Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  We hoped the worst was over, but we weren’t certain until after our call to Dean. Delta had passed and was continuing eastward. We later found out from Colin’s mother that Delta went on to kill nineteen people in the Canary Islands. The storm made headlines both because of the destruction it caused, and because meteorologists deemed it “historic.” Tropical storms rarely reach the Canary Islands. It seemed that anomalous weather was becoming commonplace this year.

  BEFORE LEAVING LAND, we had worried about hurricanes and storms, but even in our most pessimistic predictions, we never expected such ferocious weather. In Lisbon we had watched news reports of the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina in horror, and we worried for our own safety. Little did we know the severity of the storms to come, or that this year would go on to be the worst hurricane season in history—breaking not only the record for the most hurricanes in a season, but the most intense (Wilma), the costliest (Katrina), the longest-lasting in December (Epsilon), the longest-lasting in January (Zeta), the second-latest-forming (Zeta), the most eastern-forming (Vince), and the only season with four category-five storms.

  The sheer number of hurricanes and the destruction of these storms raised many questions about the relationship between hurricanes and climate change. Few dispute that ocean temperatures have risen and that hurricanes are now more intense and numerous, but how much of that change is due to global warming caused by human activity is hotly debated.

  Long after we reached the other side of the ocean, scientists determined that in the year we rowed across the Atlantic, its surface temperature, in the regions where hurricanes form during hurricane season, was at a record high. At home, I read a 2006 article published by National Center for Atmospheric Research scientists Kevin Trenberth and Dennis J. Shea in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that detailed these findings. Not only did they determine that the temperature was 0.9 degrees Celsius higher than it had been from 1901 to 1970, but that half that spike was linked to global warming. Natural fluctuations could account for only a portion of the temperature increase that was “a major reason for the record hurricane season.”

  As we rowed through Tropical Storm Delta, we suspected that our changing climate had played a role in the increased tempestuousness of the seas, but only afterwards, when we read the research reports, were we sure.

  EVEN IN THESE rough conditions, we still saw fish, birds, and turtles. As we rowed in the chop left in Delta’s wake, I saw the silver glimmer of tuna breaking the water’s surface and a turtle eyeing our boat from a distance. We were intrigued that even in the wildest weather, these creatures can submerge a few metres to a calm and quiet world. Birds don’t have this luxury, and although some depart when they sense an approaching storm, others remain. I watched in wonder as two shearwaters soared across the sky effortlessly, seeming to revel in the wind currents created by the tempest. Their outstretched wings captured invisible updrafts. They gained elevation with barely a wing-flap and occasionally lost altitude to plunge into the ocean after a fish.

  11

  OUR SECOND MID-ATLANTIC

  BIRTHDAY PARTY

  ON NOVEMBER 29, Colin turned 34. It was also day sixty-nine. While Colin rowed in the sweaty heat, I prepared his birthday cake. I placed a layer of rum-and-coffee-soaked ladyfinger biscuits across the bottom of a large pot, then covered it with tapioca pudding made from dried tapioca, full-fat powdered milk, sugar, and vanilla flavouring. I then slathered strawberry jam from our last jar over the tapioca, followed by another layer of ladyfingers, and I topped it all off with whipped cream from a Tetra Pak and five birthday candles.

  I lit the candles and sang “Happy Birthday.” The cake was hardly a secret, as the rowing position faced directly into the cabin. Nonetheless, Colin feigned surprise.

  “Oh my goodness, I thought you were cooking dinner over there,” he said, beaming from ear to ear. “Don’t let Michael Jackson hear you singing that, otherwise he’ll be asking for royalties.”

  “We’d be paying him in fish,” I said, momentarily thinking about our dismal finances.

  “Don’t worry, he won’t find us out here.”

  Colin closed his eyes, blew out the candles, and then heaped a portion onto his plate.

  “Man, this is tasty,” he said through a mouthful of cake. “How did you make this after so many months out at sea? It tastes like something you’d get in a gourmet restaurant.”

