Rowboat in a Hurricane

by Julie Angus

  Then, suddenly, Legend executed a particularly vigorous jump. He reached a height of several feet, and his body snapped back and forth trying to shake the lure. The setting sun reflected off his wet, golden body, emitting strobe-like flashes. Suddenly a small object sailed through the air. It took a moment for me to register what was happening.

  “Colin,” I screamed, “Legend’s shaken the lure. It’s over there!” I pointed to the water sixty metres away.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Colin jumped in and swam towards it. I prayed that no sharks would notice we’d just rinsed fish blood and guts into this water, and that the lure wouldn’t sink.

  “I’ve got it,” he yelled, holding the lure high above his head like the greatest trophy in the world. “I’ve got it.”

  CHRISTMAS MORNING STARTED with UHT milk and corn flakes—a breakfast we’d been awaiting since Santa Claus (aka Ripple) dropped by a few days before and given us these treats. It was the best bowl of cereal I’d ever had. We decorated the boat with gold foil stars and sang Christmas carols throughout the day.

  I have always loved Christmas, and I was determined to make the most out of this one. When I was young, Christmas was a holiday my Christian mom celebrated and even my Muslim dad seemed to enjoy. We decorated our artificial tree, and my mom baked delicious gingerbread cookies and almond crescents. One Christmas Eve my dad played a cassette of Santa noises after I had gone to bed. I lay under the covers hearing Santa laugh and shuffle around the house, deciding where to place the presents. (I was tempted to climb out of bed and find him, but I was scared this might be construed as naughty and that my presents would be withheld.)

  I spent some of my favourite Christmases in Meppen, Germany, with my relatives. My mother and I lived with my grandparents and uncle for a year and a half before I started grade school, and we returned every summer during my school years and a few times in the winter. Germany was my favourite place when I was growing up. It was a constant that never changed while we moved from city to city, a place where I was surrounded by family—Oma, Opa, aunts, uncles, and the family dog Buffy. My grandfather taught me the alphabet and had a backyard with fruit trees. It was a fun, carefree place.

  In comparison, life in Canada was tumultuous. We moved a lot because of my father’s job with the military. My parents also had a rocky relationship. Things did not improve after they divorced and I entered my rebellious teenage years. We had just moved from Edmonton to Trenton, and the combination of living in a new city and a new family structure may have made things even more difficult. I had always been painfully shy, and I wished that I was more extroverted. Some of my shyness stemmed from being an only child with very strict parents. My father’s half-serious threats of shipping me off to a Syrian boarding school or marrying me off to a Middle Eastern man in exchange for an olive farm were very effective at keeping me in line. But with my father absent, I grew bolder, and my mother struggled not only with her new situation, but with her suddenly headstrong daughter.

  Life in our home became a constant conflict. I desperately wanted to finish high school so that I could leave for university, but that was still two years away. Eventually I realized I couldn’t wait that long. At sixteen I moved out, and finished my grade 12 year while working as a waitress in a mediocre restaurant and a cook at a pizza parlour. Distance improved my relationship with my mother, and I returned home to complete grade 13. The following year, I started my Bachelor of Science at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

  This Christmas was one of the few I would not be home with my mother. Instead, we held our celebrations by satellite phone. Colin also phoned his mother, and we called a few of our closest friends as well. Dean had sent out our Christmas wishes by e-mail to all those who followed our journey, and when we called him on Christmas Day, he read out letters that people had sent us. Colin and I shared the earpiece so that we could both hear. Dozens of people from all across Canada and from as far away as Russia had sent their best wishes. The inspiring and sometimes humorous messages made us feel privileged to have such a wonderful group of supporters. I felt more enthusiastic than ever to row the rest of the way across the Atlantic.

  For Christmas dinner we wanted to catch a fish, but the dorado numbers around our boat were rather low due to a recent dolphin visit. Legend was one of the few dorado that had survived the slaughter. As soon as Legend was out of sight, Colin dropped the lure into the water and began rhythmically jerking it back and forth. Ted, Fred, and the other small fish gathered around the lure, but no dorado. Then, with a golden flash, Legend lunged at the lure and bit. The line screamed—it was happening all over again.

