by Roz Savage
At last I met Joel, who for so many days now had been just a voice on the other end of a satphone line. He was an unusual-looking young man—tall and thin with a shaved head and a bristling set of muttonchop whiskers. The two men were a real contrast: Marcus dark-haired and muscular, with a bearing that revealed his military past, while Joel had a gangling build and the easygoing air and relaxed drawl of a surfer. I found out later that he lived on a boat in Hawai’i, which seemed entirely appropriate. They were an unlikely pairing but seemed to get on well together, which was all the more remarkable given the trials and tribulations they had been through. For many ocean-rowing pairs, the pressures of a voyage had proved too much for the friendship to survive, so it was a relief to find that the atmosphere on board the Junk was amiable.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: WHILE THE BROCADE was alongside, Joel went across to pick up the bags of food that I had set aside for them in my sleeping cabin. Much later, he told me that after the less-than-fragrant conditions in their own sleeping quarters (“the Junk’s got funk” had become one of their catchphrases), he was quite smitten by the smell in my cabin. “It smelled of girl,” he later reported to Marcus. It was probably the tea-tree oil that I use to try and prevent saltwater sores on my backside that he could smell, but I was nonetheless pleased to think that I had retained some degree of feminine fragrance during my time at sea.
After Joel had passed the bags of food over to the Junk, the men returned the favour by giving me a container full of water and transferring yet more into my empty Dromedary bags. Some of the water had a hint of green in it, probably some kind of algae, but I wasn’t in a position to be fussy. They also very generously gave me their spare manual watermaker in case I had to make more. I still have it on my boat now, although fortunately I’ve never needed to use it.
Transfer complete, we allowed my boat to drift a short distance away so that she wouldn’t chafe against the Junk. The Brocade bobbed around about ten yards away at the end of her line. It was strange to see her from the outside—for the last three months she had been my entire world. She was weathering well, and I felt quietly proud of her as she waited there patiently for me.
Joel put on a mask and snorkel and, armed with a harpoon gun, hopped overboard to catch our supper. While his crewmate was fishing, Marcus showed me around the boat. It didn’t take long. The small cabin of the Cessna aircraft was messy, with bedding lying in untidy heaps and various instruments and gadgets littering the shelf beneath the cockpit windscreen or fixed to the ceiling above it. Marcus invited me to sign the outside of the cabin, and I added my signature to the many names of well-wishers already written there.
I felt a bit clumsy on board this vessel, so different from my own. The masts that formed the deck were laid in a loose grid with large gaps through which I could see the water beneath. A few garments were tied to the underside of the grid, streaming out in the current. “The laundry,” Marcus explained.
Turning to the back of the boat, where a large tiller mechanism took up most of its width, Marcus pulled up an open-mouthed mesh net, a homemade trawl to gather samples from the ocean each day. He showed me the results. Tiny pieces of plastic, still recognizable, dotted the mesh. On a typical day they were finding more plastic than organic matter, by a ratio of around six to one. Plankton, the basis of the entire ocean food chain, was far outweighed by plastic fragments, even many hundreds of miles from land. And, Marcus explained, it was going to get worse. We were a long way from the epicentre of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where the ratio of plastic to plankton could exceed 40 to 1.
It was sobering to see with my own eyes the evidence that humankind has profoundly impacted the oceans. Plastic never truly biodegrades, as far as we know. It just hasn’t been around long enough for us to know for sure how many years, decades, or centuries it might take for it to disappear—if indeed it ever does. Plastic has only been in mass production for around 50 years, yet in that time we have deposited many millions of tons of it into landfills and oceans, largely in the form of “disposable” items such as bags, bottles, cigarette lighters, and toothbrushes. It is surely insane to make throwaway items out of an indestructible material—and a toxic one at that. On a finite planet, what goes around comes around, so to continue pumping vast quantities of poisonous substances into our environment is obviously a catastrophically bad idea.
