A Dip in the Ocean

by Sarah Outen

  After signing the release documents and posing for some photographs, we towed her back to base behind the speedboat. I burst into tears as I watched her planing up, a tiny speck bouncing along like a cork, the blue grey of the sea lying huge and imposing behind, now framed by a mantle of ominous rain cloud. Now I understood why everyone had worried – Dippers and I had been nothing on that ocean and seeing her from that angle had given me a whole new perspective.

  Marcel’s promise of organising officials to visit us didn’t materialise, so Mum and I spent half a day chasing round Port Louis trying to sort out immigration requirements, waving bits of the local paper to get me through. It is amazing how officials change their tune when they think they are having their photo taken with a celebrity. Misguided souls, I was still the same old me. We had coffee with the British Ambassador, a chirpy chap with Mr Happy cufflinks, though unfortunately both of our schedules were too full to allow for le rosbif. I would have to wait until England for that.

  Annoyingly, I had started to swell up and felt like I was on my way to resembling a puffer fish – something to do with my protein intake now I was back on land causing water retention. It may have had something to do with the coral in my foot, too, which I had scraped and scrubbed out rather ruthlessly on the first morning, although it was still inflamed. Besides that and a few other scratches, on the face of it I looked very healthy, tanned golden with a mop of silky sun-bleached hair. My bottom was sore for many weeks afterwards, though enjoyed the break from continual sogginess, as did my hands and feet, which had dried out to near normal within a few days. Apart from the aches and bruises I felt very healthy too, though it took three days for me to be able to walk in a straight line and it was a further two weeks before I walked without any pain.

  Hugging Ric goodbye as we dropped him off at the airport in Mauritius was a big moment – he had been such an integral part of my life for the past four months that I knew life post-Ric would be strange. It was the same with the ocean – I was sad to be leaving and disappointed to have to leave Mauritius just at the point I was settling into something resembling a holiday mode, after twelve days on the island. However when we landed at Heathrow, I was delighted to be greeted by friends and family and an Arthritis Care contingent. My friends were dressed up in all sorts of interesting nautical outfits and came bearing goodies of champagne and cake and balloons. It was such a lovely surprise and I couldn’t stop grinning – or eating the delicious cake.

  After this initial joy, my emotional state took a while to settle. Around eight months, in fact. I threw myself straight back into the action with interviews, visits to friends, a few talks and the vague idea of book writing. My first day back in England was spent driving for six hours to collect Bonnie, our dog, followed by a train trip to London ready for the national BBC Breakfast the next morning, before coming back home and being whisked off to Nottingham for BBC East Midlands Today. I pretended to sleep all the way there and all the way back, so that I didn’t have to answer the taxi driver’s questions. All I had done since landing was answer questions and I just needed a little bit of peace and quiet. I was empty of energy and with my sleep patterns all askew and a huge list of things to do, I didn’t feel I could relax, even though I wanted to. I was due down at the Southampton Boat Show a few days later, then up to Manchester for a show with Radcliffe and Maconie, after which I was scheduled to shoot straight out to Portugal to announce my entry in Ricardo’s round-the-world yacht race. Yes, a round-the-world yacht race. I had said yes on a whim because it sounded fun, before realising a few days later that I had only said yes because it was Ricardo who had asked me. In reality, I knew that it wouldn’t be a sensible move to jump straight into a project not of my own making and while I still wasn’t sure where my life would take me. In a tearful phone call I told him that I had been mistaken – I wouldn’t be in his race after all.

  In terms of the charities, I was over the moon with the totals we pulled in after I returned home. Cheques and letters waited for me on the doormat at home, and through various other fundraisers and donations, the final total for the three-year project clocked a very satisfying £31,000 for my two supported charities – a third over my original target.

  The contrast between my simple life at sea – where my big decisions of the day were limited to debates about the number of chocolate bars I should eat for breakfast and which pair of shorts was smelliest – and the frenetic life on land was huge. Things seemed so trivial in some ways but so confusing that I got freaked out easily by crowds and clutter and decisions. At home I cleared out bags of stuff I didn’t think I needed any more and on my first trip to London a few days after landing I wanted to scream and run away. I escaped as often as I could to the fields behind our town with Bonnie for long walks, desperate to be outside again. After a while I learned to sleep properly, allowing me to at least start recharging my batteries and processing all that had been on the waves.

  Soon after I returned home, I drove to Wales to visit my Taid. As I pulled up outside his little bungalow, I saw balloons hanging in the sunshine and a sign in the window proudly telling the world that his granddaughter was the first woman to row the Indian Ocean solo. My stomach was in knots and I told myself not to cry – this would be an emotional reunion. My Taid was one wide smile all day and when he hugged me I thought he would never let go – we were both so happy to see each other again. On the drive back I let the tears run free – a blend of happy, sad, nostalgic, relieved tears. Before I went to sea, I wasn’t sure that he would be around to see me home, for he was frail and tired of life. Just days after that return visit, he had a major stroke and died. It felt as though he had waited to see me home and now, content that I was safe, had signed out from this world. At his funeral, I read ‘Sea Fever’ by John Masefield – one of our favourite poems that we had recited to each other during my row. The final line was particularly poignant as it asks for sweet and gentle sleep after a long and wearisome journey.

