Crossing the Ditch

by Castrission, James

  As we started to paddle, the excitement slowly died down and we were left feeling quite nervous about the outcome of the morning’s onslaught. By 8am – 90 minutes after the bombardment began – the anticipation was killing me, so I grabbed the goggles and stuck my head under the water to have a look for our marine brothers.

  At first, I saw nothing. My stomach knotted. Then, as I had a closer look, I saw Bruce and Larry tucked up on either side of the rudder right up against the hull. They’d cleverly realised they were safe there. My head burst out of the water and I eagerly spat out, “They’re alive, mate!”

  Both of us started laughing. The fact that our comrades had overcome seemingly insurmountable odds put us in a great mood. A lesson was there for the taking: if they could endure such an attack, we could at least continue to fight the Tasman. It may sound mad in hindsight, but their display of courage was really inspiring.

  I was reminded of a scene from the film Braveheart, where William Wallace’s uncle said: “First, learn to use this [pointing to William’s forehead], then I will teach you how to use this [he lifted the sword].” Unless I was mistaken, Bruce and Larry had obviously watched the movie and put the ancient Scottish wisdom into practice.

  Eating fish pie for dinner (no, not baitfish), I had a nice long chat to the family. Spirits were a little higher on board, now that we were making some progress, albeit still backwards. Once again, I was desperate to hear about their regular daily life, and – not for the first time – I found myself asking, “So what did you have for breakfast this morning?” We felt so alienated on the Tasman, we might as well have been on Pluto, and the thought of English Breakfast Tea with Vegemite on toast was somehow incredibly comforting. My brother Clary told me about his recent break-up with his girlfriend of three-and-a-half years: it felt bizarre to be bobbing around in the middle of the sea in a kayak, giving relationship counselling to someone back home.

  DAY 35

  When you’re out for a drive in the country, you might marvel at the hills, trees, wildlife, or countless other distractions. For us, though, in the absence of anything else at all to keep us occupied, it was all about clouds.

  There were heaps of different formations out there. Alto cumulus, which we called faglets, resembled the cotton-bud clouds out of the opening credits of The Simpsons. Often the whole spectrum of clouds, from below 5000 feet – cumulus – all the way above 25,000 feet – cirrus – were on display in the one vast portrait. Each layer intertwined with the other ones, forming a breathtaking display. Just as we did as kids, we’d watch the clouds mould into beautiful shapes – from teapots with weird tails to six-legged lions, we saw it all.

  Paddling beneath a blanket of cloud, I couldn’t help mulling over the fact that we’d been suspended under this greyish white for the previous nine days. As usual, trying to find the positives in every situation, I said to Jonesy that we were quite fortunate our electric water maker went down. He looked at me strangely.

  “Please explain,” he said, doing his best Pauline Hanson, but apparently quite perturbed.

  “Well, if we’d been running the unit with all this cloud cover, the solar panels wouldn’t have had a chance to properly charge the batteries, which could have led to our whole system going down.”

  “I guess so,” Jonesy responded, sounding oddly unconvinced.

  Later in the day, we ended up chatting about climbing. Apart from family and friends, it was one of the things I missed most out at sea, and Justin leveraged this effective tool throughout the voyage for picking up my mood. All he had to do was ask me about a climb I’d done in the past and, before long, I’d be rambling on about it move by move. To poor Jonesy’s dismay, I’d sometimes drop my paddle and show him how each hand gripped the rock. People often tell me I have the memory of a goldfish (or maybe they don’t – I forget now). However, it never ceased to amaze both of us how vividly I could remember the moves and the gear I’d used on particular climbs over the previous five years.

  Some people say that many of the world’s greatest adventures have been done, but to me adventures are all about growing as a human and having a mind-blowing experience you’ll never forget. I remember climbing with a British bloke in New Zealand a few years back, and halfway up a snow-clad peak we were having a swig of water, when he said out of nowhere, “You know it’s a bloody good adventure when 1. You come back alive; 2. You come back as friends; 3. You bag the summit.”