BY NOW JOEL HAD SCRAMBLED BACK on board, proudly bearing a magnificent big mahi mahi as the fruit of his underwater hunting mission. Apparently he had been trying to catch one for the previous few days to ensure that he could keep his promise of a fresh fish supper, but to no avail. So I felt especially grateful that this mission had been successful.
As Marcus expertly gutted and filleted the fish, he told me about another mahi mahi that they had caught a couple of weeks previously. When they opened it up, they found numerous pieces of plastic in its stomach. Being scientists, they knew this was bad news. Most plastic is not an inert substance. It leaches out toxic chemicals and hormone disruptors into its surroundings, especially when mixed with a creature’s digestive juices. Given the amount of plastic in its guts, this fish would not be safe to eat; and after photographing the evidence, they threw the dead fish back into the ocean. That fish has now become a poster child for the plastic pollution issue.
Seeing me look rather downcast at all this bad news, Marcus suggested we shoot some lighthearted video and photos to document our encounter. We recorded some jokey footage for their blog and gurned horribly at the camera for some still photos. I think the idea was to look vaguely piratical, but actually we just looked like we’re suffering severe facial spasms.
After that it was on to the social part of the evening. It was surely one of the world’s more surreal dinner parties, given that we were on a boat made out of empty water bottles floating around in the Pacific several hundred miles east of Hawai’i. We could have done with some cold beers, but they had long since run out, and the dinner guest had turned up shamefully empty-handed. As I sat and enjoyed the luxury of being waited on, Marcus and Joel opened up their cooking range, a large metal box at the side of the Cessna, containing a stove, pots and pans, and a selection of spices.
After cutting some of the fish for us to eat sushi style, Joel fried several batches of the flesh, varying the mix of spices for each course. The meat from near the tail was especially delicious—dark and intensely tasty. The butter was a little rancid, but I wasn’t complaining. This was by far the best restaurant in town.
After the first three batches, the boys leaned back and asked if I’d had enough. I hadn’t, quite. I had another two generous helpings. I’d like to claim it was my body craving protein, but more likely I was just being greedy. It was the first fresh fish I’d had in months, and I was going to make the most of the opportunity.
(As an aside, I now eat fish infrequently, and many of my friends don’t eat it at all, in deference to collapsing fish populations around the world. My plea of mitigation is that this was a very special occasion, and I can guarantee that there was absolutely no by-catch.)
Conversation revolved around the environment—the garbage patch, which Marcus knew well, having made three previous trips there with Algalita—and our respective plans for Hawai’i. We pledged to combine forces once we got there, recognizing that circumstances had offered us the perfect opportunity to collaborate, and hopefully achieve more together than we could do separately.
Just before sunset, I returned to the Brocade. After the incessant creaking of 15,000 empty water bottles chafing against each other, my boat seemed blissfully peaceful. She also felt a lot more solid and seaworthy than their crazy craft. I had enjoyed the interlude of sociability, but I felt happy and secure to be back aboard my own boat, especially now that the end of the voyage was in sight and I had a generous supply of water. But I don’t mean to seem ungrateful. The Hunks had been wonderful hosts, and I went back to my oars with a full belly and rowed off into the sunset with a smile on my face.
> I switched over to green-tinted Junk water on 18 August and arrived in Hawai’i on 1 September. It would have been a very miserable last few weeks if I’d had to ration my existing water supplies to stretch to the end of the journey.
Marcus discovered the hard way that it’s not a good idea to eat three bags of jerky in an hour when your digestive system has got used to nothing but peanut butter and granola. I will leave you to read his book if you want to know the full details. The state of Marcus’s digestive system is beyond the scope of my story.
I FELT INCREDIBLY LUCKY TO HAVE CROSSED PATHS with the Junk, but at the same time I acknowledged the role that I had played in creating my own luck. Had I not committed to my blogging duties in order to share my inspiration, adventure, and environmental message, I would never have been made aware of the proximity of the Junk raft.