  But this time the line didn’t part; Legend slowed down and fought with less vigour than a fish half his size. Colin reeled him in slowly until he was next to our boat.

  “Don’t worry, Legend,” I murmured. “We won’t hurt you.”

  I gently wrapped my hands around his body to steady him while Colin removed the hook. Legend’s body pulsed in my hand, but he remained completely calm. It was as if he knew this would be easier than the previous ordeal of struggling to free the hook. Colin worked the hook out, and we set Legend free.

  There was no fresh fish for Christmas dinner; we dined on risotto with canned tuna and corn, followed by canned pineapple for desert. It was a stark contrast to the traditional turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, but I couldn’t dream of a better way to celebrate the holidays. We toasted with glasses of Portuguese ice wine and sang Christmas carols. Meanwhile, Legend dashed through the waves, catching flying fish for his own dinner.

  13

  ONE HUNDRED DAYS

  AT SEA

  AHUNDRED DAYS AT sea,” Colin said. “Can you believe you’ve been in this boat that long?”

  No, I couldn’t. It was incredible. Before leaving I’d “ had so many doubts about my own abilities. Would I be able to cope with the solitude, seasickness, and physical difficulties? Would an injury do me in, forcing us to abandon the journey? Most of all, I wondered what it would be like to endure so many months of isolation. But here we were, still moving forward.

  We had survived two hurricanes and a tropical storm, a near freighter collision, and an overly friendly fishing boat with poor spatial judgement. We were long past the halfway mark, slowly closing the gap between us and North America. I felt on top of the world, and all doubts about my abilities had long vanished. I knew I would be able to complete this journey. In the last hundred days, I had learned an important lesson. It wasn’t a huge revelation or the unveiling of a closely guarded secret; it was a simple message I had heard many times from different voices. John Ridgway had said it when I bought the boat, and Colin lived by it: never give up. Even when life looks its bleakest, keep trudging forward, and eventually things will improve. The bulldozer blade of time will push you forward, and the tough times will become distant memories—stories to tell friends and learning experiences that make you appreciate life’s comforts all that much more.

  NEW YEAR’S EVE came and went with little fanfare. We opened the last two beers that the yacht Ripple had given us, and toasted the fish who lazily swam beneath our temporarily free-drifting vessel. We had no New Year’s resolutions, just hopes that the good winds would continue.

  “Do you know what the world’s longest rivers are?” Colin asked.

  His intent with this question seemed to have more to do with filling the silence than with sharing useful information—a bit like the games of “I Spy” we played while rowing. Besides, he had already quizzed me on this geographic factoid a few weeks before.

  “Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, Mississippi, and Yenisey,” I answered.

  “Right,” Colin said, seemingly delighted with my response. “Unless you think of the ocean currents as rivers. Right now we’re on a big river.”

  “Well, I wish it would flow a little faster.”

  Countless rivers and streams transport salt water from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the Northern Hemisphere to
the Southern, from the surface to the depths in a never-ending circulatory system. We were on the equatorial currents, powered by the trade winds, which flow westward across the Atlantic between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

  The trade wind currents have flowed for a very long time. They received their name from seventeenth-century traders who relied on the winds to transport goods by ship. But that doesn’t mean they’ll always be here. We found the trade winds and currents far less pronounced than our reference books and charts suggested they would be, and we were not alone in noting the discrepancies. Researchers discovered that both the Pacific trade winds and the thermohaline currents—the latter often referred to as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt because they flow at a greater depth—have slowed. The cause? Global warming, which decreases ocean salinity by melting Arctic ice, which in turn affects the density-driven thermohaline currents and alters wind patterns by increasing evaporation-impacted trade winds.