  That conversation ended up inspiring how I now look at adventure and make decisions in the outdoors. First and foremost, I try to make decisions that will keep me safe – there’s always another mountain to climb and ocean to cross; the skill I’ve tried to learn is to make sure I get to see those other mountains.

  I also try to value friendships above reaching the summit. Jonesy has always been one to put others’ needs above his own – he always makes sure you’ve got the bigger portion of dinner, the earphones that work, etc.

  Finally, having followed those two rules, it’s time to bag the summit. It’s so important not to let this overshadow the other two higher objectives, because when you start to prioritise the glory of the summit, you can find yourself in trouble.

  Anyway, adventure doesn’t have to be in the remotest place on earth. As a kid, adventure for me was about sneaking into the garden of that crazy old hermit across the road, or crawling up into the attic of my grandparents’ place and finding old newspaper clippings from World War II. Wherever I’m at in my life, now and in the future, adventure will mean exploring, whether it’s having a family, starting a business or whatever.

  The conversation about future expeditions and the philosophy of adventure continued into the twilight. Justin talked about how he’d like to challenge himself in a landscape with waves similar to that of the ocean, but on land. Paddling along, he’d often imagine that the massive Tasman swells were not water but sand. He talked of wanting to explore deserts around the world. Ironically, the scenery in a desert and out at sea is so similar in so many ways – it’s the wind that dictates the shape of the surface.

  Towards the end of the day, we passed the 164 longitude for the fifth time in two weeks. Would it be the last?

  16

  The Endless Night

  DAY 36

  Great. Strong southeasterly winds above 50 kilometres per hour had us holed up once again in the cabin. Laying to anchor feeling incredibly frustrated, we were desperate not to be blown back into the whirlpool – but all we could do was ride it out and wait for conditions to improve to make some progress.

  We were only half-awake when we were suddenly shaken by an aggressive set of waves. Lot 41 was dragged through a massive wall of water and dumped the other side. There was a horrible howling sound and when I looked outside to check out what it could be, I saw that the bridle had wrapped around the rudder (see the illustration on page 297) and the full force of the anchor was now loading it.

  It was virtually dark now as we sorted through our options. We could either try to ride out the storm, hoping Lot 41 could hold firm overnight; or one of us could get out there and try to untangle the mess. With the force and speed of the waves engulfing us, though, option B was incredibly dangerous. The rudder was crazily hammering up and down like an industrial sewing machine and for one of us to get in the water – in complete darkness – to try to fix it would be virtually suicidal. I’m so glad Jonesy talked me out of it…

  We decided to wait until the morning and hope that the seas had abated by then. As the screeching continued, we got into all our survival gear and prepared for the worst. We put our merino wool thermals on, our survival suits, our PFD Type 1 Lifejackets, made sure our 406 GPS EPIRBs (emergency beacons) were tied to each of us, and checked that the safety raft was ready to be deployed. We both each had an array of flares attached to us.

  If the stern of Lot 41 was ripped out, the cabin would flood in seconds. We could hear the quiver of fear in our voices as we ran through the situation with Pat. It was a night n
one of us would get any sleep, and it’s branded in our memory as the scariest moment of our lives. (When we got back to Australia, a mate’s uncle said it reminded him of what he’d been through in the trenches in World War II, waiting for an attack on enemy lines.)

  Pat gave us the weather and indicated that the storm would build during the next few hours. With the worsening conditions, we all realised that this meant the force on the rudder would only increase.

  As we lay down after sked, the god-awful screeching dulled the sound of the intensifying storm outside. Even by putting our earphones on to try and escape from the noise, it found a way of filtering into our eardrums. It sounded like Lot 41 was being tortured – like a wounded animal about to be put down. Screech, screech, screech.

