by Julie Angus
And things have not improved since the release of that report. On the contrary, 2005 was the most devastating year for Caribbean coral since record-keeping began. In 2008, the IUCN published another weighty report, Status of Caribbean Coral Reefs after Bleaching and Hurricanes in 2005, to mark the start of the International Year of the Reef. The year we crossed the ocean, intense hurricanes and record high ocean temperatures devastated huge amounts of Caribbean reefs, killing more than half the corals and severely bleaching between 50 and 95 per cent of colonies in the worst-hit areas. Waves from the storms battered the corals, the storm surges caused flooding, and the associated runoff took pollutants to the coral colonies. The high ocean temperatures that caused extensive bleaching also led to outbreaks of infectious diseases among the coral, such as white plague.
It would have been fascinating to explore the beauty of coral reefs from a diver’s perspective. But in a wooden boat, we wanted to stay as far away from them as possible. The marine charts for the Caribbean that we had obtained in St. Lucia helped us plot our route. We planned to head almost directly west, staying several hundred kilometres north of South America. When we cleared the most northern point in South America, the Guajira Peninsula off Colombia, we would angle southwest towards Costa Rica.
Keeping our distance from land was important not only for avoiding the coral reefs. We also wanted to avoid the risk of piracy. The waters near Venezuela and Colombia have a reputation for being less than safe. Travel advisories recommend avoiding all off-the-beaten-track areas of Colombia because of drug trafficking, kidnapping, and guerrilla insurgencies. In St. Lucia, we had heard several stories of yachters who had been pillaged in these waters.
After only a few hours of rowing, land faded from view, and we were again surrounded by endless blue. Our time on St. Lucia seemed to have been a very vivid dream, and now we were back to reality. But readjusting to life on the rowboat after a twelve-day hiatus was not completely seamless. Although we found it much easier psychologically than leaving Lisbon, slight seasickness returned, and our lives were again tainted with lethargy, nausea, and headaches.
“LOOK AT ALL this trash,” I said in disgust.
Toys, shoes, bags, and reams of unidentifiable plastic floated on the water in a line three metres wide and many kilometres long. I couldn’t see the end of it. We had noticed trash throughout our journey, and I had been surprised and disappointed to see plastic bottles and other debris floating in an otherwise pristine environment. Eventually I became used to seeing flotsam on a regular basis. However, the density of trash had markedly increased since we entered the Caribbean Sea, and nothing prepared me for this. Just within our line of sight there seemed to be enough trash to account for a small city.
Colin glanced at the mess. “It looks like the edge of a giant eddy. That’s why the trash has collected in such a straight line.”
Sadly, this was just a miniature version of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s largest garbage site located in a remote area in the Pacific Ocean. There, garbage weighing an estimated three million tonnes covers an area as large as British Columbia and the Yukon Territories combined. Currents slowly swirl clockwise, drawing garbage in and keeping it there. The same thing was happening here; currents had captured garbage from across the Caribbean.
The Caribbean Sea also suffers from less visible trash. Ninety per cent of sewage dumped into the sea by surrounding countries and ships is untreated. Each year, fifty thousand ships travel these waters, making it one of the busiest waterways in the world. Cruise ships bring many of the region’s 14.5 million annual tourists, but resources to monitor and handle waste disposal are limited, and the industry has a poor record of compliance. A significant amount of tanker traffic also travels the Caribbean, and oil spills are a regular problem.
In the water, amidst the trash, I could see Ted and Fred swimming underneath my oars. They had followed us from Rodney Bay Marina, and a few other fish had since joined them. Although Ted and Fred now swam six thousand kilometres away from where they had originally joined our boat, they seemed to be doing just fine. I wondered at their ability to survive in waters so markedly different from their natural habitat. Not only were these waters more polluted, they were warmer and undoubtedly had different predators and food sources.
