by Sarah Outen
With long distance communication, miscommunication can happen quite easily. I had never appreciated it before but, alone and restricted in my ability to discuss things, I found it wasn’t hard to go off at a tangent and take a message in the wrong way or get worked up by something perhaps fairly trivial or easily explained. To try and get round this, Ric and I decided we should be in touch as often as possible, and at least once daily. One day, Ric asked me to update him every six hours via a text message sent to his email account as he was going away from his computer for a few days. I did so but had no response from him for three full days. A very strongly worded email from me to Portugal worried him enough to contact Mum, and assure her that he had sent a pile of messages that obviously had been lost in the ether. We decided that if I didn’t hear from him when I thought I should have done, I would ring in to touch base. It was crucial that we understood exactly what the other was thinking or saying – my life might depend on it, so there was no room for falling out or errors. I trusted his judgement implicitly and respected his interpretations of satellite charts, so he really did have me in his spell. If he was worried, I was worried; if he said it would be OK I would try and believe it, too. Trust and clarity were everything.
Chapter 18
Another Good Run
‘This time, like all times, is a good time,
if we but know what to do with it’
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The run-up to Day 40 was perfect; I was whistling along the top of a high pressure system reeling in the miles and enjoying the drying time offered by the toasty sunshine, both for me and my rotten bottom. Then came the Empty Quarter, the bit in the middle of this same beautifully stable high pressure system where there was no wind. Not a whiffle, nada. Ric called it the Second Sector, having previously told me that the whole crossing would be divided into three, possibly four, sectors of weather, all defined by the weather rather than any particularly geographical point or delineation. For general warming and recuperation this hot still weather section was great news; for my daily routine it rather scuppered things, however, because by midday it was too hot to row. On one day I complained to my diary that 23°C felt ‘a bit nippy’ now that I was so used to temperatures of 40 plus out on deck. I shifted my schedule so that I rowed earlier in the morning, took a break through the hottest hours and then rowed on into the night under starry skies. It was exhausting enough on a cool day, but to be clocking ten or twelve hours of rowing every day in extreme heat was punishing. During the middle part I generally washed myself or my clothes, had a little swim (if I was feeling brave) or caught up on emails and blogging, perhaps even enjoyed a little snooze. Falling asleep was no problem in the heat – the cabin was like a sauna; it was waking up and getting out afterwards that was tricky. The stuffiness of the cabin left me sticky with sweat and semi-comatose, stretched out like a tired dog on its back, tongue hanging out and legs at all angles.
Windless really does mean windless in the middle of a high. The water was absolutely still and quiet, glassy calm with not a ripple or a splash or a wavelet, except for Dippers and I. Although it was never completely silent, it was a bit eerie to have so little sound apart from my own. The little solar vents still whirred softly and if I moved about the boat then I could hear the water gently tickling Dippers’ hull. I was so attuned to the different sounds that the tiniest variation or surprise had me on the alert. In these hot and windless days, I relished the help of some currents sluicing us westwards. In still seas, you have to work hard for every single centimetre on the chart, so my rowing was slow. Ric had warned me about this and told me to row extra hours to maintain a decent mileage of twenty to thirty nauties. So I did, eager both to impress him and to push myself. Even though this was my journey, it had become his, too. He did his bit on the charts back in Portugal, often staying up late into the night to check on my progress or rising early to see that I was safe; out on the ocean it was all up to me.
