Rowing After the White Whale

by James Adair

  ‘Where are they?’ said Ben, agitated.

  ‘Okay, you keep rowing and I’ll keep a look out,’ I said, standing up.

  I stood with my back to the cabin, peering out to where they should be. There were still no breaking waves but it was choppy and we rose and fell in and out of the swell, which charged towards land.

  Then it appeared. Out of nowhere a breaking wave bigger than anything we’d seen in the last 116 days was churning towards us with a guttural rumble. I knew immediately it would roll us. The white water alone was higher than us; it was going to engulf us in seconds.

  ‘Oh no . . .’ I said quietly. I turned to Ben and he was looking back at me with an expression that mixed disbelief with a kind of pained inconvenience. It was an expression that said, ‘Really, after all of this?’

  I quickly turned and closed the doors of the hatch tight and held on to the steel roll bars. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Ben take his feet out of the straps of the footplate and reach his hands out for the gunwales to brace himself for the impact.

  Now we’re going to die, I thought as the wall of white water arrived. My veins coursed with adrenaline.

  For a moment the sea in front of the wave looked still and pure, so peaceful and blue in contrast with the white rolling mass that was now seconds away. But already the flat in front of the wave was being disturbed and soiled by spitting shards of tumbling white water. The noise grew suddenly louder, from a rumbling hiss to a raging thunder as the turmoil of water reached us.

  Now we really are, actually, definitely, after all of this, after everything, going to die, I thought. Typical. As for words, the only one I could manage in time, the only one that seemed appropriate, was: ‘Shit!’

  I took a deep breath.

  The wave hit us with a violent, sickening crash and everything went black.

  67 Decisions

  ‘Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still better.’

  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  I came up in the bubbling, foamy aftermath of the wave. The boat had self-righted and languished about fifteen feet away from me. I could see Ben. He was only about six feet from the boat.

  ‘Swim to the boat!’ he shouted.

  I swam desperately to the boat. The flat water was still alive with the energy of the disappearing wave, fizzing and hissing as it calmed. Debris from the boat floated everywhere.

  I felt relief to be alive and, despite the violence of the capsize, not even injured. I was also relieved that we hadn’t been clipped on, otherwise the lines would have tangled around the boat and we would have run a greater risk of being smashed against it. But fear immediately pushed relief out of the way. This is really bad, I thought. I started swimming heavy strokes in my foulies. I couldn’t help but feel some pride that the boat had self-righted. We had been right to increase the ballast. ‘Don’t think about that, you idiot!’ a voice screamed in my mind. The foulies were too heavy in the water so I quickly pulled down the zip and slipped out of them. Now wearing nothing but cycling shorts, I made the boat within a few seconds.

  Flopping over the side into the hole where the bow seat should have been, I was greeted with a scene of utter destruction. All the oars had been broken or carried away, the lifejackets were gone, the seats ripped out, antennae snapped, rowlocks bent and everything from the deck had been washed away.

  Ben’s long matted hair was falling wildly over his face and his waterlogged beard was dripping.

  ‘The flares!’ I shouted.

  I jumped back into the sea and swam to the flares, which were floating off in a watertight bag. I managed to get to them and back to the boat in what felt like seconds. I clambered back in. We had lost a lot of ground towards the lighthouse and it now loomed over us perilously.

  ‘Where the fuck is Tony?’ shouted Ben.

  ‘They should be close. Let’s set off the parachute flares,’ I said, catching my breath.

  ‘Yeah, I looked in the cabin and it’s upside down. The batteries have come out the sat phone and it’s all smashed up.’

  ‘Okay, here we go,’ I said, passing Ben a parachute flare and taking one for myself.

  Readying the flare I pointed it upwards and pulled the cord. The fizzing, iridescent ball of fire shot vertically into the air with an angry hiss. At the same time the canister kicked back in my hands and the metal cap backfired, cutting my finger on the knuckle.