TWELVE DAYS AFTER leaving St. Lucia, we had rowed 1,100 kilometres and were about to enter an area prone to high winds. Our pilot charts indicated that this anomalous region, 200 kilometres northwest of the Guajira Peninsula, had wind speeds significantly higher than those in surrounding areas and waves two and a half metres or higher more than 40 per cent of the time.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and have pleasant conditions that appear the other 60 per cent of the time,” I said, as Colin and I studied the pilot charts.
Colin gave me a dubious look. “If there’s a chance of bad weather, we’re going to get it.”
“What happened to Mr. Optimistic?” I chided.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to deal with it even better than before. Our boat is more seaworthy than it’s ever been,” Colin said.
He glanced up at the inflated plastic fender we had strapped to our roll bar. It would give us extra buoyancy, further assisting the boat’s self-righting capabilities. We had also filled all our empty fuel jugs with water to increase our ballast and give us extra stability.
We had passed Venezuela. Colombia lay to our south, its northeastern tip jutting out to funnel and condense the currents flowing along the South American coastline. This three-knot flow was the fastest we had yet experienced, and we made forward progress at incredible speeds exceeding five knots.
I prayed the good conditions would remain. We were approaching Costa Rica faster than anticipated; if the conditions stayed constant, we’d successfully complete our row in another ten days.
APPARENTLY, ENDING OUR journey smoothly was too much to ask for. The storm started on Valentine’s Day, a mere eight hundred kilometres away from Limón, Costa Rica. We cancelled our romantic dinner of spaghetti and wine and replaced it with ramen noodles softened in cold water. The weather escalated quickly, with waves quadrupling in size within just a few hours and winds whipping up to more than gale-force speeds. The water frothed too much for us to see Fred, Ted, and the others, but I hoped they would stick with us.
When darkness fell, we discovered the danger of staying on deck. The overcast sky blocked the light from the moon and stars, and we could no longer see the waves that reared up to hit us. Only their mighty roar prepared us for their onslaught. The whole ocean seemed to be grumbling; every moment, we dreaded a potential capsize.
We sought safety inside the cabin, sandwiching ourselves between its padded walls. We lay head to foot, and Colin’s toes poked me in the face. I leaned against the heavy life raft canister to pin it into place; two cords securing it had snapped, and now it threatened to careen free with every breaking wave. Colin’s face pressed against the hatch; on occasion he briefly opened it, and air rushed into the hot, oxygen-deprived cabin. Water dripped from the roof every time a wave hit us, and earlier that day a wave had caught us with our hatch open, drenching everything inside. The interior was wet beyond damp, and the unpleasant, musky odour of mildew, sour milk, and mouldy clothing filled the air.
Our efforts to keep the boat shipshape were failing, and the armies of chaos reigned. We couldn’t dry our wet bedding and clothing, so our clothes were rotting. We continually spilled food, and crumbs worked their way into crevices and corners. The disorder continued outside the cabin. All our cooking utensils had been swept into the bilge, along with a flying fish that had mistimed its leap and now rotted amid a malodorous slime. Much to our dismay, salt water found its way into our drinking water container, and conditions were too rough to run the desalinator. The alcohol fuel for our stove had also been diluted by salt water that had seeped through its wick, and it would no longer ignite.
Although rowing was out of the question, we found a way to h
arness some of Mother Nature’s relentless energy. Left on its own, our boat turned sideways to the waves and resisted the forward forces. But by constantly controlling the rudder, we could point the bow downwind. In this way, the boat would quickly accelerate with all the ocean’s forces behind it. We took turns sitting in the cockpit and steering the boat with the rudder lines while we moved forward averaging 1.5 knots.
We are surviving the storm, I wrote in my journal. It feels like a traffic accident repeated over and over. The waves are monsters and they break far too often. The worst is when they break against us or on top of the boat—Ondine careens on the foam and white spray shoots up the sides of the boat and behind it in a formation Colin calls “rooster tails.” We momentarily lose steering control and the boat surfs down the wave. From inside, it is far less frightening and I can almost pretend that I am someplace else—but outside, that luxury doesn’t exist.