He was a friend as well as a weather router now and we were growing to know each other very well, despite the fact that we were thousands of miles apart. With the tracker providing almost instant feedback on my course and mileage, I felt like he was constantly watching me. The day he sent me a message to say that the tracker had gone silent made my stomach churn; I suddenly felt really alone. If I plopped overboard, no one would even know where to look. It turned out that I had just leaned on the switch while I was getting changed, inadvertently knocking it off. I often looked out from my cabin across the little deck and watched for the flashing green of the tracker unit. It was a saucer-like gadget, bolted on top of the forward cabin, busily beaming out information about where I was and how far I had (or had not) rowed that day. I was so far from anyone yet so close and connected. Various people asked me if I would have coped with the expedition in days of yore, without the use of satellite communications. I was determined that yes I would, of course I would – I loved the ocean so deeply. But did my tracker anxiety prove my theory wrong? Either way, it was useful both for my safety and Mum’s sanity and it also made me smile to think that my squiggly track was keeping people entertained over their cornflakes each morning. I think it would have been hard if it had been removed, but I would have coped – you have no option at sea.
It was the same with my music. While I often just cruised along in my own thoughts, enjoying the sounds of the sea, I valued having the option of listening to music or audiobooks if I wanted; enforced silence could be frustrating. I had set out with the option of playing music through waterproof speakers on deck or using my iPod with headphones – the latter was far less demanding on power as it didn’t need to be plugged into the mains. A little later on in the crossing, I had a silent boat for a full seven days, partly because I had broken my headphones on Day 10, partly because there wasn’t always enough sun to charge the solar panels. My solar panels were on the back of the boat facing only one way, and if the sun wasn’t directly on them then they didn’t charge fully. I hadn’t even considered it before setting out, only nodding when the boat builder suggested this position, saying that is where they had been placed on Dippers’ big sister. Consequently, this meant that my batteries were sometimes too low to power everything; my Gin Machine then my communications ranked as more important than music, which meant I was left a prisoner amid my own rather limited repertoire of songs. Amusingly now but annoyingly at the time, the only songs which I could remember in full were school hymns, making the seas both well blessed and cursed that week. Having broken my first set of headphones within the first two weeks at sea I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a second pair: I had a second pair of most things, so why couldn’t I find the bloody headphones? The only upshot was that my rummaging turned up some other treats – a bottle of wholegrain mustard, three packets of sweets and a book of poetry, all very welcome additions to my pantry and library. I hoped that I had forgotten to pack the headphones as I would probably struggle to see the funny side if I found them when I reached Mauritius. I concluded that they must have missed the boat and consoled myself that worse things happen at sea.
I had a cutlery conundrum which was almost as frustrating as the headphones headache. Having started out with what I thought was a healthy supply of three plastic fork and spoon hybrids (called sporks), by one month in all had been broken and repaired multiple times. Apparently thirty forks would have been more appropriate. The day my latest spoon repair hadn’t broken after a full twenty-four hours in service stood out as a veritable triumph. I found it amazing how a broken fork had the capacity to make me growl and shout when I was tired, hungry and really not in the mood for innovating. Third time round on the same fork and the growls were generally replaced with wry smiles and more fruity language; it was only a fork, after all. Eventually, the winning repair involved supergluing a length of broken plastic to the fork head, and wrapping it in lengths of cord before caking it in more glue. This was actually an improvement on the initial design for the most part, though the twine also
acted as a catch for bits of errant dinner, making the whole thing look rather horrid and probably a bacterial holiday camp. Still, I avoided illness so all was good.
Flat seas may have been exhausting but they provided some stunning views. With no sea state to talk of, not even the slightest ripple of a wavelet, my horizon was pushed out further and it seemed like I was staring beyond the edge of the world. No wonder the early explorers worried they might fall off. I found that the beginning and end of each day were the most dramatic for this, particularly the sunsets. Wherever I am on the planet, I always love this time of day and the chance to sit quietly and be absorbed in the moment, for the moment and by the moment. It was often the point that I stowed the oars and started closing down the boat for the night, sitting back against the hatch of my cabin to watch the skies morphing through the colours of an artist’s paintbox. Reds deepened before blues darkened and folded in around the ocean, wrapping a sequined coat of soft black around my world. It was a full 360 degree show – the whole dome of the sky lighting up to soak the sea in colours. Day 40 was particularly beautiful and went into my diary as a trip favourite:
‘The peachy moon is rising through a purple strip of sky, surrounded by blue clouds, grey in places. Above, gentle pink twirls have been teased across it, like the fibres of fleecy wool being drawn out across a weaver’s knee. A peachy streak in the west and then following the horizon round, the sky turns orange, red and blue in the east. The swell is a good ten foot high so each time I rise to the top I am treated to more and teased by the edges of the picture when I roll off into the trough. We love the sea.’
