scan for sharks and to alert Colin if I saw one. We knew the likelihood of an attack was low but felt it was best to be prudent. After all, our chance of being hit by a hurricane had been statistically less likely than being eaten by a shark, too.

  After an hour and a half, Colin finished scraping and clambered back into the boat. “She’s cleaner than a nun’s bum,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at his analogy, and Colin’s grin broadened.

  “No wonder we were going so slowly. Some of those barnacles were four inches long.”

  I climbed back onto the rowing seat and put Colin’s efforts to the test. It took a few minutes to overcome inertia and bring the boat to cruising speed. We were travelling at 1.5 knots, just under three kilometres an hour, which was pretty good considering we still had stiff headwinds.

  “Awesome work, Tiger,” I said. “We’re moving much faster.”

  “We’ll have to do this every week.”

  It was amazing how quickly the barnacles had formed on the bottom of our boat. I had read earlier that they float on the ocean currents in their larval stage until they find a suitable home. Then they attach themselves, metamorphose into small shellfish, and stay put for the rest of their lives. Each barnacle builds a shell and reaches out with a series of sieve-like fingers that strain plankton from the seawater. As I watched them feed, I thought of a cluster of fiddlehead ferns unfurling themselves with tiny feathery arms instead of leaves.

  Although barnacles are a well-known headache for boaters, humans are a greater threat to them—and not just to those that make their home on the boat hulls. Because the ocean is becoming more acidic, barnacles’ shells are getting weaker and weaker. The increased acidity of the ocean is a threat not only to barnacles, but to oysters, snails, coral reefs, starfish, sea urchins, shrimp, certain types of plankton, and all ocean organisms that build a calcium carbonate shell or skeleton. In fact, a third of all marine life is in peril.

  According to U.S. scientist Scott C. Doney, the acidity of the ocean has increased 30 per cent since the industrial revolution began because of increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The oceans have absorbed half the carbon dioxide emissions, dampening the impact of climate change at a great cost. When carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, it becomes carbonic acid and causes the ocean’s pH to drop. Usually the ocean is kept in balance by marine organisms, which convert the dissolved carbon dioxide products into calcium carbonate skeletons or shells. When carbon dioxide levels are slightly higher, these creatures become more prolific. But now that humans emit 27 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, the oceans simply cannot keep up.

  All marine animals that build their skeletons or shells with calcium carbonate (CaCO3) need to create it from building materials in the ocean—namely calcium and carbonate ions. (They cannot use existing CaCO3 deposits to build their structures.) But carbonate ions, which are naturally found at supersaturated levels, are dwindling as oceans absorb more carbon dioxide. Like brick-layers running low on bricks, crustaceans have a more difficult time building a structure. By 2050, some areas of the ocean will have too little carbonate for animals to create shells. And with increasing acidity, animals will struggle to build their chalky skeletons and shells; like pearls in vinegar, their calcium carbonate
structures will dissolve.

  This is bad news for the people who rely on the ocean for survival, too. The last time the ocean reached such acidic levels may have been when dinosaurs became extinct. Sixty-five million years ago, the dinosaurs were killed off by what most experts believe was an enormous meteorite or a comet that slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula, a portion of Mexico where the earth has high concentrations of calcium sulphate. The heat and pressure created by the impact caused the calcium sulphate to convert into sulphuric compounds, which reacted with oxygen and water to form sulphuric acid. If as little as 5 per cent of these sulphuric compounds rained down into the oceans, the environment created would have been lethally corrosive. When the dinosaurs died, almost all marine animals that created calcium carbonate shells or skeletons also disappeared. Most species of calcium carbonate-shelled plankton disappeared, as did mussels. Coral reefs vanished and did not reappear for at least two million years.