On one breaking wave, we clocked our fastest speed ever as our seven-metre rowboat turned into a giant surfboard. Double rooster tails sprayed up from the sides, and our GPS clocked almost thirteen knots, or about twenty-two kilometres an hour.
After three days the storm began to subside and the swells decreased in power. Dean informed us that the gale was still blowing, but since it was stationary, we had moved through to the other side and into calmer waters. During the storm, I hadn’t seen Fred and Ted; I was thrilled to spot them in the water again, wagging their little tails. The boat was a stinking mess, and I felt like a survivor emerging from a disaster zone. But Costa Rica, now only five hundred kilometres away, was becoming a very tangible destination.
EACH TIME ANOTHER storm enveloped us, it reminded me just how fragile and ill-equipped humans are to handle many of nature’s challenges. The sea is one of the last wild places untamed by humans, a humbling thought in itself. The arrogance and confidence I once felt—knowing I’m at the top of the food chain, living largely unaffected by the negative forces of weather, starvation, disease, and the multitude of other dangers that animals face—quickly dissipated on this journey. Being in a small boat on a turbid ocean reminds us that the human being is just another mammal that evolved with certain strengths, along with many weaknesses. We don’t have a sixth sense like the shark, nor can we see in the dark like the dolphin. We don’t have the turtle’s hard shell to protect our bodies from danger or the speed to outpace an approaching storm.
Our success as a species is mainly due to a single evolutionary advantage: a hefty brain that has allowed us to flourish despite our many shortcomings and to dominate in a way no other animal has. But just because we can outcompete other species and convert our environment to best suit our needs does not mean we have the right to do so, or that it is in our best long-term interest.
Indeed, our greatest advantage could also be our ultimate downfall for more reasons than just the damage inflicted on our environment. Our brains have separated us from the natural world and changed priorities that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution equipped us for. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” to describe the behavioural problems of children who spend little time outdoors. He proposes nature as a therapy for depression, obesity, and Attention Deficit Disorder, and environment-based learning for developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
Without a doubt, there is something satisfying about being immersed in nature, about relying on long-forgotten skills dusty from disuse, and about stripping away many of the distractions that clutter our lives. Nature has the power to change our perspective, to make us reassess what is important.
Five months at sea certainly did that for me. It made me feel connected to the rhythms of the natural world. It made me realize that my existence is inextricably intertwined with the lives of other creatures and that our needs are often not dissimilar.
“YOU CANNOT LAND in Costa Rica,” the voice boomed through the satellite phone. “It is against the law.”
“We can’t go anywhere else,” I pleaded. “We are in a rowboat and can’t paddle back against the winds.”
My words fell on deaf ears. Our third phone call to the Canadian Embassy in Costa Rica had us no closer to being allowed to land than our first two calls. Colin’s passport had expired a few days before. When we left Portugal, we had assumed our crossing would take less than four months, and that Colin’s passport would still be valid when we reached our destination. At that time we had also been aiming for Miami, and Canadians did not require passports for entry into the United States.
But things had changed, and it looked like Colin’s expired passport might prevent us from completing our Atlantic row. We had contacted the Costa Rican Canadian Embassy, who, in turn, had consulted the Costa Rican immigration authorities on our behalf. Unfortunately, Costa Rica is a very bureaucratic nation; they make few exceptions to their rules. They informed the Canadian Embassy that if Colin arrived without a valid passport, he would be jailed and deported. We tried to explain that we’d come to Costa Rica only because we were blown off course by two hurricanes and two tropical storms, but they remained firm: “You need to get a valid passport before you arrive in our country.”
I hung up the phone, dejected.
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “We’re less than two hundred kilometres away from Limón—we’re going to be there in three or four days whether they like it or not.”
“Well, they can’t exactly turn us away,” Colin said. “Unless they donate a big outboard motor. We’ll be rowing on the spot as we try going back against these winds. But I guess they could confiscate the boat and deport us.”
