by Roz Savage
According to their philosophy, we have to look after the Earth if we want it to look after us. If we lose touch with our spirituality and forget that we are dependent on the planet for our survival, things are not going to go well. The people who will survive are those who know where to find their own food and water.
When I read this, it hit me between the eyes with all the force of a fundamental truth. On a finite Earth, it stood to reason that we can’t continue to pull out all the good stuff—oil, coal, and minerals—and turn it into junk that we then throw into landfills. One day we would surely run out, of both the good stuff and the places to dump the debris when we’ve finished. This pattern of behaviour was clearly not sustainable.
Now that I was seeing the world holistically for the first time, I was horrified by how oblivious I had been. I’d never even considered these questions before, so preoccupied had I been with the pursuit of possessions. I’d never stopped to think about my home in the broader sense—the planet on which we live and the other inhabitants with whom we have to share it. What terrible damage had I already inflicted in my thoughtlessness, heedless of the consequences of my self-centred actions?
Not only had I been ignorant, but most of my peers also seemed to be completely unaware of our headlong rush towards self-destruction. I felt a powerful need to bring this to people’s attention as a matter of the utmost urgency. With every passing year we were trashing the Earth still further.
I’d been looking for a life purpose, and I had found it. I was full of bumptious enthusiasm, overflowing with the zeal of the convert, and eager to do all I could to save the world. I had become a woman with a mission—but why would anybody listen to me? I was just a recovering management consultant. I needed a platform, a pulpit from which I could proclaim my message.
ABOUT FOUR MONTHS LATER, THE IDEA to row across oceans hit me in a blinding flash of inspiration, and I knew that I had found the perfect métier for my message. It would be unusual enough to catch people’s eye and to provide fodder for public presentations, media interviews, films, and books, allowing me to spread the awareness. My voyages themselves would be environmentally low-impact, the boat powered only by my body, the electronics by solar panels.
It was an outrageously audacious plan, my relevant experience consisting of several years rowing on the River Thames, usually in a crew of eight. But when I started to wonder, What if I’m actually going to do this? and began to compile a grand to-do list of all the things I would need to read, learn, finance, buy, and otherwise do to prepare for an ocean row, it started to seem frighteningly achievable. I had broken the list down into such small steps that there was nothing on it that was too far outside my existing abilities. It felt as if everything that had happened so far in my life had been leading me to this point, preparing me for this task, and that I was uniquely equipped to pursue this quest. It was a perfect collision of personality, past experience, purpose, and timing.
So, with little going for me other than unstoppable eagerness, a sense of total commitment, and a stubborn refusal to give up on what felt like a divinely ordained scheme, I cast myself upon the waters of the world’s oceans.
IN THE 8 YEARS AND 15,000 MILES that have now passed since I first dipped my oars in the turbulent waters of my first ocean, I have spent more than 500 days alone at sea, as I crossed the Atlantic (2005, described in my book Rowing the Atlantic), Pacific (2007—2010), and Indian (2011) Oceans. And yet I don’t think I will ever feel truly at home on the ocean. It will always test me. I love it, fear it, hate it, respect it, resent it, cherish it, and frequently curse it. It brings out the best in me—and sometimes the worst.
Despite my uneasy relationship with the wet parts of our planet, I cannot think of any other activity that would have met my objectives so perfectly as ocean rowing. Besides my environmental mission, I wanted to find out who I am, what I’m capable of, and what life is all about. It was my quest for happiness that first got me out of the office and onto the water, and although happiness is an emotion in scarce supply while I’m at sea—my feelings usually ranging from resigned acceptance of my self-imposed travails, through low-grade stress, to moments of sheer terror—the resilience and life skills that the ocean has engendered in me have enhanced my existence on land beyond all measure. To embrace a cause, to feel passionate about what I do, to believe I am making a difference and leaving a legacy, to be part of a mission so much bigger than one small woman sitting in a rowboat—all these things have brought me enormous fulfillment. Truly, the sense of achievement is proportionate to the scale of the attempt, so to take on a challenge the size of the world and to patiently chip away at it, one oar stroke at a time, has been a tremendously rewarding experience.