  “Maybe I’ll start a rowboat cookbook,” I said with a laugh.

  Colin didn’t tell me his wish, but I suspected it involved the weather. This topic dominated our lives; we made daily predictions based mostly on optimism. The success of our expedition was largely reliant on the weather. I reflected back to my birthday wish and shivered. Colin’s luck would have to be better than mine. At the very least, I knew it couldn’t bring on another hurricane; hurricane season was officially over. In all of history, only five hurricanes have ever formed in December.

  Today was the first sunny day in over a week. Fluffy clouds dotted the sky, waves ceased breaking over the decks, and the mercury soared. Even though our speed was slow and the winds variable, we rowed merrily, happy to be free of the cabin confines. Emerging from Tropical Storm Delta gave us a brighter outlook, the way a brush with death can make a person appreciate life.

  In the waters near us, dozens of fish jostled for position, some swimming frantically to keep up, others gliding effortlessly. Fred and Ted had made friends, and lots of them. Perhaps our exceptionally slow travel over the past week had raised our curb appeal, or maybe the creatures just enjoyed the security of a larger “mothership” during stormy seas. We counted at least five different species as we stared into the clear waters, marvelling at our no-maintenance aquarium.

  The smallest were no larger than goldfish and had golden yellow colouring. During Tropical Storm Delta, we had lowered our makeshift drogue into the ocean, where it sank to a depth of several metres, filled with water, and stabilized our boat. While submerged, it must have attracted the attention of these fish, because when I pulled up the drogue, two dozen fish followed it to the surface. They’d stayed with us ever since, swimming at a slightly greater depth than the rest and always in a cluster.

  But the waters became really crowded when a car-sized cable spool floated by. Had it fallen off a ship in a storm, or was it just another piece of trash dumped into the ocean? We still saw bits of garbage on a regular basis, but this was by far the largest and most unusual. Usually it was a plastic bottle or a jumble of ropes. Sometimes we’d row over to see if anything was growing on it; some garbage is host to barnacles, algae, and even tiny crabs. Colin got quite excited at these moments, and he talked about making “flotsam soup,” which I think meant throwing everything edible into a pot. Fortunately, he hadn’t done this yet.

  We rowed closer to inspect the cable spool, and Colin began talking about the great soup we could make. The spool was covered with the usual algae greens, but we were in for a surprise: underneath the spool was a large group of fish. And they were all keen to jump ship. As we passed the spool, dozens of them glided through the water towards our boat. We saw two types of fish we hadn’t seen before, which we nicknamed “floppy fish” and “smarties.” The floppy fish, which we later found out were actually triggerfish, were comical in appearance, with oversized dorsal and abdominal fins that wagged like a dog’s tail in slow motion. Their mouths were beak-shaped, and they immediately started gnawing barnacles off the bottom of our boat. The smarties were the size of Fred and Ted, but they were a little more rotund and covered in muted polka dots. We called them smarties because we feared that the larger fish would eat them like, well, chocolate Smarties.

  While we rowed, the fish stayed by our side, dozens of them frantically swimming beside our boat and under our oars. The smarties, in particular, liked to swim directly under the oars and, on more than one occasion, they got an accidental oar in the face. Each time this happened, the fish that had been hit would be momentarily st
unned, like someone who’d absent-mindedly walked into a wall. Then it would give its tail a shake and madly swim to catch up with the group.

  Dorado also followed our boat, but more loosely. With their incredible speed, they easily kept pace with us, and they seemed to treat us like a coffee shop—a place to hang out and meet friends. When they first arrived, I worried they would eat Fred, Ted, and the other little ones. Dorado are sleek predators and they swam below most of our fish, almost as if they were sizing them up for dinner. But they weren’t. Dorado never chased the small fish that followed our boat. Instead, we watched in amazement as they rocketed after schools of harder-to-catch flying fish, which launched into the skies to escape their predators.