  According to research by the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Dr. Ken Caldeira, if rising carbon dioxide levels continue unabated, oceans may face a mass extinction similar to that which occurred when dinosaurs disappeared. When Dr. Caldeira presented his findings at the AGU/ASLO Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu in 2006, they created headlines around the world. If a similar mass extinction should happen, recovery will not be easy. The geologic record demonstrates that the chemical effects of ocean acidification would last tens of thousands of years, and the recovery of species would take millions.

  But for now at least, the barnacles in our neck of the woods seemed to be doing just fine. Their biggest worry was a guy in a snorkelling mask with a bristle brush.

  AFTER MY ROWING shift, I relaxed in the cabin and fixed myself a lunch of brochette, cheese, and crackers. I washed it all down with some black tea that Colin had left simmering in a pot. I was just about to start writing in my journal when Colin called for me to come out and see some dolphins.

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” I said. Dolphins were becoming a regular occurrence.

  “There’s a whale, too,” Colin added.

  That sounded exciting. I emerged from the cabin with our large video camera. But I was already too late; the dolphins were swimming away, and the whale was submerged.

  “What’s that?” Colin said, as he pointed to a small, dark dorsal fin about ten metres away. At first I thought it could be the whale or a large dolphin. But the fin did not rise to reveal the curve of a dolphin’s back or move in the slow manner that typified other visiting whales. Instead, it sliced through the water, a black blade cutting a straight line through the surface of the sea. I was mesmerized at what was undoubtedly our best shark sighting so far.

  But the fin was more like the tip of the iceberg. The shark’s behemoth bulk was hidden beneath the water. When the shark rose to the water’s surface, the dark triangle quadrupled in size.

  “Oh my God, that looks like the sail on a windsurfer,” Colin said.

  The fin had risen to tower more than a metre. Its enormous appendage created a small V of ripples as it cut through the water. This could only be a great white shark, the only shark in these waters that can reach that size.

  To coincide with my quickening heart rate, the shark’s pace sped up. Normally, great whites cruise at a leisurely pace but they quickly increase velocity during an attack to reach speeds of forty kilometres an hour. They can even generate enough speed to launch their two-thousand-kilogram-plus bodies completely out of the water.

  Why was this shark accelerating? I couldn’t help but feel concerned, and I knew my gut reaction was worth taking seriously. A perusal of statistics compiled by the International Shark Attack File shows that great white sharks have attacked and sunk boats ranging from sea kayaks to sailboats and have knocked people overboard.

  We stared in awe as the shark circled our boat a second time. Colin added the soundtrack of the two-note Jaws theme song:

  “Dun, dun, dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun.”

  The fin eventually disappeared, and the sea seemed empty once again. But as if watching a horror movie in which the antagonist leaves the screen, we waited apprehensively for a sudden reappearance. The shark could be less than a stone’s throw away, completely invisible beneath the surface.

  “Fancy going for a swim?” Colin asked.

  “Thank God that Jaws didn’t visit us a few hours earlier, when you were scraping the bottom of the boat,” I said.

  “You might have been rowing to Florida alone.”

  “Don’t joke about that,” I said, still nervous that the shark might be around.

  I had read Sylvia Cook and John Fairfax’s book, Oars Across the Pacific, detailing their 361-day row across the Pacific Ocean. Fairfax was a risk-taking, womanizing gambler who liked to fight sharks to raise money for his rowing expeditions. When he was rowing across the Pacific Ocean, he continued to embrace his penchant for danger and had his arm sliced through to the bone by a three-metre shark. Sylvia had sewn up his wounds and rowed the remaining thousand kilometres to land where he could see a doctor.

  “I bet removing those barnacles was a calling card for carnivores,” Colin said. “I watched all those mashed, meaty bodies rain down into the depths. It must have smelled like a doughnut shop for sharks.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t scrape the hull anymore,” I said. Next it would be my turn, and I didn’t relish the prospect.

  Colin ignored my comment and pointed to the waters twenty metres in front of us. “The whale is back.”

