by Sarah Outen
While we’re on the subject of Lower Decks, I should perhaps describe the toilet. Of course it was all en suite – I just had to open the cabin door for the most picturesque al fresco loo experience in the world: a changing landscape with each rise and fall of the waves, perhaps a fiery sunset or a starry night, bioluminescence sprinkling alongside in sparkly trails. Of course I was often unlucky and soaked by waves or rain clouds, but it was worth it for the views and I never did fall off completely while in action. It was a very simple system – use a bucket and then chuck it overboard. The trick was in timing the throw and doing so downwind: rebound on the day I ate a whole bag of dried mango in one go would have been disastrous.
Laundry was a very rustic affair, either done in a bucket of saltwater hauled on board or right in the sea, using friendly biodegradable soap. A few ocean rinses before a final fresh water dunking and all was done. Being so dependent on the ocean and weather for all my needs, like water and power and washing, felt very primal; I think we lose that connection with nature on dry land with all our gizmos and gadgets – life can become very clinical and controlled. The scent of even relatively clean clothes on the boat was always welcome, though in fact everything that I cleaned on the boat just went from smelling rough to smelling slightly different. Sometimes I happened upon something fresh from land, like the fourteen pairs of vacuum-packed knickers that I found one day. I hadn’t smelled anything so fresh since Australia and it reminded me of Mum, and how all Mums seem to feel the need to iron anything that leaves the clean washing pile. It’s funny how smells conjure up memories from home; at one stage I have to admit I even enjoyed smelling a pair of socks which had been used and reused again and again, honking like deliciously ripe old brie. And that’s probably why I liked it – there was no cheese on my boat and I dreamed of rich cheeseboards and stringy mozzarella on pizzas.
I learned some important rules about washing. Firstly, ask yourself if you really need to wash when there is no one to be freaked out by your athletic aromas. Secondly, it is time to wash your pillow case when you actually have to peel it from your cheeks in the morning. Third, it is important to wash your hair at least every two weeks and to remove as much salt and suncream from your face each day as possible. It might sting as the salt will have crystallised, but you’ll cope. The fourth rule is to tie all washing securely at all times; winds and waves can and will whip up from nowhere and steal prized clothes in an instant. My highest casualty rate was three socks and a pair of shorts in one day – a sad loss. Finally, my own rule was not to wear my Happy Socks on deck for fear of saltwater ruination and also not to wash them until Mauritius. My towel fared slightly better, and was washed a full two times on the voyage. Mothers, I am confident your teenage boys would love this life of ocean grime.
Chapter 16
Ruby Port and Red Carpets
‘All the world is beautiful and it matters little where
we go… the spot where we chance to be
always seems to be the best’
John Muir
‘I’m not sure if the porridge has gone rancid or if I ate too many wine gums as an entrée, but I have just fed the fish with my breakfast…’
Blog, Day 30
Apart from this, 30 April was a very good day at sea. The sun was shining in a crisp blue sky as cauliflower clouds whipped across peaky seas in an easterly wind. All this made for a very smiley rower and another stonking mileage for the day. After a few days of delicious Red Carpet Weather, I was due to cross over the one hundred degrees east line later that day, marking my first major easting of longitude. For those readers not au fait with latitude and longitude, they are the criss-crossing lines on the globe that mark the degrees east and west of the Greenwich meridian (longitude) and north and south of the equator (latitude). I needed to reel in the longitude to get to Mauritius (i.e. distance from east to west) and I didn’t want to lose too much latitude (i.e. fall too far south or run too far north). This meant that each degree was a milestone and to knock off ten degrees was a big step as it meant crossing over into a whole new set of figures, or decades as I liked to call them. Moving from the Australian side of one hundred degrees east into the double figures of the ‘nineties’ was a huge step. I had started out at one hundred and fifteen degrees east in Australia; Mauritius lay at fifty-eight degrees east so each decade of degrees from now on would represent one fifth of the remaining journey nailed. Just a little bit further to row now, Sarah…
It was super special to be crossing this line on my thirtieth day out there. The One Month at Sea mark had been a big milestone in my head since Day 11, which had marked the longest time I had ever been by myself. However I looked at it, one month was a significant time to spend by myself and at sea; I was a real beast of the oceans now and content on the waves. Surely this meant I had earned my first salty stripe? I thought so and was as high as a kite all day.
It was all about progress, which meant increasing confidence, increasing happiness and reducing the distance between me and my goal. While I was now in love with the Indian, I still wanted to make it across to the other side, so days in the bag (or chalked up on the wall in my cabin) were days both to be proud of and to be thankful for. There was no easy ticket to the beach in Mauritius and I would have to fight all the way in, so each day really was a gift.