  ‘Ouch! My finger!’ I said, cradling my finger as blood trickled down my hand.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine, but be careful. They backfire.’

  Ben held his flare away from his body and pulled the cord. It shot into the sky leaving a brilliant wake of glowing red. At the same moment I doubled over in pain. The metal cap had shot back and hit me flush on the shinbone.

  ‘Shit, mate, for fuck’s sake! Owww! You shot me with the discharge!’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Are you okay?’

  I looked at my shin and saw the perfect double hole it had cut in my leg. In the deeper hole I could see the bone, white against the moist red circle of flesh that surrounded it. Then the blood started streaming down my leg. Looking at the blood I suddenly felt very tired. I covered the wound with my hands but could feel the thudding of blood pumping through the hole.

  ‘Ouch, my leg, that really fucking hurts,’ I said, wincing.

  ‘Where the fuck is Tony?’

  ‘Mate, do another flare!’

  Ben grabbed one of the parachute flares and primed it.

  ‘Careful!’ I shouted. ‘Make sure you point it away – no, the other end! Yeah, make sure the back end is pointing away . . . further.’

  Ben concentrated so hard on pointing it away from both of us that by the time he pulled the cord the flare was completely horizontal. With a loud whoosh the light rocketed off like a guided missile a few feet off the water. It hurtled away seaward.

  We both laughed in disbelief. This was absurd. Here we were; two heavily bearded, nearly naked grown men shooting each other, firing parachute flares flat to the water, about to die within sight of land. I felt a sudden surge of love for Ben. We had endured together and now we were going to go down together in our typically ridiculous fashion.

  We would fight, of course. Fight to the end. But now, as the next wave appeared, rumbling towards us with venom, we realised that we were about to capsize again. There wouldn’t be enough time to get into the cabin, at least not enough time for both of us to make it. Still, whatever was going to happen, we knew we’d rather be in it together. It was unthinkable that one of us would get into the cabin while the other took his chances on deck. There was no time to vocalise these thoughts, because the next wave was seconds away, rolling grimly towards us.

  We had no oars to steer the boat, so there was nothing to do but brace ourselves for another impact. But what will happen, I thought to myself, if we go over again and this time the boat lands on top of us? This next wave wasn’t as big as the first, but still big enough to roll us and I worried that one of us would be seriously injured this time. If the boat capsized it would self-right again near us, so why not jump in on the wave side of the boat to avoid the risk of being injured? In my mind we wouldn’t be abandoning the boat, simply limiting the chances of taking a serious knock in the inevitable roll. Stay on the boat or jump in? That was the question I was asking myself, and I had about four seconds to decide. Time kindly slowed enough to allow me to appreciate the unattractiveness of both scenarios. Better to act than be acted upon.

  ‘Quick, let’s jump in on this side so we’re not rolled under the boat,’ I shouted. ‘We’ll hold onto the grab line.’

  Ben nodded and we simultaneously launched ourselves over the side. We took hold of the grab line as the wave arrived and violently ripped the boat away from us. We lost sight of her as we were engulfed by the crashing wave then I came up to see in utter dismay that she hadn’t rolled. Instead s
he was hurtling away, carried at unbelievable speed by the relentless power of the wave. A lonely sight it was, glimpsing her surfing off, wildly, uncontrollably, like a riderless racehorse.

  The boat was gone. The sea had tricked us, or had tricked me. Now we were in its clutches, treading water and taking in what had happened. Things had definitely just got worse.

  68 The Swim

  ‘A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense.’

  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  We were now in the water in nothing but our cycling shorts. We were still slightly north of the lighthouse and I was desperately trying to see the boat that was supposed to be meeting us. In theory, it would be to the south and through the building peaks and troughs of swell I tried to catch a glimpse of it. There was certainly no point swimming after our boat; it had been carried away far too quickly and would surely be dashed on the reefs.

