A Dip in the Ocean

by Sarah Outen

  After hanging up, I put storm thoughts aside and carried on rowing. I felt chirpier now that the batteries were juicing a little bit and that I was charging all the little devices with my flexible solar panel, which I hadn’t thought to use until now. I’m not sure why really, but it just hadn’t occurred to me. I hung it over my cabin door and tied the corners down to soak up the sunshine. It was helping solve my power problem and the cells were all iridescent, so it was a welcome change from staring at my cabin door. I often stuck printed poems up there to learn but had overdosed somewhat since having no music. There was something cathartic in the latest dumping overboard of pudding and protein shake too, despite the sprinkling of pink protein shake that coated me and the boat. As the offending powder drifted off, I drifted onwards to Mauritius. My day was made brilliant by the discovery of a packet of jelly babies in one of the hatches, all squashed up into a loaf. Eaten in one sitting as the sun sank into the sea and painted the sky pink, they were a welcome treat and spurred me on to row well into the night. By then, the moon was waiting until nearly midnight to put in an appearance, which made me think I ought to alter my watch. Besides fixing up interviews with the outside world, time zones weren’t that important, but I did use my watch as a guide. A big bright moon shone down on the sea, now chopped up by an increasing wind. I said goodnight to Orion, hopped inside and went to bed.

  In the cabin, I fired up the sat phone, excited about downloading the daily emails and messages. The GPS revealed that I had just 24 miles before I crossed into the eighties and I was determined to get there tomorrow. Opening up my emails, I had to realign my goals a bit. The first in my inbox suggested that maybe I wouldn’t make it to the eighties the next day; Ric had titled his message ‘The Calm Before the Storm’. Gulp. Perhaps tomorrow would be about survival instead of the eighties.

  The essence of his message was that a big low pressure system to the south of me was going ‘to munch me in its fangs’. My happyometer took a bit of a nosedive, and then lurched a bit when I read that the folks in Fremantle would be battered by it too, with winds of up to 45 knots forecast. Suffice to say that this was one heck of a storm flexing its muscles across the entire ocean area. Ric predicted just two days of clean weather afterwards before another system rolled in. ‘Suggest you gain some miles before the big blow blows you back.’ What did he think I had been doing, I thought? And did he think one day’s rowing was going to gain me many miles? He signed off by saying that the following week would be more civilised and noted that ‘this one won’t provide much progress at all’, just in case I hadn’t worked that out. With his optimistic hat on, however, he pointed out that I would gain other experiences, and assured me that it would ‘spice up my life a little’, urging me to enjoy it. Hmm, I couldn’t promise that but beneath the fear I was a little bit excited. Even though Ric had assured me that I had seen worse storms, it had been a while since I had seen wind that strong and seas as big as this would bring. I scanned back over the email again, my eyes resting on the key facts: ‘will be hit pretty hard… it will paste the entire sea area… gusting… Wednesday will be worst…’

  This meant I had one day to row as far west as I possibly could and prepare the boat for what lay ahead – potentially three days cabin-bound, dehydrated, smelly, hungry and scared witless while the storm blew through. Exciting, eh? This was to be another of those feeling alive in the wrong sort of way moments. Tomorrow I would have to make sure I had extra food and water in the cabin and everything stowed away properly. If we took a hit or capsized, then I had to be certain we would be safe. I went to bed slightly nervous and wondering how many miles I would lose over the next few days. I hoped it would be less than a hundred but I knew I wouldn’t make the eighties for a while yet.

  Chapter 22

  It Will Munch You in its Fangs

  ‘The only thing to fear is fear itself’

  F. D. Roosevelt

  I slept perfectly until dawn on Day 49, dreaming of nothing more curious than running races and custard tarts; the sea does weird things to your dreams. A grey dawn slowly grew into a dazzling display of reds and oranges; rows of clouds covered the sky, all running in different directions. Although beautiful, it didn’t bode well at all; in fact, it promised fury and some monster waves. After a quick breakfast, I rowed all day until the swell had grown so big that I could make no useful progress westward. Towering nimbus clouds moved closer and closer, bringing with them wind, turning the benign swell into rows of peaky waves. They were impressive but I was nervous and my ears seemed to ring from my thundering heart rate, which had pounded all day. I sang to try and keep my morale up, in between making lists of things to do before the storm came. I had lined Bob up on the deck in readiness, so now just had to haul him up over the safety rail and let the lines run overboard, gazing into the deep as he drifted out like a big yellow jellyfish. The waves were too big to row through now and I was spent after a day’s rowing, so all I could do was leave Bob to hold the fort. I checked the rig twice to make sure it was secure and in no danger of entanglement, before sitting down to a quick tea on deck. I huddled around the stove while it boiled, hugging my knees up to my chest, keen to get warm but also keen to enjoy the fresh air. I had many hours in the cabin ahead, and I knew it would be anything but fresh in there.