  Changing currents and winds were an inconvenience not only for us. Sea turtles depend on winds and currents for migratory routes, and Europeans rely on them for a mild climate. Some scientists have predicted that if the Gulf Stream, which is dependent on thermohaline currents, were to stop, Europe would be plunged into a miniature ice age. This would make La Coruña, Spain, feel more like Halifax, Nova Scotia. Both cities are situated at approximately the same latitude; the marked difference in temperature (average January temperature in Halifax is minus five degrees Celsius, while La Coruña is ten degrees Celsius) is because La Coruña is warmed by the Gulf Stream, and Halifax is cooled by the south-flowing Labrador Current.

  The last major changes in ocean currents occurred 55 million years ago, when the world’s temperatures spiked. Major currents shut down, and others caused widespread mortality of sea life. Changes in ocean currents may have contributed to even higher temperatures by thawing frozen methane deposits at the bottom of the sea, which then bubbled to the surface, reacted with oxygen, and created carbon dioxide.

  A quick glance at the GPS told me the currents were still slack. Even though we were in an equatorial zone where the trade winds blew, the wind was variable and the currents paltry. Ocean abnormalities were starting to feel common, and once again, I felt as though we were experiencing changes caused by global warming firsthand.

  WHILE I WAS at the oars on January 5, I noticed something fluttering down from the heavens like a discarded receipt. As it drew closer, I realized it was a butterfly, quite large and roughly resembling a monarch in coloration. The butterfly circled our boat for less than a minute, briefly landed on my hand, and then continued across the sea.

  We puzzled over the existence of a butterfly that must have flown at least four thousand kilometres across the ocean without food. The insect had probably begun its flight in Africa and had been carried aloft by a storm, then transported by brisk winds high in the troposphere. Interestingly, we had only seen flying insects on three previous occasions, and each time was before a major storm.

  In the days leading up to Hurricane Vince, we had seen insects for the first time, and we’d puzzled over their origin. At the time, we were only three hundred kilometres from Africa, but that still seemed a long distance for an insect to fly. We wondered if they’d come from another ship, but the ocean was relatively empty, so that, too, seemed unlikely. Then, a month later, just a few days before Tropical Storm Delta had arrived, a small white moth had flown past our boat. Then thousands of kilometres from the nearest land, we were even more perplexed. The third sighting occurred in the days preceding Hurricane Epsilon, when what looked like a housefly briefly hovered near our boat.

  The coincidence just seemed too uncanny. Somehow, flying bugs on the ocean and hurricanes had to be related. A wave of low pressure that emanates from Africa and sweeps across the ocean often precedes hurricanes and tropical storms. We guessed this had something to do with it. Perhaps unwilling, light, airbound travellers were caught up in that wave, blown great distances, and then scattered across the ocean.

  If not for our satellite telephone, our recent visitor would have been cause for uncertainty and speculation. But thanks to modern technology, we didn’t have to speculate; we could find out for sure if another storm was on the way. On the first day of 2006, we’d wondered why the long-awaited trade winds didn’t materialize. That’s when we’d found out that, against all odds, a tropical storm had formed 1,500 kilometres northeast of us on December 30. At the time, the storm was still far enough away that we didn’t worry, but now a quick phone call to Dean confirmed it was moving closer.

  Tropical Storm Zeta formed more than four weeks after hurricane season officially ended, catching the National Hurricane Center off guard and going unnoticed until after it became cyclonic. Later, on the National Hurricane Center’s website, we read some of the discussion on Zeta and laughed at one forecaster’s wisecrack: “The atmosphere seems to want to develop tropical storms ad nauseam.” Who could blame them for their somewhat curmudgeonly response—these guys were overworked. I, for one, would have used much stronger language—which I did; thankfully, no one but Colin was there to hear it.

  Zeta formed 1,200 kilometres northwest of the Cape Verde islands and began moving west—towards us, of course. Just like Epsilon, it was consistently predicted to diminish, but unfortunately, Zeta also shared its predecessor’s resilience and defied all predictions to persist for nine days.