  ‘We need to swim for the gap in the reef. That’s where the boat will be coming from, it’s just south of the lighthouse,’ I spluttered.

  ‘Alright, let’s start swimming. Is your leg okay?’ replied Ben.

  ‘Yeah, it’s fine,’ I said, but as we started a slow front crawl I felt it aching.

  Looking down at it through the darkening water I could see blood pulsing out in wispy clouds.

  ‘This isn’t good, is it?’ I said.

  ‘No, this isn’t good,’ Ben agreed.

  We swam a few more strokes and then I saw it.

  ‘The boat!’ I shouted, pointing at the white slip that was dipping in and out of my vision.

  ‘Okay, let’s swim hard for it,’ said Ben.

  We set off swimming a heavy front crawl. Then another roller appeared, crashing and thundering towards us. Now we were in the water the waves looked even bigger.

  ‘Take a deep breath and let’s duck under at the last second,’ I screamed over the din of water. I plunged myself straight down as the wave reached us, using strong upward strokes with my arms as if I were a footballer entreating the crowd to stand to celebrate a goal with me. I felt the surge of energy above me and came back up in the frothing after-wave. Ben was there too.

  ‘Let’s stay close,’ he shouted.

  We set off again. Then I caught another glimpse of the boat.

  ‘It’s there, about two hundred metres away,’ I said.

  ‘Tony! Help! Help!’ we shouted in unison.

  Nothing.

  ‘Okay, let’s get swimming, try to stay close,’ said Ben.

  I was lagging a bit. Dragging my bleeding leg behind me I felt cumbersome and slow. I wasn’t swimming properly, wasn’t taking breaths as I would in a pool. In training I had often swum four or five kilometres without stopping. Swim like that, I told myself and started off properly, taking a breath every three strokes. We swam for a minute or two before I stopped to look for the boat again. Another glimpse. We swam again and another roller appeared. since we weren’t wearing lifejackets we could easily get under the waves if we timed it right. We ducked under at the last minute and let the power wash over us. Then there was no sign of the boat. We swam on in the same direction, checking every few minutes, but there was nothing.

  ‘I can’t see it any more,’ I said, as we stopped to get our breath after the last few strenuous minutes of swimming. We paused, treading water and catching our breath. The sun had gone down and the last grey light lit the sea a dark blue. Ben plunged his head under the water, sweeping it from side to side.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked when he came up for a breath, knowing the answer full well.

  ‘Just seeing if I can see the bottom,’ he replied unconvincingly.

  ‘You’re looking for sharks, aren’t you?’

  ‘Alright, I thought I saw a shape and you’re still bleeding from your leg.’

  Then I felt a brush on my leg. I plunged under and round, opening my eyes in the darkening salty blue. Nothing. But I could see the bottom, perhaps thirty metres down. The sight of the rocky seafloor filled me with fear.

  ‘We need to forget about sharks and just swim. If we get eaten, we get eaten, we have to try and make the gap in the reef before it gets too dark to see,’ I said. Perhaps my attitude would have been different had I known that Mauritius’ most recent shark fatality had happened at this exact point.

  ‘We’ve only got half an hour before it’s pitch black.’

  ‘Alright. I remember from the chart that the entrance is right after the lighthouse, so we have to swim as close as possible to the lighthouse, without getting washed on the rocks but not straying too far from them otherwise the current will push us past the entrance – and we need to do it before dark.’

  ‘Easy. Let’s go.’

  We set off and after a minute another roller thundered over us. This seemed the biggest yet and I felt sick with a fearful excitement as it bore down on us.

  ‘We have to dive deep!’

  ‘Shit!’

  I went under and felt a maddening rush of bubbling water all around. Coming back up into the simmering after-wave, I felt a tugging after-effect pulling me down. I fought back to the surface, spitting out seawater and swearing to myself. This was beyond dangerous.

  Then I realised that we had been separated by about five metres. In the building noise and energy of the weather it felt like a long way. I was still behind.