Having read The Celestine Prophecy during the formative years of my mid-life transformation, I was fascinated for a while with the idea of there being no such thing as coincidence. Could we really manipulate our experience of the world through operating on the energetic level, attracting into our lives the things that we need? It was a fascinating idea, but in my experience, the best way to get what we want is to be clear about what we’re looking for so that we recognize it when we see it, and then to work ceaselessly to create opportunities. Serendipity does play a role, but I’ve found that the harder I work and the more people I connect with, the more the universe provides. While everything may come to she who waits, I find it comes a lot faster to she who gets off her backside and makes it happen.
I’ve found the most effective way to go about my life is to maintain a balance between keeping my eye on the goal and paying attention to what’s happening in my peripheral vision. I need to know where I’m going so as not to get too diverted, but also to be aware that there are many different paths to the top of the mountain, some of which will provide invaluable opportunities for fun, friendship, and learning.
I ARRIVED IN WAIKIKI A LITTLE MORE THAN A WEEK after the Junk. It was the Labour Day weekend, an American national holiday, and the folks at my sponsors’ public relations agency had asked if I could please hold off for a couple of days as the local media only had a skeleton staff working over the weekend. I was none too impressed with the suggestion.
“You try spending 99 days out here, and see how you would feel about hanging around offshore,” I retorted. “I want a shower and a shampoo. And champagne. I’m coming in.”
I had been a little nervous about making landfall in Hawai’i ever since I set out from San Francisco. There is a good reason why Hawai’i is the surf capital of the world. The waves can be intimidating. My weatherman, Rick, himself a resident of Hawai’i, reassuringly predicted that the conditions in the notorious Moloka’i Channel would be relatively benign for my arrival.
I had already been within sight of land for several days—by which I mean literally that I could see land, but anyone on land would not have been able to see me. I had rowed past the “Big Island” of Hawai’i, then Maui and Moloka’i, but I was no safer than I had been in the middle of the ocean. Even if somebody ashore were looking for me, they would not be able to spy me rowing past in the distance, hidden down amongst the waves. Kayaker Andrew McAuley died in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand when he was less than 40 miles from his destination. I knew I could not afford to relax until I set foot on dry land.
I now had to try and shoot cleanly down the Moloka’i Channel, heading southwest, to reach Waikiki on the sheltered southern side of O’ahu. The PR people were pressing me for an estimated time of arrival. They wanted to muster the media for a photo opportunity as I rowed past Diamond Head, the distinctive mountain to the east of Waikiki that marks the finish line of the Transpacific Yacht Race. It would make a spectacularly photogenic backdrop as I arrived in Hawai’i.
In an attempt to come up with an accurate guesstimate, I had been calculating my average rate of progress over the last few days. The plan, as agreed upon with the PR staff and communicated to the TV networks, was that I would arrive at the Waikiki Yacht Club sometime between 9 A.M. and noon on 1 September. I was later given a specific target of a 10 A.M. arrival, which even at the time I thought rather unrealistic given the vagaries of the ocean.
We had all reckoned without the “Funnel Factor.” The challenge was going to be to make enough progress west, after I rounded the northern tip of Moloka’i, in order to reach the yacht club, while the winds and currents that barrel down the channel between Moloka’i and O’ahu would be trying to push me south.
My last full day at sea, 31 August, started early, when a huge wave crashed into the side of my boat at 4:30 A.M., jolting me awake. If these conditions were benign, as Rick had described them, I thought that I would not like to encounter the channel in a malevolent mood.
The sun rose on a fine day, with scattered cumulus clouds speckling the sky overhead. I could see the green bulk of Moloka’i to the east, hunkered down beneath squally clouds. O’ahu was lost in the haze to the west. The day grew hot. Birds wheeled and swooped around my boat. There was a big swell and a brisk wind; conditions were fast, and pushing me south. I spent most of the day with the boat pointing northwest while I desperately tried to counteract the strong southerly drift. It was a struggle. Brocade was sideways to the waves, and I was regularly drenched by huge “boatfillers,” the name I gave to the really annoying waves that storm in like juggernauts and fill the cockpit to the gunwales, eliciting a stream of bad language from one very irritated ocean rower. I doubt I will ever reconcile myself to the futility of swearing at an ocean, as it does make me feel so very much better.