  And what of the lovely Dippers? She went on to pastures new, after much love from Jamie and Emily, who refitted her and spruced her up for her new owner – a kindly seafarer from America who bought her for an ocean-rowing trip. It felt good to know she would soon be back to doing what she was made for.

  Epilogue

  I Must Go Down to the Seas Again

  ‘The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one

  in its net of wonder forever’

  Jacques Yves Cousteau

  My months of feeling like a hormonal teenager passed and I ploughed on with speaking events, which were growing in number by the day, dabbled in book writing until we found a publisher keen to take on my story, and planned another expedition.

  That’s right, another expedition. Even though I had vowed on the reef never to put my family through that sort of hell again, I still yearned for the ocean and for another adventure. It would be global and based on an idea I had started to cook while out at sea – a human-powered loop of the planet. I love maps and journeys across them and I thought that to trace an expedition right over the surface of the globe would be a fitting next step and one heck of an adventure.

  I found that once I had started talking about the notion of it, people wanted to know all the details. So I was forced into announcing a date at a dinner at Windsor Castle in November 2009. I was speaking to a hall of diners at a fundraising event for the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and had been asked by HRH Prince Edward to tell the audience when I might be leaving. Put on the spot, I said 2011. Gulp. I was committed now. And so I conceived ‘London2London: Via the World’, a journey to loop the planet under my own power, rowing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, cycling across Europe, Asia and the USA and Canada, and kayaking all the bits in between, while telling stories and sharing the adventures on the way. For I had discovered that one of the best bits about adventuring is being able to involve as many people as possible in the journeys – especially youngsters.

  So as I sit here at my desk in Autumn
2010, finishing off this book, I am firmly looking ahead. ‘Why?’ I hear you whisper, looking at me a little confusedly, remembering that I nearly died out on the Indian. To answer that, just remember how alive I felt, too.

  I have given over a hundred talks and presentations since returning to shore to an audience as broad as the ocean. From boardrooms in Europe and seminars at some of the world’s leading brands to classrooms of inner city schools, I have shared some of the tales and passed on some of the lessons I learned on my journey. I see it as a privilege and enjoy it as much as I did the ocean, just in a different way. My work with youngsters is my favourite and the most rewarding, particularly where I am working with children who, through no fault of their own, have had limited opportunity to explore and engage with the wider world. One school I have worked with on a few occasions is in Coventry, and many of the children haven’t ever been outside of the city before, let alone seen the sea. So my message to them is that the world out there is theirs if they want it and are willing to work for it – whatever it is they want in life is within their reach if they believe it and strive for it. Others are rather more worldly wise and often make me smile with their ideas and comments. One girl sticks in my mind particularly. Aged about eight, she asked me if I signed autographs. Yes I could, and I worked my way around the thirty or so children in the classroom. I arrived at her desk and she asked if she could have three autographs. Surprised, I asked, ‘Why three?’ Straight-faced, she said, ‘This one’s for me; this one’s for my brother; and this one’s to sell on eBay!’

  Priceless moments like this have confirmed my love of working with young people and each talk or day of workshops with schools drives me on to carry on, even if it means recounting ocean tales over and over. If it inspires just one person to make a change in their lives or set themselves a goal, then it is worth it. I receive so many letters from people telling me how they have given up smoking, started triathlons, confronted their suppressed grief or similar after hearing my story, and that is humbling, touching and motivating.

  Therefore, it is my plan to make this next expedition a shared adventure, one that is live with lots of online content and opportunities for others to get involved with questions, following and perhaps even joining me on the ride. I go out on adventures to feel alive and to find stories, to challenge myself and live in nature, to get away from the clutter and pressure of our man-made world and experience life in its rawest forms, where the boundaries between life and death and success and failure both terrify me and excite me and I can never be sure just how things will turn out. Whether it will satisfy my appetite for solo adventuring I cannot tell; people already ask me about my plans for afterwards and I laugh. I don’t need to know yet. Does anyone know their plan for three years down the line and really believe it? I am confident that serendipity and hard work will lead me to the right course, whatever that may be. They usually do.

  These journeys, both across the ocean and through grief, taught me a lot of things – namely that to survive anything you have to believe good times will come again, for nothing lasts forever. When you’re blue there is always an albatross of some sort to make you smile, you just have to keep looking and focus on the good bits. The ocean taught me that fear is healthy and that if you let go of all else in the storms, then tenacity is everything – we never get anywhere by giving up. My row also crystallised the need to seize every opportunity by the scruff of its neck and shake out all the great things, chasing dreams and making them happen – life is too short not to.

  Most of all, perhaps, these journeys have taught me about courage – everyday courage. A child recently asked me how brave I thought I was before I rowed the ocean. I thought about it and said that I didn’t really know, but that I had learned we are all much braver than we think we are. At my talks, when I ask the audience the question ‘Who thinks they are brave?’, only young children put their hands up and above about eleven years old no one does. If I ask the same audience the question ‘Who has been scared before and had to do something anyway?’ then most people put their hands up. Why is this? Where does the bravery go? The answer is nowhere – we just somehow don’t believe it. Without belief, then we go nowhere; with it, we can go anywhere.