  As Zeta approached, eerie conditions blanketed the sea. Cirrus clouds streaked the sky, the winds stopped, and the sea calmed, except for an enormous swell hinting of distant chaos.

  We went through our very well-rehearsed routine of preparing for the storm and plotting the cyclone’s movement. As gale-force winds drove three-storey waves into our boat, we cocooned in the cabin. The centre of the storm was a mere five hundred kilometres away—uncomfortably close.

  Not surprisingly, by this time we were terribly sick of hurricanes, tropical storms, contrary currents, and dysfunctional winds. The tremendous fear we’d experienced at our first hurricane was still there, but it had been dulled. We felt reasonably confident that we would survive, but we knew how much discomfort we would soon be in and that the storm would delay us at least several days.

  Just as we had with Vince, Delta, and Epsilon, we spent the worst of the weather lying in the cabin wishing we were elsewhere. We dreamed about living on Vancouver Island and growing a vegetable garden. Our makeshift drogue still trailed in the water, and occasionally we went out to check that it was still there. Waves broke over our boat; with our bilge pump, we removed the water that collected in the cockpit. We ate crackers and cookies and obsessively peered out the window hatches looking for shipping and diminished waves. When conditions improved slightly, Colin tried rowing, but he gave up after a series of waves knocked him off his seat and almost broke the oars. Instead we took turns sitting in the rowing seat, steering the boat with the rudder to keep it from broaching. We tied ourselves to the boat to prevent being washed overboard, but the waves still sluiced over us, often with sufficient force to knock us onto the deck.

  Eventually Zeta quieted enough for us to resume rowing, and by the time the storm finally dissipated on January 9, we were rowing full days again. We breathed a sigh of relief when the National Hurricane Center once again bid farewell to the 2005 hurricane season. The official discussion for Tropical Storm Zeta ended with these parting words: “I suppose it is only fitting that the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season ends with a record-breaking storm. Today Zeta surpassed 1954 Alice #2 as the longest-lived tropical cyclone to form in December and cross over into the next year. Zeta was also the longest-lived January tropical cyclone. In addition, Zeta resulted in the 2005 season having the largest accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, surpassing the 1950 season. So, until the 2006 season begins, unless Zeta somehow makes an unlikely miracle comeback, this is the National Hurricane Center signing off for 2005 . . . finally.”

  All in all, it had been an unbelievable year for
hurricanes and tropical storms, and once again, I hoped this would be the end of it.

  14

  MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRDS

  AND FLYING FISH

  AS WE CONTINUED rowing towards Costa Rica, the sky and sea began to look more benign. Small white clouds dotted the sky, and light winds blew from the east. Occasionally, waves broke against our boat, but rarely with enough force to soak me and even when they did, it felt pleasant, like a refreshing break on a hot day. I washed my hair and Colin detangled my one obscene dreadlock, which had formed during Zeta’s visit. I did the same for him. Each day we went swimming, taking turns jumping overboard for a quick dip while the other stood on shark watch. Fred and Ted still swam with us, as did a handful of dorado and a collection of smaller fish. Whenever we dove in, Fred and Ted and the other smaller fish made a beeline towards us, but scattered when they realized we were not edible.

  “Julie, there are insects out here,” Colin yelled one sunny day.

  “Oh, no,” I groaned. Did this mean another tropical storm?

  “No, these are different. They’re sea skaters.”

  I looked outside to find dozens of tiny sculling insects on the water’s surface. They walked on water, just like the striders I used to see on the surfaces of lakes and ponds. Their light weight, distributed across six long legs, helps them use the water’s surface tension to stay afloat, and the hydrophobic hairs on their legs repel water. But what we found most interesting was how they moved across the water’s surface. They row. Their two middle legs act like a sculler’s oars, while their front and back legs remain stationary, helping with balance and direction. Although I couldn’t actually see them rowing—these sea skaters were too small—I quite liked the idea of being surrounded by other rowers.