As the day went on my concern grew. The wind was blowing 25 knots and my red ensign flag stuck out horizontally as if it had a rod running through it. I was getting pushed too far south, too fast. To have any chance at all of making it into Waikiki, I would have to row all night to keep pushing west. If I stopped to sleep, the Brocade would be pushed south and I would miss O’ahu by several miles. I called Rick from the satellite phone to share my concerns with him and let him know the plan. My mother was by now in Hawai’i, and was staying with Rick and his wife, so I spoke to Mum, too. I promised to call her with an update every few hours during the night.
I had also spoken via satphone to Joel from the Junk. The Hunks had landed about a week before me, and Joel had promised to sail out in his boat to greet me. He told me that he and a couple of friends, Morgan and Troy, planned to leave from the Ala Wai marina at around midnight to try and intercept me at first light. I was touched that he would do this for me.
AS DARKNESS FELL, THE WAVES WERE HIGH, topped with white foaming crests that seemed to glow as if lit from within. There was no moon, and the deck was invisible in the darkness. I took good care to avoid mishap as my boat pitched around restlessly. It would be too bad to have anything go wrong on the home straight. The stars were bright overhead despite the nearness of the orange streetlights of O’ahu, which as I got closer resolved from a general glow into individual dots of light. It didn’t look far now. After 2,324 miles, there were just a few more to go. As I rowed I listened to an audiobook of the Jules Verne classic Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It seemed appropriate. Then the battery on my iPod went dead, so I switched over to the boat’s stereo to play a CD of music that Eric had compiled for me. I sang along to drown out the sound of the roaring wind and to give myself courage.
I checked in with Mum at 10 P.M., and again at midnight. The conditions were still rough, and I was zooming along.
Joel would later tell me that he and his friends had had to abort their attempt to come and welcome me. “It was windy and the current was ripping. We were making almost no progress trying to tack around Koko Head. Each time we tried going farther out into the channel and then tack back towards shore, and each time we ended up just a very short distance up the coast. Plus we were getting soaked and beaten up by waves. I figured if we couldn’t get to the spot I thou
ght you would be at, that you, being in the same current and wind, would not be there anyway. You’d be far south of that. So we gave up and sailed back to the Ala Wai.” Even for a seasoned sailor like Joel, it was a frenetic night in the funnel of the Moloka’i Channel.
On I rowed, the orange lights of O’ahu growing ever closer. By 2 A.M. I was exhausted. I’d been awake and rowing since 4:30 the previous morning. Just a little power nap, I told myself—a quick half hour.
Three hours later I woke up. Damn! I checked the GPS. Disaster. I had slept too long and was now south of Waikiki. I had overshot the bottom end of the channel. It was now going to be virtually impossible for me to make the Yacht Club under my own power. Sheepishly, I called my mother.
“Thank heavens you’re all right!” she exclaimed. “I was worried when you didn’t check in.”
“Yes, I’m all right, but I’m too far south. I fell asleep,” I confessed. “I’m going to need help getting into Waikiki.”
We had thought I might need a tow and had prepared for this contingency. A boat and skipper from the Waikiki Yacht Club were on standby.
“It’s a bit early,” my mother said. It was 5 A.M. “Can we wait another hour or so before we call Captain Phil?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll row past the line of longitude of the Yacht Club, and do my best to hang around as close to there as I can. But I’ll probably get pushed still further south.”
We agreed that we would separate the two components of my finish. I would carry on rowing and cross the finish line in my own time. Then I would be towed back to Diamond Head to re-row the last half mile closer to shore, for the cameras.