  ‘Next wave, let’s hold onto each other so we don’t get separated,’ shouted Ben.

  We swam on and as the next wave careered towards us we clung on together and with a quick countdown disappeared under. As we came up in the hissing water I wondered if the technique helped at all. It felt more like we were trying to drown each other under the wave. But I liked the feeling of solidarity. If we were going down we were going down together.

  We pushed on, swimming back out to sea a little to counter the waves, which were pushing us towards the tumultuous water around the lighthouse. We had been in the water for about twenty-five minutes. Now as we ducked under the waves in each other’s arms we were beginning to see the comedy of our situation. Somehow absurdity was starting to eclipse danger. Obviously we weren’t enjoying ourselves, but we started to joke regardless.

  ‘Can you feel the buzz?’ shouted Ben, as we came back up.

  Here he was quoting a story I’d told him about Steve, a fisherman friend of mine from Alderney who’d found himself on a lee shore in gale force winds one night. He’d told me he was only frightened by how much his skipper seemed to be enjoying himself, shouting at Steve from the wheelhouse, ‘Can you feel the buzz?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I feel it, this is amazing!’ I replied, and then, ‘Hey, more or less dangerous than Ginga?’

  ‘I think we can safely say this is worse.’

  ‘That wave demolished us.’

  ‘Yeah, the Casios are still working, though. We really should write to Casio if we survive.’ We had taken a couple of old-school Casio watches with us. They were the same ones we had worn as kids in the 1980s. They simply had a clock, a stopwatch, an alarm and a light, all for a very reasonable $3.99. As all of the fancy kit on the boat gradually failed during the row we had marvelled at how our Casios had kept going.

  Alongside this gallows humour, we were discussing our options and revising our plan. But as our situation worsened it felt important to be laughing as well as battling. We didn’t need to vocalise it, but we both suspected at this stage that we were going to die, and if death was imminent it seemed better to go down laughing insanely rather than snivelling bitterly.

  Another ten minutes of swimming and ducking and we cleared the lighthouse. Unfortunately we couldn’t see the entrance to the harbour through the lines of breaking white water that marked the reef. It was getting properly dark now and the waves seemed to roll at us with a dreamlike slowness until the last second when they lunged, spitting and roaring like a wild animal. As the inky dark was spreading across the sky we said to each other that it was better to try som
ething now rather than be swimming in the pitch black. Although we couldn’t see the gap in the reef, we had to get closer and take our chances.

  We started swimming in. Still the waves came behind us and still we ducked under. As we made our way in, each wave seemed to get louder. Then, ducking under one wave, I touched the bottom. As I came up I shouted to Ben.

  ‘Shit! I just touched the bottom!’

  Before he had time to reply the next wave flung us mercilessly onto the coral reef.

  69 The Reef

  ‘Better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then oh! Who would craven crawl to land!’

  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  We were picked up by the wave and rolled over the coral. I came up waist high, my feet touching land for the first time in four months. I lifted my feet straight away to avoid the jagged coral as the next roller was rumbling towards us, barely visible.

  ‘Quick, we’ve got to get away from the waves,’ I shouted.

  We both started to clamber forward, shouting in pain each time the sharp coral sliced our feet. Then the next wave threw us onto the coral and as it subsided we found we were crawling desperately on all fours. As we did the coral broke, sending us off balance and tumbling into more sharp edges. Painstakingly we waded, stumbled, crawled and fell our way forward, thus managing in a couple of minutes to clear the danger of the breaking waves. Our shrill swear words rang out, accompanied by the little splash of each fall. They were behind us now, but we could still hear the regular thud of the waves. Eventually the pain was too much and, having crawled about fifteen metres over the barely submerged coral, we came to a rest.

  ‘Come and sit over here, there’s enough room for two,’ said Ben, who was sitting on a brain-shaped bit of coral about a metre away.