The ocean has been a harsh but effective teacher. She has taught me the value of simplicity—without all the distracting noise of life on land, I’ve found myself clear and focused on the things that really matter. She has reminded me that we humans are not separate from the environment, but are completely interconnected with it, and any notions we may have that we’re above or beyond nature are dangerous delusions. And she has shown me how an ordinary human being can achieve the extraordinary, by presenting me with challenge after challenge, pushing me to what I thought were my limits, only for me to find out that when I have no choice, I can go beyond those boundaries and achieve more than I would ever have dreamed possible.
I hope that the story of my Pacific voyages will leave you feeling inspired and invigorated, eager to face the future with courage and positivity. I wish you enjoyment of this book, and of the rest of your glorious, unique, important journey. You have one life. Live it.
Roz Savage
London, England
June 2013
CHAPTER ONE
FACING AND EMBRACING FAILURE
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— WINSTON CHURCHILL
The ordeal began on 21 August 2007. My boat capsized twice that night. The first time, the Brocade rolled right over until she was upside down in the water. I landed sprawled across the cabin roof, while all around me in the darkness I could hear belongings escaping from their straps and sliding around the curved walls like clothes being tumbled in a dryer. The tiny sleeping cabin was only about three feet high, so I hadn’t fallen far from floor to ceiling, but the shock of the capsize and collisions with solid objects battered me emotionally and physically.
For several seconds the Brocade remained inverted. I held my breath, willing her to turn the right way up again. She was designed to self-right, the air trapped in the two cabins fore and aft making her unstable in the upside-down position. Having already crossed the Atlantic in this same boat, I had faith that she would turn, but she was taking her sweet time about it. At last she slowly started to roll back to an upright position, and my belongings and I returned to the floor in a jumbled mess.
I pushed aside the bags of food, clothes, electronics, and instruction manuals, and wriggled reluctantly out of my warm sleeping bag to check the status on the darkened deck. As I opened the hatch, I was hit by a cruel blast of wind and cold, salty, sea spray. I clipped a neoprene waist strap around my middle and secured its carabiner onto a D-ring bolted firmly to the boat so that if another destructive wave came along, I wouldn’t be swept away.
Things didn’t look too bad out here, considering that the boat had just rolled a full 360 degrees. Spending 103 days at sea on the stormy Atlantic had trained me to keep everything securely attached to the vessel or else expect to lose it overboard. I quickly unfastened the cockpit bags from their fixings and threw them into a locker in case a second capsize might prove too much for them, and hastily slammed the hatch cover back in place. A wave crashed over the side of the boat, drenching me in cold seawater. I swore.
Soaked, I returned to the cabin and, turning on the light, restored some order. Once everything was as shipshape as possible under the circumstances, I wriggled back
into my sleeping bag and tried to get warm again. The bag was designed specifically for ocean usage, comprising two inner bags of thick, woolly fleece inside a waterproof outer shell. It retained the last vestiges of my body heat, but it took a long while before the fleece wicked away the dampness from my skin and my hands and feet lost their chill. I strapped myself to the bunk using two seat belts secured to the cabin floor, fastening them across my chest and thighs so that I would not end up on the ceiling if the boat should flip again.
I didn’t feel particularly afraid as I lay there in the darkened cabin, despite the violent pitching and rolling. For the first two weeks of my maiden voyage, nearly two years previously, I had been petrified. The carbon-fibre hull had amplified the noise of the Atlantic waves so that they sounded terrifyingly huge. I had lain awake night after night, quaking in my cabin, convinced that the boat was going to be smashed in two, or at the very least have her rudder torn off. I’d listen to the pounding and thumping of the waves, berating myself for having taken on such a foolhardy challenge and wondering if I would even live to see the morning, let alone the other side of the ocean.