  During our first eight weeks at sea, we had caught only one fish—a small dorado near the Canary Islands. Our luck had now changed, and with a growing school of dorado keeping pace with our boat, we caught as many as we needed. In the previous week alone, we had caught eight. This might sound like a lot, but we worried that our stored supplies might not be enough to see us to the other side of the ocean. The bad weather had put us far behind schedule, and we did not know if things would improve. To stretch our provisions, we ate fresh dorado almost daily and even sun-dried several for leaner times. Rather callously, I nicknamed our accompanying school of dorado the “floating larder,” the term John Fairfax had given the dorado on his ocean row thirty-five years before.

  “I THINK OUR hoochie is getting a little worn,” I said, wiggling the hook out of our freshly caught dinner.

  “It has been getting a lot of action lately,” Colin agreed.

  The lure had once resembled a green squid, but now it was just a bent, rusty hook with only one of the original eight tentacles remaining. We had only one other lure: a plastic plug shaped like a flying fish. The clerk in the Portuguese sporting goods store had seemed to think it would work well. Hopefully he was right.

  We filleted the fish and threw the scraps overboard. Our fish contingent frantically devoured the smorgasbord before it sank. The fish could only descend to about nine metres before they had to abandon their meal and return to the surface. To help them out, we tied a string to the dorado carcass and hung it off the boat. Like chickadees flocking around a suet feeder, or a school of piranhas on a cow, dozens of fish pecked at the carcass. Within a few hours, they’d picked every last bit of meat off the bones, leaving only a skeleton hanging on a string. When we first started feeding the fish like this, I worried we’d also attract sharks, and several mornings we awoke to find the string severed and the skeleton gone. But it was worth the risk.

  Fred, Ted, and the other small fish quickly learned the golden dorado was their food source. As time went on, they became emboldened and began attacking the dorado we reeled in with the fishing rod. Occasionally we even noticed them nipping at passing dorado that weren’t hooked. Amusingly, the dorado would turn tail—much like a timid German shepherd that has no idea it’s twenty times bigger than a yappy Chihuahua.

  “DOLPHINS,” COLIN SAID excitedly. “Come out here, quick!”

  I grabbed the video camera and scrambled onto the deck. The sea exploded with the glistening backs of more than a hundred dolphins heading towards us at breakneck speed. Their pace slowed only when they leapt straight upward, clearing the water by two or more metres and then spinning vertically and plunging back into the sea.

  They were spinner dolphins—famous for their acrobatic displays and aptly named for the performances we witnessed. Their habitat is open ocean waters, mostly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, where they travel in groups ranging from several dozen to thousands. At about 175 centimetres long and 50 kilograms, they are smaller than the spotted and bottlenose dolphins in these waters.

  “They’re so loud,” I said with delight.

  The air reverberated with high-pitched squeaks and a stream of clicks that sounded like the opening of a super-sized zipper. The dolphins were undoubtedly telling one other that a couple of misplaced humans in a little red boat was blocking their path. Spinner dolphins use squeaks, whistles, and trills for communication. Their rapid-fire clicks, on the other hand, are for echolocation—a type of bio-sonar also used by whales and bats that allows them to locate objects by their echo. In the ocean’s turbid waters, this mode of perception is more sensitive than sight.

  Their pace towards us continued unabated, and as they neared, several more leapt out of the air in a spinning arc and returned to the sea with a splash. This splash, too, was a form of dialogue. In fact, scientists suspect that spinner dolphins communicate through acrobatic feats, as well. When they leap out of the water and crash down again, the froth of bubbles and loud slap help with both communication and echolocation.

  The dolphins surrounded our boat on all sides, and they swam beneath us as well, but they barely paused. Soon, they were out of sight.

  “I hope they come back,” I said softly, staring into the distance until the last one disappeared.

  Just after the sun went down, at least a dozen cetaceans returned, their presence announced by whistles and clicks. It was difficult to see them clearly in the fading light. We could hear them splashing and blowing around the boat for a good twenty minutes. I was thrilled with the wildlife display and gave little thought as to why our boat had suddenly captured the dolphins’ attention.