  I could see the large dark grey form slowly approach our boat, and I moved the video camera towards it. It began its slide directly beneath our boat, about a metre beneath the surface. The animal’s girth was as large as the beam of our boat; it looked to be at least six metres long. I was amazed to see such a majestic creature just inches from our hull, moving with the gentle care that I had come to expect of whales. I wanted to reach down and touch its back.

  Through the viewfinder of the video camera, I noticed something seemed odd about the whale’s tail. It was aligned vertically to its body, not horizontally. I glanced up from the LCD display for a clearer view. This tail was just like the dorado we had caught, but about a thousand times bigger.

  “That’s the shark,” I said in a low voice.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so mesmerized—or perhaps frozen with fear might be a more accurate description. Just an arm’s length away swam a hulking two-thousand-kilogram carnivore looking for lunch. It eyed the hull of our boat, wondering if we would make a good meal, trying to decide whether to take a test bite.

  This is how great white sharks attack humans. It’s not that the shark particularly enjoys Homo sapiens—we’re rather bony and muscled and lacking in fat, compared with sea mammals. But they don’t know this until they take a test bite. Apparently it’s more like a gentle nibble, and I’ve even heard some call it “mouthing”—as when a puppy puts its mouth around your arm without biting hard. Unfortunately, even a nibble from the greatest predator in the sea can have lethal consequences. After the initial bite of human flesh, most sharks don’t come back for seconds, but the damage may have already been done.

  With our quarter-inch plywood hull, even an affectionate lick from our new friend would probably send the boat to the bottom—leaving Colin and I as morsels for dessert.

  The shark finished its slow slide under our boat and vanished from view.

  “Wow,” I said, exhaling.

  “I thought we were goners,” Colin said, half-seriously.

  “That’s not out of the question yet.”

  We both stared into the water looking for shadows or dorsal fins. After five minutes, Colin said, “Looks like the coast is clear. Maybe we should get back to rowing.”

  I was mildly disappointed. The shark frightened me and aroused my curiosity at the same time. After all, seeing a great white shark is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and the biologist in me wanted a chance to examine it in greater detail.

  “If o
nly our boat was a little more solid, we could throw some food overboard to lure him back.”

  Colin stared at me for a second before bursting into laughter.

  “What? I’m sure any marine biologist would be excited to have the opportunity to observe a shark that large,” I said.

  The shark didn’t come back, so we relived the event through the video camera. We huddled in the cabin and rewound the tape. I had not caught the shark circling the boat, but the camera had been rolling when it passed underneath. Since we didn’t have a polarizing filter, glare blocked most of the details, but the shark’s gargantuan size was displayed clearly.

  “That is by far the largest shark I’ve ever seen,” Colin said. “He’s as big as our boat.”

  I felt quite privileged to have seen such a large shark on my first ocean crossing. Based on Colin’s experiences and the accounts of other sailors, I knew it was uncommon to see a great white unless one travels to areas they are known to frequent, such as the waters off South Africa.

  The shark that visited us was significantly larger than average. When we played the video footage frame by frame, we guessed the shark was over seven metres. Even if we over-measured by a metre, it was still substantial. Shark scientists estimate that the maximum size for the great white is between six and seven and a half metres, although five and a half metres is considered a giant.

  Colin went back to rowing, and I flipped through the pages of our SAS Survival Guide to see what they had to say about sharks.

  “It says here that a good swimmer can outmanoeuvre a shark,” I said, laughing.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all. It says you can escape an attacking shark by making sharp turns.”

  “I’d like to see the author try that,” Colin said.

  A great white can swim five times faster than an Olympic swimmer and they hunt some of the fastest and most agile marine creatures, including dolphins, tuna, and dorado. Not only can they reach speeds in excess of forty kilometres an hour, but they can turn on a dime. I couldn’t imagine any human swimmer capable of zigzagging out of the way of a refrigerator-sized mouth charging forward at the speed of a car. Over time, sharks had to evolve into capable hunters; otherwise they would not have survived 450 million years of natural selection. They even survived the catastrophe that extinguished the dinosaurs and 95 per cent of all marine life.