But after enduring two weeks of terror on that voyage, I eventually grew tired of being scared. My boat had withstood the tempestuous conditions thus far, and so I reasoned—fallaciously, but it cheered me to believe it—that she would continue to hold together. I, too, had withstood a fortnight at the mercy of the ocean, so maybe I would continue to hold together as well. I quickly adapted to my new circumstances, and the fear ebbed away. Now, on the Pacific, I quickly tapped back into the strange serenity that comes from being able to greet fear as an old friend.
Two hours later, the second capsize came. As my body weight met the resistance of the restraints, the belts held for only a moment before they ripped their bolts out of the cabin floor and once again I found myself on the ceiling. I waited for a long moment before gravity asserted itself and the Brocade laboriously rolled right side up.
This time when I crawled out on deck, the beam of my head torch picked out the bundled-up sea anchor escaping from its ties. Ah, the sea anchor—that will help. I got the nylon fabric back under control, and deployed the anchor—a 12-foot parachute on a 250-foot rope—over the side of the boat and beneath the waves. As the red-and-yellow dome filled with water, its rope pulled on a ring on the bow of the boat, pulling the bow around until it pointed into the wind and waves. Now, instead of sideswiping the Brocade, the waves pushed past her sides so that she pitched forward and back rather than rolling side to side. This should reduce the risk of capsize.
Satisfied that I had done all I could to ensure my safety, I returned to my bunk. It was the least dangerous place to be. At least I couldn’t be swept overboard while I was inside the enclosed capsule of my cabin. Although I felt relatively safe, the hectic pitching of the boat and the crashing of the waves made for a poor night’s rest, and I slept little, alternating between disturbed dreams and unhappy wakefulness.
The next day was rough, but nothing worse than I had seen on the Atlantic. I spent most of the day in the cabin, trying to stay as warm and dry as I could while the waves raged around the Brocade. Both hatches, fore and aft, had leaked slightly while they were submerged, so everything was damp, making it difficult to stay warm. The only times I emerged from my cocoon were to answer the call of nature, cursing the necessity and wishing that I were a man and able to relieve myself into a convenient vessel without having to go outdoors. The traditional sailors’ description for the most basic of sanitary facilities is “bucket and chuck it,” but in fact I use a bedpan, finding it less precarious than trying to hover over a bucket. As I squatted, however, the waves drenched me, so despite my best efforts I invariably brought a trail of saltwater back inside.
Between trips to the deck I hunkered indoors, gazing out of the round hatch and watching the waves foaming and frothing against the clear Perspex. It was mesmerising, like watching the laundry inside a front-loading washing machine, except that I was inside the machine and the foaming water was on the outside.
I had little choice but to bide my time. I knew that the storm would pass—eventually—and that in the meantime, I just had to stay safe and sane. I imagined how my boat must look from the outside, a seemingly fragile little silver craft being buffeted this way and that, pounded by the foaming waves, a tiny speck on an angry sea. When I’d seen her being hoisted out of the water at the end of the Atlantic crossing, I had cried with emotion. She had looked so small. She was a big boat to row, but a tiny boat in which to cross an ocean.
At intervals throughout the day, I spoke via satellite phone to my weatherman, Rick, in Hawai’i, an experienced yachtsman and former U.S. Navy meteorologist and oceanographer. He had been recommended to me by one of the world’s foremost forecasters, Stan Honey. I had not yet met Rick in person, our communication having been conducted by telephone and e-mail only. Now Rick told me that at least another 60 hours of rough conditions were forecast, with gale-force winds and seas of 8 to 11 feet. That may not sound like much, but to a 23-foot boat, an 11-foot wave is plenty big enough. Another 60 hours of this sounded like a long time, but I was determined that I could tough it out.
The second night of the gale arrived. Around 10 P.M., a powerful wave rear-ended the Brocade. I shot down my bunk, my sleeping bag tobogganing over the slippery vinyl of the mattress. I came to an abrupt halt when my skull collided with the wall at the end of the cabin.
Ouch.