I also loved the arrival of new wind. After a few days of no wind at all, even the slightest whisper of a few knots felt sweet, not only because of the improved mileage but also for the opportunity to snooze a bit longer without too much guilt. When storms were afoot, I loved watching the sea state change from mill pond to monster – it was dramatic and often scary, not knowing what lay ahead or how hard it would beat us. It generally started with a swell rolling through, making rowing very tricky and holding a course even trickier, especially if it was from the wrong direction. The wind would pick up and start scuffing little lumpy bits into waves, which would then sort themselves out into marching lines and so they would grow. In a few hours it could be a raging mess, foamy and spiked with watery mountains. I didn’t always need Ric to tell me that this was about to happen – a sharp rise or fall in my little barometer let me know, and sometimes I noticed headaches. It had taken just a few weeks for me to become pretty well versed in the clouds and what they forecast. High wispy trails lying in a different direction to any others in the area meant that big winds were on the way and I knew to expect trouble. Towering nimbus clouds represented the advanced party, marching out in warted cauliflower fashion, forming up on the horizon, preparing to charge. My heart rate and the sea state would rise as the barometer fell. Ric hadn’t forecasted anything like this for a while now, so I was pleased to row on unhindered.
Chapter 19
Reeling in the Nauties
‘The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty
to think, feel, do just as one pleases’
William Hazlitt
Day 43 saw me running west at speed; in the previous three days I had covered over 150 miles with a fresh following wind. As the GPS showed less than 2,000 miles to go, I was happiness personified. Ric was stoked, too: ‘You are making perfect progress and the weather will remain so for seven days.’ Looking outside, however, I wasn’t convinced, as the wind was revving the sea into a ruffled mess and nimbus clouds had gathered into a lump on the horizon. It looked fierce as I put the oars to bed, so I put on my Happy Socks and helmet and snuggled down for the night. As I listened to the wind increasing I didn’t quite believe Ric’s declaration that out here clouds also meant the weather was calming down. He had predicted ‘no wind Thursday’ in a few days’ time, but other than that one calm spot the week’s prophesised helpful weather might mean crossing the halfway line at eighty-seven degrees east in a week or so. It was only a few hundred miles away and my most recent daily runs had given me my biggest daily mileage yet, a stonking 58 nauties (my own word for a nautical mile) all in the right direction – a new course record for Dippers and me.
I reached the ninetieth degree of longitude a couple of days later on Day 45, chuffed to have made it, now a full sixteen degrees of longitude out from Fremantle and hoping that within a day or two I would be on the other side and into the eighties, closing in on the halfway line. I toasted my ninety degree day with port, laughing at the bottle all wrapped up in my camping mat, looking like covertly packaged Prohibition-era moonshine. Before evening drinks, I had a good wash and shaved my legs, which was always a real treat. On land I see shaving my legs as a chore (albeit a rather necessary one) but out there I loved it because it made me feel ladylike again and as fresh as you can get on a boat. I followed this with a clean Lycra rash vest, another treat, even if it only smelled marginally less repellent than the one I had been wearing. It was baggier than I remembered now, too; I was obviously losing some of the bulk I had piled on before leaving home. My tummy was smaller, my shoulders were very muscly and my calves were shrinking away to nothing with their lack of effort. I even found that sitting down without any cushion was uncomfortable – something that had never happened to me before as I have always had more than enough of my own padding. This was all a good thing of course (it is exactly what I had bulked up for) but I hoped I would have enough to see me through to the other side, especially as I was still struggling to eat the custard puddings because they made me feel sick. In fact, I had completely given up on them and was emptying them overboard at every possible opportunity. This automatically cut out nearly 1,000 calories a day from my rations and so I decided to set myself the challenge of five spoonfuls of chocolate chip dessert instead. It didn’t really go very well because while mixing the powder and water ‘until smooth and creamy’ as per the instructions my repaired fork got stuck in the concrete mix and snapped off. There was more innovation needed, apparently.
