by Sarah Outen
I was so relieved to read that Mum had finally managed to change her flights and was also really touched that my cousin Jeremy planned to be there, too. We had only really got to know each other after Dad died, and he and his wife George had become special friends and real supporters over the last two years. Guy and Andy would also be on the island as they had landed after their 102-day crossing, nipping in a day ahead of Southern Cross, elated to have won their race. With news of their landing and more than a touch of fried breakfast envy, I was getting more stoked with each stroke. Physically, I was getting more tired, pushing out fifteen to sixteen hours rowing a day as I skipped over the imaginary line into the fifties towards the final 100 miles to go, mind-boggled but ultra-focused.
On Day 123 a strong wind blew me further north than I had hoped during my snatched few hours of sleep. I was finding it tricky to hold course and so got back to the oars at 3 a.m. and pulled like a beast possessed under a starry sky while facing off some big waves. There were shooting stars everywhere, a big yellow moon and I think some ‘land glow’ too. By now I was increasingly focussed on the end, very aware that this was the last of those times to kick ass and row for twenty hours a day. ‘Only a couple more days, so we can do it. Have to. You only get one shot.’
In fact, this was about to be the most stressful and challenging point in the whole expedition.
Ric’s first blog from Mauritius read as follows, although I wouldn’t see it until I landed:
Hello Everyone; exciting times, eh?
Just when it was looking easy and smooth, about a week ago I told Sarah that her last few days would be anything but romantic. She has built a unique relationship with the Ocean and with Nature, a love affair if you will, with all the emotions, fears and thrills of teenage love. Amazing highs and devastating lows.
As she approaches this Paradise Island she will be thinking of family, friends, crunchy lettuce and soapy bath tubs. These final eighty miles are, in my mind, the most stressful of all. I expect Sarah will be feeling the same. Arrivals can be tough on spirit as you go from solo mode to crowds and TV reporters.
Sarah, however, has Nature playing its last dose of intensity, as if saying her final goodbyes to one of its conquered children. As a solo sailor I have learned that I only make it because the ocean lets me through.
I am concerned about Sarah; I won’t hide it. The wind was strong all night with huge heavy rain clouds, gusts of more knots of wind than we need right now. I haven’t really slept since Thursday morning and I don’t really think I can unplug until I see Sarah eating a salad, safely ashore. I can see the white sandy beach and the outer reef with big waves breaking. I know those waves will increase further in the next few hours. Nature is alive and putting on her best for the grand finale. But Sarah could do without it. She is not comfortable any more and fear is settling in again. I can tell by the tone of her messages. ‘Crap’ is her nice way of saying that she is frightened and her emails in the past 24 hours have contained a lot of ‘crap’.
Once she closes in on the final ten miles to go, the waves will get bigger, steeper and closer together. This is what happens when a charging ocean swell goes from 4,500 metres depth to 200 metres in only a few miles.
For now all she can do is rest and row. It will take so much energy and commitment to row the right course. If she were to row with the elements she would be blown out to the open ocean again. She must row with the waves at an awkward angle, meaning that with these big seas her oars will miss the water enough times to hurt her body and her soul. She must give it her best in every swing anyway, as each time she does catch some water she must pull, and pull hard. That simple gesture, one after another, is what will bring her in.
Now would be a good time to light a candle and say a little prayer. I know many of you already have.
Ricardo
His prediction was right – out at sea I was being tested in some very steep seas. It was so draining that I even started hallucinating, imagining that I could hear people. Who they were or what they were up to, I don’t know. That hadn’t happened since the very early days so I knew I needed to get some more food and water in me and rest a tiny while inside the boat. I felt better after a little snooze and prepared to row again, pulling on my soggy waterproofs and pasting my face in another layer of suncream. As I looked through the door, the afternoon sun was still quite high in the sky, and I noticed a green shape surfing in the water ahead of us, and headed straight for us. Nervous but intrigued, I hopped out through the door, simultaneously clipping on and shutting the hatch behind me. The green shape grew bigger and bigger and darker and darker until it divided into two and turned into black whales, fins slicing the surface towards us and sliding under the hull at the very last moment. It was absolutely breathtaking and I screeched with joy; if ever there was a cure for hallucinations then two massive whales did the job perfectly. Once again I was left guessing as to whether it was a fin, a sei or a Bryde’s whale as they had disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful moment. That evening marked the start of the final countdown, the night before the big day, 3 August, with just 55 miles left to run. Mum and Matthew were due in that morning and I was set to follow a wee while afterwards.
Ric had been monitoring conditions from the shore and it didn’t sound good. Wind had been hoofing in to the island hard and steady all day. The poor boy hadn’t thought to bring any warm clothes with him and so had been enjoying the Mauritian winter from under the snuggle of a blanket while he discussed landing options with me. There were all sorts of questions and debates, but with a record mileage of 64 nauties in the last twenty-four hours, we decided that there was only one option: to row like I had never rowed before and head straight in. We were in the perfect position now, having lined up to approach from the south-east for the last two weeks. A coastguard boat had been arranged by Marcel to guide me in from a few miles out and the helicopter was on alert as well. Ric closed his final blog of the day promising full pictures and news of my arrival for the next evening. I couldn’t quite believe it.
