by Roz Savage
The only problem was that, as we looked out of our room window, it appeared that the Betio Apartments had been built in a lake. The weather had been quite pleasant the last time I was in Kiribati, but now it was raining. Or, to do it full justice, I would have to say that it was a deluge. To describe this weather as rain would be like saying that the Pacific is quite large, an understatement of heinous proportions. The unpaved yard in front of our apartment was flooded to ankle depth, and the potholes in the road were filled with water. The entire island was awash already, and still the rain fell in torrents from the sky. It was like a glimpse into the future of Kiribati, as if the oceans were already triumphing over the land.
On Saturday morning, Liz and I headed along the short walkway to a roofed area that served as a congregating spot for the guests to have coffee and our self-catered breakfast. We sat there on the upholstered sofa, watching the raindrops cascading off the thatched roof, topping up the mini-lagoon of the courtyard, and wondered when it would ever stop, or if one day I would be able to row my boat right up to our front door.
Normally a bit of water wouldn’t have bothered me. I was about to row across a couple of thousand miles of the stuff. But this was a lot of water, in a place where I hadn’t been expecting it, and it was very inconvenient. We hadn’t planned to spend much time in Tarawa. I wanted to get ready and get out as quickly as possible. I’d already pushed back my start date so that I could speak at TED Mission Blue, and I also reasoned that the less time I spent on the island, the less risk there was of contracting an infection. That would be the last thing I needed at the start of a long voyage on a boat with minimal bathroom facilities.
We had a lot to do, and not much time to do it. Almost as soon as we arrived in Tarawa on Friday, the cadets moved the boat out from under the laundry shelter for us. We needed to seize the offer of manpower before they went home for the weekend, as most of the things that remained to be done required the boat to be out in the open. For example, I couldn’t set up the bimini (a nautical term for a sun canopy) until the short antenna masts were up, and I couldn’t raise the masts under the limited headroom of the shelter’s roof. But we would have preferred to work in the dry than in a monsoon.
We had had plenty to keep us busy indoors—sorting and packing food and kit, testing technology, completing a few final e-mails and interviews. But if this weather continued for the rest of Saturday and into Sunday, we were going to be struggling to be ready in time for me to leave early Monday morning. The rain had begun at five o’clock Saturday morning and seven hours later showed no signs of relenting.
Somehow we managed. One of our most important tasks, not for survival but for PR purposes, was to put my sponsors’ logos onto the boat—but we needed dry weather. Due to the rain, we didn’t have time to put the stickers on the boat before she went in the water. On Sunday afternoon, during a brief easing of the downpour, Liz did a commendable job of applying some of the decals by leaning out of the aft hatch of the sleeping cabin. Unfortunately the dampness was just too much for the glue, and when we arrived at the boat on Monday morning for the launch, the letters of “Green Heart by Sony Ericsson” (an environmentally conscious mobile phone) had slithered across the slick surface of the cabin to form a higgledy-piggledy alphabet soup. There was nothing to be done about it, so that was how they stayed. The photos of my arrival in Papua New Guinea would show my boat proudly endorsing the “en Hat by Sony Ercsson.”
ON MONDAY MORNING, THE RAIN gave us a break. I would be starting from the Marine Training Centre at 6:45 A.M., partly to get away before the worst heat of the day, but mostly so that the President could come and see me off before attending Parliament. Liz and I got up early and drove over to the MTC. I was still sitting in the rental car, signing a few copies of my Atlantic book as gifts for our friends in Tarawa, when Liz rapped on the window to let me know the guest of honour had arrived. I hastily penned the last few words and leaped out of the car to walk over to where the President, Captain Superintendent Boro Lucic, and John and Linda Anderson were standing on the grass by the lifeboat launch pool, where my boat had been lifted out of the water nine months previously. The cadets of the MTC stood in a well-ordered group, their ceremonial uniforms as brilliantly white as a laundry-detergent commercial in the soft grey of the early morning light.
President Anote Tong, whom I had last seen in a curry house in Copenhagen, said a few words and wished me a safe voyage, thanking me for my work in bringing attention to the plight of his country. I recall him using some phrase like “ultimate sacrifice” to describe my commitment to the cause. I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I was willing to make many sacrifices, but not the ultimate one. Many movements have had their martyrs, but I continue to feel strongly that I am more useful alive than dead.