Another day on the ocean also meant another day of healing; I already felt that I was more at peace with Dad’s death, just by making it to the ocean. Every day since he had died I had considered a healing day, a badge of honour for surviving and moving forwards, however slowly that might be. In short, Day 30 was a triumph, a real whistle-blowing, horn-honking, and sing-and-dance-on-the-deck-beneath-the-stars sort of moment. I also had a letter to open from Mum that day, always a treat. Today’s was a card with a gorilla on the front, lazing in the sun. Inside it read, ‘So proud of you. Make sure you get enough rest.’ Not one to disobey my own mother, even at long range, I dutifully went to my cabin and snoozed through the midday sun. To say it was delicious is a gross understatement – it was divine; both mind and body certainly felt like they had rowed for thirty days now and so I welcomed the downtime. To round off the afternoon I indulged my new-found love of deep ocean laundry and did a wash, hanging the clothes out on deck to dry, singing to the waves as I did so.
Following on the festivities of Day 30, I welcomed May to the party in style. As the sun prepped its bed for the night in skies of silky pink, I opened the bottle of ruby port which Ricardo had given me when I first met him. It had been at the London Boat Show in January and he had come over from Portugal especially to meet me and be there for the launch with friends, sponsors and bubbly. The deep corky pop was a delicious sound and I breathed in the smooth redness. I also swallowed back some tears as I brought it up in the air for the toast – this was a big day. To start with there was a splash for the sea and a splash for me, glugged straight from the bottle. Next I raised the bottle to the sky and toasted everyone who was special to me and had helped me this far. Then it was Dippers’ turn – and I poured some on her bulkhead as I thanked her for being my teammate and friend. By the end of it I was very warm and a little bit fuzzy round the edges. Poor old Dippers came off rather worse, and looked like she had been in a messy fight when the port dried to a dark red stain. I looked out to the horizon and wondered where I would be in another thirty days. Which decade of degrees would I be in? I hoped I would be out of the nineties and storming well into the eighties. For now it looked as though someone had pulled candyfloss across the sky, wispy like a fairy’s outfit. Tiny grey mushroom clouds sat on the skyline, set against a backdrop of bright blue, making my very own piece of ocean very special indeed.
I hopped inside the cabin and picked up the phone, keen to share my excitement at having spent a whole month on the ocean. Annoyingly, it was lunchtime in the UK and so all I got was answerphones. Down with time zones, so over-rated; out here on the ocean I was running on ocean time and doing just fine. I cursed the Re
al Worlders and rummaged about for some celebratory chocolate.
Chapter 17
Talking to Myself and to the World
‘I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before’
Lord Byron, from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
On 1 May I opened another letter to celebrate my first month at sea. Well, that was my excuse; in truth, I was just useless at rationing them and was keen to know what was inside.
Hello, Mum calling. I expect you’re out there surrounded by sea. Calm, I hope, with waves that aren’t too big and that it’s been a good day for you. That your bum isn’t too sore and that you don’t have too many blisters.
She also wrote out a little passage she had found somewhere, full of philosophical titbits and stirring musings about life, struggles, perseverance and, rather amusingly, the importance of staying headed in the right direction. Did she not know how tricky it was to steer a little rowing boat across the ocean? Ah, my lovely mum. Without her help, I wouldn’t have even made it to Australia; emotionally, logistically and financially, she had been a rock. Like my dad, she had always encouraged us to follow our passions, however mad they might be. Michael was serving in the army and enjoyed hurling himself out of aeroplanes and Matthew enjoyed flying round dirt tracks on motorbikes at great speed, so we hadn’t chosen the gentlest of hobbies. Yet still she supported us and helped pick up the pieces when we got in a pickle or came a cropper. She would probably have argued that this is what mums are for, but really, ours was super special. Getting across the ocean was made all the easier by having her daily emails and messages on the phone. Not wishing to leave any space in the text messages, she always filled them up with kisses if she had nothing else to say and often just typed all the words into a continuous block of letters, without any spaces at all. Clearly this was in a bid to be efficient, but it sometimes made for a good little deciphering task at my end. Mum was very much my HQ by now, too, replying to and filtering emails, paying bills and plugging the bank balance when it looked unhealthy, as well as being the best PR in the world. She said that she couldn’t walk through town at home without being stopped every few steps by people asking how both she and I were getting on.
I looked at the photo of Dad on my bulkhead, smiling and relaxed in Wales on holiday the year before he died. It was the first time the five of us had all been away together in years, and it was lovely. I wondered what he would think of it all and I knew he would have been proud. Had he been alive he would have been HQ Manager, Email Whizz and Technical Chief. He would have loved it all. And he knew about sailing and oceans so he would have helped me out with those bits, too. Grinning back at his smiley face, another tear rolled down my cheek – I missed him. Out there I thought about him often and I talked to him, too, imagining what he would make of certain situations and which bits he would find funny – because Dad was a laughing man.