  After re-stowing a few bits and pieces, I went inside and checked my emails. Ric predicted that the next three days would provide ‘the most interesting squiggle of the whole trip’, but he stopped at that, saying that all the satellite pictures were showing very unstable weather systems and different files were contradicting each other and he wasn’t sure what to expect. In short, anything might happen. We were both nervous.

  I noticed that Ricardo had helpfully copied Mum into his initial storm-munching email. I wasn’t sure if I liked this or not, but decided to trust his judgement. After all, he had been involved in more ocean crossings (both as sailor and shore team) than I had dreamed of, so he presumably knew that pre-storm honesty was the best way forward. If only he could have avoided putting ‘you’ and ‘munch’ and ‘fangs’ in the same sentence, she might have been less apprehensive about it all.

  As I lay on my beanbag filling out my logbook and listening to the waves growing more boisterous outside, I thought back over the last few weeks and how lucky I had been with the weather. To have lasted so many weeks without a proper battering was remarkable, really. I didn’t pray because I’m not in the least bit religious, but I did spend some time thinking about faith. I had a lot of it: faith in my boat, faith in my team, and faith in myself. With hope, dear old Bob and a stash of chocolate, this was all I had now.

  I popped the logbook away, pulled on my helmet, switched out the light and rolled over into the foetal position, often my default position for going to sleep, with Alberto, my stuffed-toy albatross, tucked under my arm. I never have been a toy-hugger, but out on the ocean all by myself I found it comforting, especially in the rough stuff. It wasn’t exactly the way I had hoped to spend my half century at sea, clocking fifty days on the ocean with a forty-hour stint in the cabin. It was made all the more frustrating by the fact that I had managed to row to within 12 miles of the ninety-degree line again the day before. I felt like a climber making an assault on the mountain and acclimatising progressively by going up and down repeatedly: only a climber knows it will improve their chances of success.

  After a full forty hours of not rowing, I wrote on my blog:

  It’s 20 knots, gusting 25, at the moment and rising. Not too crazy yet, but still eating away at our miles run and throwing us about. Whole system is looking very unstable and we’re not entirely sure what will happen; Ricardo reckons it won’t hit me as hard, or for as long, as he first thought. Fingers crossed. Maybe we’ll escape the fangs yet.

  For nearly two full days, Dippers and I were boshed in stormy seas, losing 18 miles to the east. I was scared most of the time and got a soaking every time I stuck my head out of the door. Every so often, I would take
my chances and nip out on deck for fresh air and to use the bucket, to check Bob’s lines and to measure the wind strength with my little anemometer. I measured gusts of at least 35 knots but I imagine they were stronger at times, making for very excitable seas and a bumpy, often uncomfortable ride. If you think Bucking Bronco crossed with the waltzers at the fair, crossed with the sort of roller coaster where your tummy gets left behind, crossed with rolling down a hill in a barrel, I think you’ll be nearly there. Add in lots of creaks and groans and slams as the boat gets thrown, a dollop of unsullied fear and the fact that you are thousands of miles from help, and you’ll probably have the feeling just right. And if you haven’t done so already then you need to partially starve and dehydrate too. All in all, being cabin bound in rough weather is not much fun.

  Stormy seas in a small boat by yourself in the daylight are one thing, but on a dark night are quite another. Things got really exciting when the sea-me started bleeping in the early hours, indicating that a ship was near. We hadn’t seen a ship since Day 16, and yet it appeared on the roughest night yet, when my tiny boat was indistinguishable from wave tops. I spent two fraught hours on the VHF in the hope they might hear my requests not to squash me. I heard no response. I am not ashamed to admit that it was one of the scariest nights of my life, although I evaded the squashing.

  Another triumph was listening to a few hours of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion above the raging winds. It was a somewhat daring and hilarious feat, for without headphones I could only play things through my on-deck speakers. In a loud raging sea this meant I had to sit by the hatch, opening it a fraction to hear the words, and then pulling it shut quickly when a wave washed over the boat. Suffice to say the sea was better practised than I and we had a face full of salt on more than a few occasions. A friend pointed out how wonderfully ironic this scene was, Prof. Dawkins’ atheist book being broadcast loudly to the heavens. As ever, with any reference to this learned man, I received a barrage of comments on my website, many very critical of my non-religiosity. I was content on the non-godly side of the fence and anticipated that I always would be. Why would I change or even want to? I have knowledge and experience of science to understand the world so I don’t need any sort of god to complicate matters. Why would I need religious faith when I had faith in my self? I was coming to believe that this was the most important thing of all.

  During the storm I did a live interview with Jenni Murray on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, the first time I had touched base with them since I left the UK. I remembered our first meeting and all the giggles because the item before me had been about a sex toys website, so as I slipped quietly into the studio and shook hands with Jenni, there was a lot of buzzing in the background, which we both found very funny. This time they were keen to find out about the highs and lows of my journey and about what had frightened me so far. I thought of a long list but decided that this storm lark was probably up there near the top, mostly because of never knowing quite what might happen, and made worse by the fact that at night you lose all visual input and rely only on sound, which makes it all the more intense. It wasn’t very comfortable and I spent a lot of time clock watching, willing the time to hurry up and get me through to dawn. ‘Wahooooo!’ I yelled to my Dictaphone diary at six o’ clock on Day 51.