Linda Anderson also said a few words of thanks on behalf of Kiribati, and placed a headdress on my hair as a token of good luck. It was not made out of plumeria this time, but from silk flowers and plastic drinking straws “to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability.”
I said a few words, too, thanking the people of Kiribati for their hospitality, and Boro and the men of the MTC for taking such good care of my boat, and pledging to do all I could to promote sustainable living through my adventures.
As I spoke, I glanced over at Liz. She was watching me with a strange expression. It was a look that mingled a sense of pride in being associated with my adventures with a sense of mystification that this ordinary-looking woman could be capable of achieving such extraordinary feats. I had a sudden rush of emotions that probably generated a similar complexity of expression on my own face. Almost simultaneously, several realizations dawned on me.
The first was the power of my adventures to draw people in and engage them (which with the benefit of hindsight, I have identified at earlier points in the voyage and already mentioned several times in this book). I had seen it in everybody from schoolchildren with an infinity of possibilities still open to them, to people in their 80s who saw in me either their own young and idealistic selves, or maybe the life they wished they’d lived.
The second was that people felt a vicarious sense of pride in getting involved. Over the past five years, literally hundreds of people had done so much to help me financially, logistically, and emotionally. From venture capitalists to journalists to psychologists to paddlers—whatever their skills, they had found a way to help me towards my goals and had been willing to put their time, money, and energy at my disposal.
The third—and here Liz represented everybody who had ever supported me—was that I had not been a very gracious co-worker that week. I get a bit uptight just before a launch and don’t always show enough appreciation to those who are helping. Liz had done so much for me. Not only had she worked incredibly hard on my boat, but she had also given me many of her own possessions to remedy the shortcomings of the shops in Kiribati. My flip-flops had expired in Tarawa, the uppers ripping out from the soles one day as I waded through the ankle-deep water in the yard at Betio Apartments. Liz had given me hers. Being an accomplished world traveler, her pack was full of many other useful things that she had unhesitatingly donated to me in case they might come in handy: sunhat, clothes pegs, cord, and many other things besides. Totally focused on the launch and under the pressure of time, I suddenly felt I had not shown enough gratitude, and now it was too late.
All this rushed through my mind in a moment. I had to make an effort of will to pull myself back to the present, and focus on the here and now. Everyone was looking at me expectantly. It was time to go.
As he walked me over to my boat, the President asked me how I felt at this stage, setting out on a new adventure. I replied, truthfully, that I try not to think about it too much until I am past the point of no return, for fear that I might talk myself out of it. He smiled, and I wondered how many people who take on major challenges, be it an ocean crossing or a presidency, truly know what they are getting themselves into. There is a lot to be sai
d for stepping up to take on something that needs doing, without hesitating to consider all the potential problems and pitfalls that may lie ahead. It is so easy to think too much about all the things that could go wrong. It is much better to commit, prepare as best you can, and just figure out the rest as you go. As the saying goes, plan roughly, and execute superbly.
I boarded my boat, still wearing the headdress. The fine young men of the MTC broke into song. Liz and I had overheard them rehearsing the day before. Their voices resonated around the rusty metal sides of the lifeboat pool as I paddled carefully out of its narrow entrance to the ocean beyond. This was it. If all went according to plan, by the end of this leg I would have become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.
AS SOON AS I GOT AWAY FROM LAND the weather improved, to my considerable relief. Wet skin chafes much more than dry, and I had not relished the prospect of rowing in the rain for the next few months. But soon I had the opposite problem. Once I escaped from the cover of the clouds, the day was swelteringly hot, with nary a breeze to ease my sweaty discomfort. By 3:20 P.M. the thermometer was registering 42.7 degrees centigrade on deck. That’s about 109 degrees Fahrenheit, and in plain English it was bloody hot.
But I was prepared. After the itchy, unsightly heat rashes of the previous year’s row, I had resolved to do whatever I could to make this year’s effort more comfortable. I had purchased two 12-volt electric fans, designed for use in cars. They weren’t marine grade, just cheap Chinese fans, so I wasn’t sure how long they would last in the salty humidity of the ocean, but it had to be worth a try. One had already been doing sterling service in my cabin. It was time to press it into action out on deck. Luckily it had a good long lead that could reach all the way from the bank of six cigarette-lighter sockets inside the sleeping cabin out to the cockpit. Its brand name was Roam, which seemed appropriate—surely few fans would have roamed so far.