Each day as I pulled the oars in for the night, watching the water droplets drip off the blades and back into the ocean, I wondered at all the strokes they had taken and all the ones left ahead of us before we reached land. Thousands. Millions, perhaps? There were a lot, that’s for sure. Each one was quite literally a dip in the ocean. I sniffed and sat up straight, gently fingering the back of my neck and shoulders, wincing a little at the landscape of knotted muscles, amazed at how they just kept on rowing, day after day, week after week. I reached forward over my legs and enjoyed the sensation of weary muscles being stretched, knowing that the pain would ease and tomorrow I would be able row on some more, renewed and refreshed, even if only a little. I sat up and mopped my forehead, rocking slowly up and down the deck on the sliding seat, breathing in the ocean and relaxing. Looking down at my hands I pulled at some skin which had blistered on top of the tough line of calluses – they were cracked and dry, and needed a good session of hand creaming and massage if they were to survive another day. I curled one foot up onto my lap for a stretch and promptly fell off the seat as it slid out from under me. Sitting on the cool damp of the deck I tried again. Euugh! My feet were wrinkled and white, and it looked like the lines and whirls of my footprints had been scoured by a knife. I eased off a few dead shreds of skin and threw them overboard, stopping when I made them bleed. A wave sloshed into the back of the boat, shunting us forward and sending sheets of water rushing over the top, straight over my head. I shivered and squealed as it ran down my neck; it was time for some Happy Socks and bed. I quickly tied off the oars and the seat, checked that the deck was clear and leapt in through the cabin door. As I shut the hatch behind me and flopped into the squishy mounds of my beanbag, I gave a little whoop, high-fiving myself for another good day. Then I lay there, still and silent, enjoying the warmth and feeling cosy inside Dippers. She was like a best friend now, my protector, and I w
as hers. We needed each other and I already knew that I would miss her when all this was over so I patted her sides and said thank you. As I did a virtual body check, running up from my soggy toes to my knotted neck, I concluded that while I was tired and battered, it was OK because I was happy tired, the sort of satisfied exhaustion that comes when you know you willed your body into a corner and made it work and fight until it was too tired to go on. I was winning in my own way; making progress, looking forward to my birthday in ten days’ time but mostly excited about sleep and getting off my rowing seat.
The satisfaction was all the more complete because there had been no indecision about carrying on or stopping that day, as I often battled with the imps in my head as to whether I should stop early and rest or push on and clock more miles. The competitive part of me always wanted to reach a milestone, be it a certain distance to go until Mauritius, or reaching another degree of longitude so to have reached ninety degrees was satisfying. In the opposite corner, the sensible imp always pushed for as much sleep as my body needed. The human body is a remarkable fuel gauge – it gets hungry when it needs more fuel and gets tired when it needs rest. The response time is so acute and accurate that I found even a few hundred calories or an hour of sleep made a huge difference. The wonderful British comedian Eddie Izzard wowed the world with some extraordinary marathon running at around the same time that I was splashing about on the ocean, running forty-three marathons in fifty-one days. He likened it to driving a car with the needle on the fuel gauge near to empty, topping it up a tiny bit and then running it dry again. By this stage in the journey, I knew exactly what he meant. I was tired and hungry most of the time – I just got used to it and that’s how I carried on. On mornings when I woke up feeling like a comatose slug, I knew that food and water would tip the gauge back into the black fairly quickly. If I still felt no better after an hour or two rowing, there was no option but to stop and snooze. It was all about being efficient.