  I pledged to solo the Indian at a time in my life when I didn’t feel at all brave. I was broken, empty and lost. But I made it. Just like my dad’s battles with arthritis, the ocean had taught me that we win by having the balls to keep going and the courage to get up each morning and have another go, even after warm-up laps, capsizes, boshings and bruises. Seeing the map of the world with my wiggly route traced across it, I have seen that anything is possible, that the adventures are more than worth the risk and that the reward is all in the journey.

  Acknowledgements

  ‘I can no other answer make, but thanks, and thanks’

  William Shakespeare

  Writing this book has been as much of a challenge as rowing the ocean, with some exciting highs, frustrating lows and everything in between. Writing my thank yous now is even harder – there are so many wonderful people who have helped me on all these journeys – at home and abroad, family, friends, sponsors, followers, welcomers, strangers, and my team et al, et al, et al.

  There are a lot of et als who I cannot mention for lack of space – but please know that your efforts, your support, your sponsorship, your kindness, your wisdom, your beers or breakfasts, your boat or your hugs – or whatever it is that you did for me, the project, the charity, my family and so on, are all gratefully felt.

  Mum: I apologise for worrying you but thank you forever for your unwavering support, happy socks, porridge packing, transcribing, banking and baking – everything and all that you have ever done and do for me.

  Michael & Matthew: I might not always say it, but I appreciate your support, banter and belief and I love you both to bits. Thank you.

  Cousin J & George: I am so glad you wrote that letter. Thanks for believing in me, for letting me stay, for the gin, for the music, for Mauritius.

  Uncle David: Thank you for understanding.

  Aunty Joyce: Thank you always, and for helping Taid share the journey.

  Sara: You are one in a million. So grateful for all you do for me and happy to call you my friend.

  Jamie & Emily: Proud to be a Global boatie – there is no one else I would rather have build my boats. Cordial beverage?

  Roostie: (Forever chuffed you didn’t choose pharmaceuticology), Jonesy, BPC, Siena, Em, Lou, Ras, Vix, Spickett, Rosie, Anna, Flick, Amy, Tova, Nicole, Hibbert – before, during, after, forever – you’re all bloody brilliant and have helped me to get across that ocean in ways that only mates can.

  Spal: What a journey. Thank you for standing by.

  Jimbo C: Super kind, super appreciated.

  Dave Cornthwaite: allsorts and everything. Here’s to more adventures.

  Adrian Bell, Amy & Laura at Whisper for all your efforts on the PR front.

  Lumpy Lemon for all things web and design.

  Ric: An ocean of thanks. What an adventure. Proud to be a Sea Ani.

  Roz Savage: Thanks for the chat, the advice, the gin.

  Sally: My first ocean rower – thanks for everything – advice, support, banter.

  Michael Morpurgo: Here’s to Kitty IV and the albatrosses. Thank you for everything.

  Richard Dawkins: May the Force be with you 

  Ellen: Thank you for the foreword and inspiring me all those years ago, now and into the future. Massive respect.

  Susie Hewson: You are one in a million. Proud to be a SISTER.

  Geoffers: For jumping in and helping out, the log book, the summer of ’07.

  Jim from MactraMarine: for jumping in and helping out.

  Anj Jowitt: Long live Rad & Mac! You’re a star.

  Expert Geoff, Jamie Dunross & Janet, Clem TMWC, Sally, Margot and the mice, Hilary & Patrick, Roger & Caroline Winwood, Craig Rourke, the Commodore of the Royal Perth Yacht Club, Rob, Norman, the boys of Hale, th
e guys of Fremantle Sea Rescue, Lina & Gerard: Grateful thanks for everything down under. See you sometime.

  Nicholas Vaudin and your wonderful team at Anahitas; René Soobaroyen for the photos; Marcel; John Murton. One day I’ll come back.

  Anita & Lars, Stuart & Elaine & the boys, Tricia & Winston, Tim & Kitty, Mr & Mrs Benge, Julia Howes, Andy & Guy, Xtina & Nigel, Tom & Correne from Exweb, Ian Clover, Libby, Mel Dulling, Richard Butchins, Briony Nicholls for the brain training and support, Phil Morrison, Pete Litton, Barry for the poems, Robert for the podcasts, the staff and girls of Stamford High School and staff and children of Stamford Junior School; The Sands in Exmouth; The Hudsons in the North; The Carters in the North; Sarah Teale; Radcliffe & Maconie; Tatyana and Kenneth of ORS; Brian Tustain; Sam Hale; Adrian Moss; Mrs S and your stories; Peter Walker; Termec; George Butcombe; Anita Corbin; Nigel Millard; Jude Edginton; Jim Shannon; David Yiend; Bob Caren; Ashika & Sam; Mike Mason; Sue Jackson; Sarah Black & the Green Blue; the RSPB; Arthritis Care, the Arthritis Research Campaign; Mark Beaumont; Rebecca Stephens, Christine Foley; Tony Hanley, Tim & Sheila Haldane, Jamie Combs.