  Making things worse, we quickly found we were beginning to overheat with all our survival gear on. When battened down, the condensation and heat inside the cabin became unbearable. Being covered in numerous layers of clothing designed to keep us alive in the bitterly cold Tasman water was proving to be horrendous, but we knew that if the back of Lot 41 ripped out we wouldn’t have the time to get into our survival gear. We had to have it on. There we lay, sweating from both fear and heat, trying to comfort each other by saying things like: “If she was going to go, she would have gone already.”

  Back home, the high alert made the media go crazy. Many of our friends, family and forumites stayed up all night with us. The forum on our website buzzed with activity and encouragement.

  That night all we could cling to was each other, and our four years of rigorous preparation and planning. Our thoughts kept reverberating back to the structural work we’d done on the hull laminate and rudder layup and the worst-case training we’d done to prepare for an abandon-ship scenario. This scenario.

  Lot 41 was designed to be positively buoyant. In other words, if every bulkhead and compartment filled with water, she’d still float on the top of the ocean. This was due to the amount of foam in the hull that was sandwiched between the two layers of fibreglass and the amount of foam added on the “bumps” on the side. This critical design consideration meant that Lot 41 was supposed to be a safety raft in itself – it was designed to never sink. The models and theory had shown this was the case, but obviously we never wanted to be in a position to test this.

  The screeching became lost in the howling winds, as sweat continued dripping from our faces. Our mouths were dry with a bitter taste like putting your tongue on the end of a battery, as we’d look at our watches every 10 minutes hoping an hour had passed. As the wind built, Lot 41 started bucking ever more violently. Hour by hour ticked by – the night was lasting forever.

  At 2am she kicked out the back of a massive wall of water. We were tossed from side to side, and as we careered down the face of the next big wave to hit us, there was no screeching. Same with the next wave – no screeching. It took another couple of minutes to register, but we slowly began to realise that the horrible noise had stopped. Our initial excitement that the bridle had – we thought – untangled itself soon turned to fears that the rudder had broken or the bridle had snapped under the load. With the sea staying angry and daylight a couple of hours off, we weren’t going to be able to examine the damage until dawn broke.

  Over the next few hours I convinced myself that the rudder would be bent beyond repair. We had an emergency replacement rudder on board, which would have been better than nothing but far from desirable. Even if the rudder was only slightly damaged, it would have played havoc with our steering. Because the force was now off the rudder, we were able to slither out of our survival suits and get some anxious sleep before dawn. What would the next day reveal?

  DAY 37

  We slept right through our 6am alarms – you can just imagine how worried our parents were back home. Pat had been getting nervous phone calls and emails from our families and friends for hours. He had to defuse the situation by saying that if there’d been an emergency during the night, both our EPIRBs would have been activated and our tracking would have made it clear that Lot 41 was full of water.

  As our family, friends and support crew grew increasingly anxious, we slept. I eventually half woke – feeling like the first time you open your eyes after a general anaesthetic. My lids rose heavily, then collapsed shut instantly. For that brief moment they were open, enough light flooded into my retina to register that the sun seemed higher than normal. Rolling over on one side and groaning, I opened my eyes and had a look at my watch – 8am.

  “Shit, Jonesy, we’ve slept through our alarm,” I shouted.

  There was no movement.

  This time I violently shook his leg. “Oi, Pieguts. Wake up, bro, we’ve slept in.”

  He sat up awkwardly, rubbing his eyes, and said matter-off-actly, “Bugger.”

  We quickly pulled the satellite phone out and called Pat. He picked up before it had time to ring through.

  “Morning, Pat, it’s Jonesy here.”

  Pat was obviously a bit freaked out. “What happened? Everyone back home is going nuts.”

  “Er…we accidentally slept in.” It sounded incredibly lame, but Jonesy went on to explain we hadn’t slept all night and when the bridle untangled itself, we’d crashed out. There was no time for idle chit-chat, though. We had to check the rudder and Pat had to alert the authorities that all was okay.

  Sticking our heads out of the cabin we realised that we’d been so engrossed in getting on the phone to Pat, we hadn’t observed the state of the sea. She’d calmed a little but was still furiously frothing – it didn’t look like a paddle day and definitely looked too rough to carry out running repairs on the rudder if the need arose.