I sat up, and felt blood trickling across my scalp. I explored the damage with my fingers. It didn’t seem too bad. I dabbed the blood away with a flannel and lay back down on the bunk to try and sleep, but every time I heard another big wave coming, my arms automatically shot out to brace myself against the cabin walls so that I wouldn’t be flung across the cabin. Sleep was impossible.
A little later the boat capsized again, the third time in 24 hours. My head cracked against the cabin ceiling, and again I felt the trickle of blood.
Something was amiss. Since I’d put the sea anchor out, the Brocade should be pointing into the waves and therefore be much more stable, the waves running along the sides of the boat rather than catching her beam-on. Unappealing though the prospect was, I knew I’d better go outside to investigate. I pulled on a waterproof jacket and a head torch, mustered my courage, and exited the cabin to the watery cauldron of the deck. The boat rocked violently from side to side, and I crouched low and hung on firmly to the guardrails as I staggered to the front of the boat, the beam of the head torch casting a circle of cold, white light onto the seething surf.
Sitting backwards on the rowing seat, I pulled on the main line to the sea anchor. There was a suspicious lack of resistance as I drew it in. After a couple of seconds, I reached the rope’s frayed end. It had broken just six feet from the point where it attached to the boat. I turned my attention to the trip line, a second line to the sea anchor that assists in retrieval by collapsing the chute, dumping the water out of it and making it easier to draw it back in. But that, too, came to a premature end, at the first of its two flotation buoys. My sea anchor had escaped its lines and gone to a watery grave.
This was bad news. Now I had no defence against further capsizes. I deployed a pair of drogues, mini versions of the sea anchor, but they were too small to make any difference. There wasn’t anything I could do other than retreat to the safety of the cabin, where I lay in my bunk, feeling vulnerable and alone. I was in an increasingly unseaworthy boat, about 80 miles from shore on a dark, dangerous ocean, with another two and a half days of storms and high seas ahead of me. This was not the ideal start to my voyage.
I HAD SET OUT NINE DAYS EARLIER, on a foggy but bright Sunday morning, from the small town of Crescent City in Northern California. Aiming to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean, I had hoped to launch my 8,000-mile quest from the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. But on that part of the California coast, the prevailing winds blow onshore, and although I waited
for many weeks for a letup in the strong sea breezes, Rick could find no window of opportunity long enough for me to make a clean getaway from the coast. If I left it too late in the year to depart, I faced the risk of running into winter gales in the latter stages of my journey as I neared Hawai’i. Eventually, Rick suggested that I could leave from the Golden Gate Bridge, or I could leave in 2007, but I couldn’t do both. He advised me to head north to the calmer conditions near the border between California and Oregon.
So I had hitched the boat trailer to the tow bar of my little yellow pickup truck and driven eight hours north to Crescent City. With me was my title sponsor’s public-relations agent, Nicole Bilodeau. A lively brunette in her late 20s, Nicole had been working closely with me during the media blitz in the run-up to my row as she supervised photo shoots, arranged interviews, and wrote press releases, and we had become good friends. When I stated my intention to head north to Crescent City, Nicole offered to come along to see me off, on her own time and at her own expense, and then drive my truck and empty boat trailer back to San Francisco afterwards. I had gratefully accepted.
My boat was named after my title sponsors, Brocade, a Silicon Valley company specializing in data and storage networking products. I had met their CEO at the time, Mike Klayko, when I was exhibiting my boat (formerly known as Sedna, named after the Inuit goddess of the ocean) at a special one-day event for schools at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. Mike had listened with interest to my story and invited me to submit a sponsorship proposal, which I did with alacrity. This kind of request does not come along every day in the world of adventure sponsorship. Within days we had a deal, and I can honestly say that Brocade were an absolute pleasure to work with.
Nicole and I arrived in Crescent City a couple of days before my projected launch date and checked into the Light House Inn. A life-size fibreglass Blues Brother greeted us in the entrance, and other kitschy items adorned the reception area. As we explored the town that evening, we saw a plaque on the wall of the harbour master’s office showing the 20-foot maximum height of the tsunami that had devastated the town in 1964—a reminder, as if I needed one, of the phenomenal power of the ocean.