As I lay down on my beanbag late that night, I looked up at the stars through my hatch, jolting in and out of view as Dippers raced down waves. This was my last night on the ocean, my last sleep in Dippers. I was nervous about the finish, especially as Ric had promised me that it would be a dramatic landing through that reef entrance. With Mum and Matthew in the air, I was looking forward to those hugs, too. It was strange to think that I was only 60 miles from Ric, looking at the same stars and the same sea, yet feeling as isolated as I had ever done out there. For one final night I was alone and doing my thing. For one last day I would row. Then tomorrow it would all be over. I would be going to sleep in a real bed, soft and cosy. Clean. I liked that idea as my beanbag stank and was sticking to me. My tummy grumbled too – I had been hungry for weeks but it had got worse a few days before when my stove had finally broken, the burner succumbing to corrosion and resigning from service. Not wanting to brave cold rehydrated meals, I opted for cold porridge instead and had eaten nothing but this and a few little snack bars for the last two days. I was hungry for land food and wondered what I might have eaten for dinner by this time tomorrow. Giggling at the thought of it, I snuggled down to sleep for a few hours. It was going to take all I had to row this baby home.
Chapter 32
Don’t Stop Me Now
‘Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway’
John Wayne
‘Sailing and ocean rowing can be like a chess game. For weeks Sarah has played ahead and now she is about to win the game.’ So wrote Ric on my blog on the morning of 3 August, Day 124.
I had been rowing since before dawn, singing my way through the waves and swinging between fear and deep nervous joy. The waves were getting steeper and there were a few moments when I thought we might capsize. Once Dippers broached as she raced down a wave, knocking me off the seat and pinning me to the deck with the oar. Had we gone over at that po
int I would have been in serious trouble, trapped under the water by the oar during the capsize melee. It didn’t bear thinking about so I put it to one side and rowed on. The morning was misty and grey, so when I first spotted a faint whispery smudge on the horizon I couldn’t quite believe that it could be Mauritius. I stood out on the length of my lifeline, craning for a better view as we ran up and over the waves. It was. It bloody was! ‘LAND AHOOOOYYYYYY!’ I screamed over and over again, jumping up and down and laughing and crying at the arrival of this new blur in the distance. I was 25 miles out and it was just after breakfast, at 8.40.
It was the first land that I had seen for months since the other side of this ocean and I was addicted to the view, keen to watch it emerge as we rowed closer. I winged off a message to Ric to tell him and one to my best friend Roostie, too, as I knew she would be at work busily doing nothing except watching for tracker updates. Ric had coordinated a live feed to the website meaning that he and a colleague in Portugal would update on everything as and when it happened. And it was happening fast. Adrian and Amy, my PR team in the UK, had arranged various interviews, and ITV wanted me to land in time for a lunchtime broadcast – but after two calls we decided that rowing and rowing alone was the priority now. With a window of just three hours of daylight to get in through one of the reef entrances, the narrowest of which was less than half a mile wide, I had no time to spare. To hit it in the dark just wasn’t an option; I would be fish food.
Mum and Matt had landed and were preparing to come out to meet me on a boat in the early afternoon. I imagined what it might be like to see everyone again. What would they be wearing? Who would cry first? I kept turning round to scan the horizon for the first sighting and to absorb all the information from land as it became more defined in shape, colour and textures. Greys became greens and lumps turned into towns. When the sun came out and started bathing various peaks in shafts of bright light, it looked stunning, but somehow intimidating after all these months at sea. The volcanic peaks cut up into the air. Commuter planes en route to Rodrigues buzzed overhead from time to time, though I wasn’t sure if they could see me. Container ships ploughed up and down the coast and I occasionally heard a crackle over the radio from them, but none directed at me. So I rowed on. Ric had asked me for an update on how I was feeling so he could relay it to the blog crowd. ‘HUNGRY. EXCITED. TIRED. EMOTIONAL. SUPER HAPPY!’
All our estimates of timings had been made on the basis that I would cruise in at 3 knots or more with the following wind and seas, with the understanding that I would be escorted in by a coastguard boat, removing some of the difficulty from the navigation. Finding your way at these small coastal scales is tricky for any boat, but particularly for me in Dippers, rowing backwards and so low off the water – the steepening seas dwarfed us easily. Pointing and shooting at a tiny reef entrance was tricky as hell. So when I took a call from Ric that afternoon to say that they had arrived at Bois des Amourettes and discovered that the coastguard boat was just a glorified rubber dinghy and therefore not allowed outside the reef, there was serious concern all round. I was annoyed for a few minutes, angry at the situation, and then got to the task of rowing in by myself. Ric detailed the plan, which involved me rowing to the reef entrance where the boat would meet me. I had to drop south of one island and make sure I didn’t hit another.
‘How big are the waves where you are?’ I asked.
‘You’ll be OK,’ said Ric, ‘One or two metres high, I reckon. It will be scary but you’ll cope.’
Madman. The waves were much bigger where I was and I didn’t think they were going to get smaller.