After all this time talking to myself, my boat and the visiting wildlife, I was mostly content in my own company. Having said that, the scariest moments usually made me reach for the phone to let someone know I was having a bad time, and there were a couple of occasions when I rang home and would have enjoyed a pint in the pub with my friends. Still, I knew there was nowhere else I would rather be and it was good to have the option of speaking with the outside world, even if I didn’t want to use it. Each day I sent at least one email to Mum to assure her that I was alive and I normally exchanged messages with Ric about the weather. Friends topped up my inboxes with random chatter, scientific articles from time to time and musings on the outside world. My friend Siena even emailed me the clues for The Times crossword one day and then sent me the answers a week later. All these things made a real difference to morale, even if connecting up the satellite phone was a complete faff, after the Grand Slam in the early weeks had broken the connecting clip for my phone and data card. This meant that after a painstaking typing session on the tiny screen of my tiny computer with an even tinier stylus, I had to grip the two pieces of kit together and orient them to find a satellite. While the technology was incredible it was just like any piece of clever kit and perfectly capable of breaking and misfiring, which was especially annoying when call time was so damned expensive.
Besides a weekly phone call home, I had interviews with radio stations and news shows. These days were always much anticipated and I looked forward to the chance to speak to people without worrying about who paid the phone bill as the stations always rang me. It also meant exposure for my charity, too. Before I came away I had switched from raising money for Arthritis Research Campaign to a support-based charity, Arthritis Care, so that my fundraising efforts would go to different areas of arthritis – one research and one care based. I left Perth with £1,000 banked for the latter and it was rising all the time with donations from all over the world. One chap heard me on BBC Radio 2 and donated £500 and there were a couple of anonymous £1,000 donations later on. Whether it was five hundred or a fiver, I was touched by the generosity and amazed that people were tuning in from both hemispheres to get the latest on my saltwater boils or the chocolate store. It was clear that vicarious living was important and exciting to people. It’s what we do by reading books or watching films and it’s what I still do by following other expeditions; we thrive on it and feed off it, planning our own adventures of whatever size suits, fuelled or inspired by others’. For days in the lead-up to these media interviews Mum phoned round everyone she could think of, putting them on standby, including my dear Taid (my grandfather) in Wales. He sat up late to listen through the television when I was on Radcliffe and Maconie and, with his hearing and eyesight fading, it was as though he was hanging on to life while I was away at sea. When I had said goodbye to him in February, I hadn’t expected to see him again. This made every phone call to him an extra special bonus and I loved it that he could tune in to hear me. He had been an English teacher and whilst the dementia and strokes had ruined much of his short-term memory, he still had the most wonderful store of poetry banked. It was through poetry that we connected now and I learned poems to recite down the phone to him, always excited when he joined in or took the lead for a verse.
Having media interviews meant that I could go from speaking to nobody at all for five days to perhaps four or more people in one session, which felt like a real festival. I often popped inside ahead of time to wait for the call, sometimes using it as an excuse for a sneaky break, cunningly finding ways of drawing it out a bit longer. There was no point in my getting comfortable first – the satellites were in charge, so it meant that if the little display on the phone showed only a bar or two of signal, I had to find a position where the phone talked more happily to the satellite. I always smiled when producers rang to check the line and asked to speak to Sarah; who else did they think they would be speaking to? Sometimes I asked them to wait a moment while ‘I went to find her’ and was amazed that it worked every single time. An engineer then checked my sound levels before I went on air to talk to the presenter. It was always a strange thought, that I was being broadcast into the living rooms and cars and offices of people going about their normal lives, while I bobbed around in my little boat in varying states of undress at whatever hour of the day or night the station required. A broken transmission was annoying, even though I chuckled to think of the calm voice saying, ‘We appear to have lost her there…’ just as you see them do on TV. In another studio would be a rather worried producer ringing me back, keen to know that I hadn’t just been eaten by a shark or swamped by a rogue wave. No, it was just the satellite connection. If, for whatever reason, an expected call didn’t make it through to the boat, the sea was usually treated to an earful of fruity language and grumblings. Didn’t these folks appreciate that I had an ocean to row and no time to waste? What did they think I was doing out here? The rant generally made me feel better until the worried email or message popped through and made me
feel a bit guilty that some people might have been disappointed or worried.
My favourite was the Radcliffe and Maconie show on BBC Radio 2; ‘the boys’, as I affectionately called them, touched base monthly to become my best media supporters. My interviews with Stuart and Mark, such genuinely lovely and funny blokes, were a mix of banter and chat, with the added treat of being able to request my very own choice of track. We even had a few ‘in’ jokes. One day I was telling them how uplifting it was to see an albatross after a pretty pants day. For me, ‘pretty pants’ meant pretty crap but for the lads in the studio, it was a celebratory day of fine ocean lingerie. That’s why I doodled a pair of ‘pretty pants’ on my wall. With no fresh clothes on board, there were definitely no pretty pants for another few thousand miles.