  ‘We’ve survived the night and though it’s wild and I want it to end, at least it will be fully light in a few hours. It’s picked up since yesterday and we’ve had quite a few waves crash right over the top of the boat. Outside the clouds look hideous, but I have to go out and stretch my legs – two days on that stupid beanbag is not comfortable.’

  Apart from the rest, I did enjoy one thing during the mad weather – and that was all the birds that appeared to flaunt their aerobatic skills. Sometimes there might be four or five or six wheeling about on the wind, from tiny storm petrels just tiptoeing daintily on the surface of the waves through to the giant petrels and albatrosses that cruised about like cool teenagers at an ice rink on a Friday evening, master gliders.

  After forty hours the weather had eased enough for me to haul Bob back on board, though I skinned my knuckle in doing so. It would take a while to heal out in the wet, but it was a small injury to show for the two days of rough weather. As the wind dropped, the waves got sloppy and quite scary, creating the most almighty surfs. A couple of them really freaked me out and on one occasion I thought we were going to pitchpole, which is the worst sort of capsize, where the boat rolls end over end. Thankfully we didn’t and just got sluiced by some thunderous waves instead, bobbing back up fully rinsed, top to toe.

  Once it was all over, the things I enjoyed most were the simple freedoms that I usually took for granted in good weather – to go outside and stand and stretch and do anything other than lie down, to eat something other than chocolate and biscuit bars. After two days, I was a bit bored by a diet of treats. I rowed on, pleased to have made it through the storm fairly unscathed and buoyed by Ric’s assertion that I had done well to keep it together so smartly, and that my 18 miles lost to the east was ‘actually bugger all in the grand scheme of things’.

  One of the questions that Jenni asked me on the radio was how I was coping with the isolation. All in all, I think I was doing well and thriving on it, being bored by my company only occasionally, and I definitely didn’t consider myself lonely. It just made everything more intense, both the good and bad bits. I found that being alone meant I was much more aware of everything going on around me, keen to look at new things or listen to new sounds. Right now, I was glad to be the other side of my first half century out on the waves and loving the sweet rich tunes of life at sea as a soloist.

  Chapter 23

  Tinned Peaches

  ‘It’s when you’re safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you’re having an

  adventure you wish you were safe at home’

  Thornton Wilder

  ‘Why is it that I always seem to be headed into the biggest storm clouds?’ I pondered to myself as I tucked up for the night on Day 52, with just four more sleeps until my birthday. I had gone practically nowhere in the previous seven days apart from round in circles, so was looking forward to a new system of wind and the opportunity to chip at the 180 miles between me and the halfway line. It was now an obsession, and at any given time of the day I knew how many miles until ninety degrees and how many until halfway. I can’t say that I liked my happiness being so reliant on my progress, but it’s not surprising when you are alone in challenging circumstances with one simple measurable, and what sometimes seems like an out-of-reach goal. When the focus is so pure, the outcome and progress can become all consuming and all important.

  When I stepped outside the following morning I found the biggest kamikaze flying fish to date lying on the deck, shiny, lifeless and staring into nowhere. I still felt very lucky that I had so far avoided having one leap out and slap me in the face, as they often flew straight into the hatch behind me with a thud or skimmed low in front of my eyeline at high speed. There was always the risk that one would land itself somewhere out of sight and fester a while before being noticed; what if I found one dead and dried, stuck to the back of my head or snuggled down inside the hood of my jacket? So I had to be vigilant at all times. I had also read about squid recently in Thor Heyerdahl’s exuberant Kon-Tiki, which recounted the Norwegian anthropologist’s hilarious and daring adventures sailing a raft across the South Pacific with five other men and a green parrot in order to prove his theory of the colonisation of Polynesia. After retrieving some from the roof of their cabin, they hypothesised that squid must be able to squirt themselves up out of the water like a jet-propelled blob of jelly. Scary, eh? Especially as said jelly blobs have suckered arms and a sharp beak. Even if it did sound rather intriguing, I preferred not to have any try out their suckers on my boat.

  The sea was still settling down, which meant that every so often a huge roller would, well, roll in from the south. Squalls blasted through regularly, s
ending me leaping back inside through the hatch to avoid the wet. On the plus side, squalls and sunshine mean rainbows, always a pretty diversion. At the end of the day I finally made it to ninety degrees east again, after so many failed attempts to cross it. ‘HAPPY, HAPPY DAYS!’ I shouted. It had taken us so long to get here that I brought the port out to celebrate. I also rehydrated my solitary packet of freeze-dried berries and pretended that I was eating it with a delicious pavlova and lots of cream. It was a fine day.