I put the phone down and swallowed back the tears; an answer like that meant that he was scared and didn’t want to tell me. We knew each other well enough now to know what the other was thinking without even talking. And I knew that he would know that I knew.
In true British fashion I tried to put it to one side and carry on. I kept getting interrupted by the coastguard, however, calling me up on the radio to confirm my position. If I ignored them, I could row on in peace, but if then they would have no information on me; Ric didn’t have Internet access with him so only had tracker reports messaged back from Portugal. The communications loop was already widening and ironically I felt more and more isolated, especially when I found out that the coastguard wouldn’t let Ric use the VHF radios, so we had to do everything by phone.
Earlier that day, Ric had advised me to alter my course and point to the south of the reef entrance. Until then I had been aiming straight for the middle of it. I obeyed him and inched my way south. By now I could make out trees, cars and fields on the island – it was coming to life. The haze which I had spotted curtaining the length of the coast became whiter and whiter, until I realised it must be the fizz from the reef. At a few miles out the water suddenly changed colour and became a bright turquoise as the water went from ocean deep to coastal shallow. The waves changed too – becoming steeper, less rolling and closer together. I didn’t feel comfortable any more and bordered on feeling out of control. Ric must have heard it in my voice when we spoke to confirm final details but was too kind to point it out. He advised me to get a throw line ready, so that if anything happened in the reef entrance then their boat could pick up the line and help me. I cut Bob’s retrieval line and pick-up buoy and coiled it ready on deck, hoping we wouldn’t have to use it.
Lining up with the compass and looking at the chart, I could see where I needed to be. Unfortunately, it involved rowing across the waves, always the most dangerous and difficult thing to do, especially as some of them were starting to curl and roll, curving into beautiful glassy crescent tops. Soon they would turn into breakers, crashing into the white curtain over the reef. All this slowed my progress considerably and meant that I was pushing further and further into the final hours of daylight, with everyone on shore waiting for my arrival and expecting me around 5 p.m. I was torn between rowing and ringing in to let them know my position, but decided that rowing was more critical so rowed on in, the reef now roaring behind me. Dippers was rising to the top of the waves and then falling into the troughs quite violently, sometimes broaching down the side of the turquoise hills, making me throw down the oars and hold on tight.
At 5.41 I tried ringing Ricardo. I was terrified and confused, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t see any clear water – it was all white behind me and more waves were breaking. I felt a cold numbing fear that I was about to be obliterated. I had just enough time to shove the phone in the cabin and lock the door before throwing myself to the deck, holding on tight to the safety rails.
As I screamed, a bomb of a wave exploded over the boat and my world went white. But it was dark somehow, beneath the water, it was loud and I could taste salt everywhere. I was a rag doll, somersaulting through the surf which was now rushing us along the reef, growing louder and louder. And then I breathed a sweet breath – we must have come back around. I had floated off Dippers on my line and was surrounded by fizzing water while the wave receded. I looked round and saw no one and nothing but surf. I screamed again, and even I struggled to hear it over the sound of crashing waves. Dippers tilted over to one side with the water on deck but I scrambled on board, heaving myself through the safety rails. An oar was broken and the throw line was tangled, but there was no time to do anything but hold on; another wave was on its way. I knew that the reef must only be metres below now and with it certain annihilation.
As we rolled through the next wave and my lungs burned some more, I thought of the irony, cruel as it was, that having survived the open ocean for all those thousands of miles, now I was about to die. What made it even worse was that my family was right there, too. I didn’t know if they could see it and I didn’t know if that was good or bad. There was nothing I could do anyway. Despite the lack of air and the fact I was about to die, it was strangely peaceful beneath the water. When there is nothing you can do but hold your breath, time slows right down to a standstill. It must have looked like a kill
er whale boshing a seal pup – you know the seal pup doesn’t stand a chance. I think we surfed upside down again before finally slowing in another patch of fizzing water, while the wave tracked back out to sea. My foot stung as though it had been cut and I spluttered to catch my breath. The water was so shallow now that I knew that with the next roll we would be mullered; boats and reefs do not mix. Having scrambled aboard once more and seeing the next wave thunder towards me, I knew I had to be inside. This is where I would die – at least in there, there was more chance of finding my body. I whipped open the handles on the hatch and undid my line, leaping in as fast as I could. I wasn’t fast enough and as I sat down to close the door, the wave roared into us, white water pouring in through the door. I yelled as I tried to close it, my voice filling the tiny cabin, but still being drowned out by the raging water. We rolled and I hit my head before Dippers was rushed forward at speed, lurching left and right on her side. It went quiet as the wave went back to sea and I braced myself across the cabin for another hit. It came and we were forced forwards again, this time the sound of the hull ripping across the reef filling me with terror. At any moment I expected to see reef and rock coming through the cabin. Luckily it didn’t; or at least I couldn’t see it. Everything went quiet as we came to a halt. There was water and stuff everywhere; it looked like chaos and it was. But peering out through the back hatch I saw that we were now grounded on the reef but far away enough from the surf to be safe. Out of the front hatch I could see clear water. It was dusk and I was late – everyone on shore would be worried. I still didn’t know if they had seen me.