  When the sun rose the following morning, I realized the purpose behind their visit: only two dorado remained by our boat, fourteen fewer than yesterday. The dolphins had waited until dark—when fish are practically blind—and then picked them off effortlessly by using their sonar. During the day the dolphins didn’t even bother giving chase, knowing the dorado could easily outswim them.

  THE WATERS WERE now very calm. At night we slept with the hatch open to let the cooler air into our sweltering cabin. In my journal, I wrote: All we hear is the roll of the sliding seat and the movement of the water—oars dipping and waves lapping. Had it not been for contrary currents eroding our progress, it would have been idyllic. But every metre we inched forward, we slipped half a metre back.

  However, something beyond adverse currents was worrying me.

  “What do you think about starting a family?” I asked.

  “We’ll have wonderful kids,” Colin said, brimming with affection. “We can take them on adventures with us—not things like this—but maybe sailing, or canoeing on the Mississippi River. I’ve always thought it would be great to . . . ”

  “Well, actually, I was thinking more immediately,” I interrupted.

  “You mean, reaching shore with three on board?” Colin asked, his eyes widening.

  “My period is four weeks late.”

  The colour drained from Colin’s face. He looked terrified.

  “I’m sure it’s because of the stress,” I quickly continued. “It’s just that . . . I’ve never had this happen before. But I think extreme activity can do that. I’ve heard this happens to athletes when they’re training intensely.”

  Colin was quiet, his mind running through the possibilities. “So you could be between four and five months pregnant by the time we reach shore, and ready to deliver just as we cycle into Vancouver.”

  “Yes, that sounds about right.”

  MY PERIOD WASN’T the only thing late. The day before, we’d spent several hours tapping numbers into our calculator. Our average daily distance since leaving—including all the days of contrary weather—had been fifty-two kilometres per day. At this pace it would take us 173 days to cross the Atlantic, more than two months longer than we’d anticipated. Originally, we had optimistically hoped to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 90 days, although we had packed enough food for 130 in case of major delays. With fishing and rationing, we could stretch this supply for another month.

  “Our speed will pick up soon, once the remnants of Delta dissipate and the regular winds take hold,” Colin said. “If it wasn’t for all the storms screwing up the prevailing winds, we’d be more than halfway to Miami by now.”
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  “Thank God hurricane season is finally over,” I sighed.

  “We should be able to do at least seventy kilometres a day in normal conditions. That would allow us to reach Miami in . . . ” Colin paused as he did the mental calculations. “About seventy days.”

  I scribbled calculations in my journal, “That’s 146 days in total, which makes our arrival date February 14. We’d be on land for Valentine’s Day—how romantic!”

  “I think we should set a daily distance goal, just like we did when we were cycling,” Colin said.

  “Seventy kilometres a day it is,” I agreed.

  Having tangible milestones re-energized our drive—seventy kilometres a day, Miami by mid-February. It transformed the end of the journey from a nebulous goal looming far in the distance to one that inched closer at a measurable rate. The disappointment of storm after storm had created a depressing downward spiral of apathy and frustration. Now, the spark returned. The weather was reasonable, we had set our goals, and we felt ready to charge ahead.

  “GUYS, YOU’RE NOT going to believe this,” Dean said, the tension in his voice apparent through the satellite phone. “There’s another hurricane on the ocean—Hurricane Epsilon.”

  “I know,” I said. “But don’t worry, it’s not supposed to come anywhere near us.”

  Colin’s mother had told us about Epsilon two days before. It had formed on Colin’s birthday right about the time he was blowing out his candles, wishing for no more hurricanes. But it was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda and was expected to head towards Europe.

  “Where is it now?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Dean said. “It started moving northeast, towards Europe, and they thought it would dissipate very quickly. But then yesterday it changed tack and stopped moving north. Since then it’s been travelling straight east, and the gap between it and you is closing quickly.”