“What do you mean, us?” I said in mock outrage. “I have a valid passport and the boat is in my name.”
“Will you wait for me?” Colin said, fluttering his eyelashes in a pitiful mockery of feminine persuasion. After that failed to elicit a response, he shrugged his shoulders. “Besides, there’s nothing I could have done—I’ve been on an expedition for the last two years.”
“I know, and I’m not blaming you. I just wish we could find someone with the power to help us.”
SOMETIMES WISHES DO come true. The Discovery Channel wanted to film our arrival for their television show Daily Planet, and they had been in touch with port authorities and the Canadian Embassy to make arrangements. Word soon spread. The government must have decided that shipping Colin off in handcuffs as he reached land was not the image it wanted to broadcast. Instead, Colin would be issued an emergency passport just before he stepped ashore. The Canadian Embassy kindly agreed to assist and promised to send two representatives from the country’s capital, San José, to Limón to meet us as we arrived.
With that problem almost resolved, we had just two hundred more kilometres to row. I studied the marine charts while Colin rowed. Although we didn’t need to worry about reefs here, our approach would be hampered by strong currents parallelling the land. To combat these southward flows, we decided to voyage northwards of Limón. It was like swimming across a river in which you need to aim upstream of your final destination.
As we closed in on Costa Rica, the skies turned dark and brooding, and an unmarked current began flowing against us. Our speed continued to decrease, and torrential rains began to fall.
“I’m not even doing half a knot,” Colin yelled.
I peered through the hatch, out to a gloomy, rainy world. On my shift I had averaged only half a knot, but conditions had since worsened, and Colin was now rowing frantically.
“The winds are against us, too; I don’t think we’ll be able to make progress much longer going solo,” Colin said. “We need to row together.”
I joined Colin at the oars and our speed increased to almost one knot. We rowed five nautical miles in five hours. We still had more than fifty nautical miles to Limón.
“I don’t know if we can make it,” Colin said, echoing my thoughts. “If these currents don’t change, we’ll die of exhaustion before reaching land.”
We were exhausted, and it showed in our eroding pace. We were so close to finishing our journey, but it wouldn’t be over until we powered through these countercurrents. At this rate, it would take fifty hours of non-stop tandem rowing to reach shore. I felt like a starving person who could see a plate of food just beyond my reach.
For the next forty-eight hours we rowed non-stop. During the day we rowed in tandem, and at night we took turns, so that each of us could catch a bit of sleep. When we rowed alone, we barely held our ground; only when we rowed in tandem did we move forward. We were miserable. No words were spoken, except for those of sheer necessity.
When a waterspout erupted in the distance, I called Colin out of the cabin. “We’ll be fine as long as it doesn’t hit us,” he said flatly.
A waterspout is a spiralling vortex of water that connects the ocean to a dark blanket of cumuliform clouds. These tornados on the sea suck water and, occasionally, fish and boats, upward at wind speeds of 100 to 360 kilometres per hour. They sometimes take fish up into the clouds, and winds carry the fish until eventually, they fall out of the sky. The United States, Mexico, India, Brazil, and England have documented cases of raining fish (and frogs). Waterspouts can be extremely hazardous to boats, and some say they are responsible for many of the mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. We desperately wanted to avoid the waterspout, but as always, our slow movement put us at the mercy of the weather. I continued rowing at a right angle to the swirling vortex and anxiously watched it in the distance until it dissipated several kilometres from our boat.
ON THE OCEAN, the air is largely odourless (we had become desensitized to our own stench), making the slightest change noticeable, and now we noticed something new. A deep, rich smell like freshly overturned earth filled our nostrils and reached the most primal part of our brains. We later learned that heavy rains had just caused massive landslides in Costa Rica. Whether this was what we smelled or not, the powerful, singular scent filled me with longing for terra firma. I wanted to kneel on the earth, to dig my hands into it and bring fistfuls to my face so that I could inhale its distinct aroma. I was ready to return to the world that evolution had equipped me for.