  I put the goggles on and dunked my head into the water. It’s amazing how angry the surface can look, but hidden beneath the surface, fish are swimming round in a serene environment. As I craned my neck to the right, I was expecting to see the rudder bent and half-mangled, but to my utter bewilderment, it looked absolutely fine; and unexpectedly Bruce and Larry were still there too! All five of us had made it through the night unscathed.

  Jonesy smiled broadly as I yelled this great news to him, which he eagerly relayed to Pat. During the construction process, Justin had spent far too many hours working on the rudder. After that night, I didn’t begrudge him one single second of it. It was still blowing 45 kilometres per hour from the southeast. We couldn’t make any progress, so we had a great opportunity to catch up on some much-needed rest – we dozed all day as the seas around slowly began to abate.

  DAY 38

  The seas continued to die down, giving us the opportunity late in the afternoon to do some welcome paddling after having been holed up for two-and-a-half days in the cabin. We made some decent progress – 14 kilometres in four-and-a-half hours – far from the quickest we’d gone, but it was invigorating to be out in the pits paddling.

  Although those extended periods in the cabin were a great opportunity for our muscles to repair and to catch up on some much-needed sleep, they also seemed to drain us. After each storm, we found the next few days harder and harder to paddle. It was as though the cabin time detuned our bodies – and our ability to poo – and it would take them a while to reacclimatise.

  That night, we realised the laptop wasn’t charging. Examining the wiring diagram, we traced the problem back to a heavily rusted terminal block. Pulling out a couple of spare blocks, we rewired the charger without issue.

  These simple repairs at sea were frustratingly slow. It wasn’t a matter of heading to the back shed, getting the tools and gear, then fixing it. To access our tools and spares beneath our cabin floor, we had to pack all our sleeping gear away, roll the mats up, pull out the relevant dry bay, empty all the contents, and locate the gear we were after. Once the gear was found, recrimping and rejoining wires was incredibly frustrating. Rogue waves would always hit right at the critical moment, resulting in one of us dropping the block or the nut, usually in the most difficult place to reach on the whole kayak. Time would then
be spent trying to fish that gear out. Finally, the job would be complete and a couple of hours had been sucked into a void.

  DAY 39

  A welcome change of routine. Pat teed it up for us to chat with David Spence, the CEO of our platinum sponsor Unwired. David had been eagerly following our progress on the website and seemed just as excited to speak to us as we were to him.

  However, after the initial “Hi, how are you?” and “It’s so great to speak with you”, we found it difficult to advance the conversation any further. We felt awkward. Both Justin and I are normally pretty good socially – we can talk for hours to anybody. But our lack of direct contact with the outside world, coupled with the primitive, survival-based existence we were leading, saw us totally unprepared for this conversation. We found it difficult to relate to David (or anyone else, probably). How do you honestly answer the question “How are you?” How do you say in a five-minute chat that at times you’ve been “completely exhausted, shit scared and want nothing more than to be back home”?

  Despite the awkwardness, it had been great to hear from David, and with conditions not bad, we jumped into the pits and began paddling. Midway through the day we were greeted by a spectacular aerial show by a pod of dolphins. Darting round the kayak through the translucent water, they looked like supercharged mini-mini-subs. Every now and then, they’d launch themselves up to 2 metres in the air – you could tell they were having a blast. As with humans, the energy was infectious and we found ourselves having (almost) as much fun as they were.

  I spent the afternoon listening to my favourite podcasts, Dr Karl on Triple J and Richard Fidler from ABC radio in Sydney and Brisbane. With Dr Karl answering questions like “Why are sunsets red?” and “Why are you warmer in a sleeping bag if you’re naked?”, and Richard having a fantastic ability to build a rapport with his guests that lets them feel comfortable telling their life stories, we were entertained for hours. It helped keep our minds off our growling stomachs – we’d been on half rations for over a week now. All in all, it was a good day – gaining 35 kilometres into a slight headwind.