I clipped it to the bar that arched across the deck above my rowing shoes, a bar which had served so many purposes over the years: bracket for my gimbaled cooking stove, grab handle as I emerged from the sleeping cabin, cleat for the sea anchor trip line—and now electric fan support. Much to my surprise and delight, the fan whirred away faithfully and reliably, hour after hour, day after day. It wasn’t particularly powerful, but it made life more tolerable when nature failed to provide any breeze.
During my midday siesta, I would unclip the fan from the bar and relocate it to one of the guardrail oars so that it could keep me cool as I lounged in the shadow of my makeshift sunshade, fashioned from a sarong slung between the bimini and the guardrail, with the sea anchor bag as my pillow. On the rare days when it was calm enough to lie on deck without being constantly soaked by waves coming in over the side, it felt decadent indeed to seek refuge from the baking sun, my naked skin cooled by the soothing breeze of the fan as I lay between the runners of my rowing seat. The deck was hard and unyielding, but if I arranged myself carefully, I could find a relatively comfortable position. If I’d had a rough night in the stultifying stuffiness of the cabin, my heat rashes itching, this midday snooze was absolute heaven as I felt the gentle waft of air moving over my skin.
AS I LOOKED AT THE FAN, I sometimes thought about the Chinese workers slaving away in their huge factories, making cheap electronic goods like this. There’s a film called Manufactured Landscapes that opens with an eight-minute continuous sequence of workers in a Chinese factory, frighteningly reminiscent of chickens in a factory farm as the camera slowly tracks at constant speed past row upon row upon row of human beings in matching yellow uniforms, silently working on a production line. It was hard to believe that any manufacturing facility could be so vast. The scene went on, and on, and on.
I had thought ocean rowing was boring, but it was nothing compared with the monotony of this work. Even one day of it would have had me running for my life. Occasionally a worker would look up and stare into the lens of the camera as it slowly passed by the end of their line of workbenches. I wondered what was going on behind those eyes. How could they possibly stand this? What job satisfaction was there? What motivation? What legacy? Did they really go home at the end of the day proud of what they had achieved? To me, it seemed inhuman—and inhumane. What in their psyche enabled them to tolerate this mind-numbing work? Did they in fact tolerate it, or was it slowly driving them insane?
An interview later in the film revealed a little of what their feelings might be. Some men working on the Three Gorges Dam said, “It’s work. We get paid.” They had been working on the dam for ten years. Maybe this was all it meant to them: spending 8, or 10, or 12 hours a day, for years on end, mere ants on an anthill, just to get paid. I almost couldn’t stand to watch the film. It made me want to scream. It made me want to cry.
Whoa—easy girl. It’s amazing what tangents of thought can be inspired by one electric fan. But that electric fan had become my new best friend, the object that was right in front of my eyes for 12 hours a day as I rowed, and it ultimately became a focus for my thoughts.
I have to be very careful what I place within my field of view on the boat. I’d berated Liz for a crooked sticker on the bulkhead of the aft cabin, saying, “I’m going to be looking at that for 12 hours a day, for maybe three months. It’s got to be straight!” I knew that I wasn’t an easy taskmaster, but it was of almost vital importance to me.
No matter who made it under whatever political and industrial regime, the fan was a very welcome addition to the boat. Each time I went out on the ocean, I tried to refine the setup. What I was doing was tough enough already; there was no need to be unnecessarily masochistic about it. If I could find a way to make it a little less uncomfortable, then life was good.
BUT NOT ALL TECHNOLOGY IS AS QUIETLY HELPFUL as the fan. I have a very ambivalent relationship with the satellite phone, and on the final stage of the row, this was to be truer than ever before. On the sixth night, I rowed for a couple of hours after sunset, enjoying the slightly cooler air. I grew sleepy after the long, hot day’s rowing. It was time for bed. I bathed and brushed and flossed and had no sooner got into my cabin than the phone rang.
To understand the full impact of this, you need to know that my phone never rang. Only a handful of people had the number, it’s about ten dollars a minute to call, and I was hardly ever in the cabin to answer it—in fact, it was usually switched off and packed away in a waterproof case—so this was not good. Apprehensively, I picked up the phone and pressed the green button.
It was my poor, long-suffering mother, wanting to know if I was still alive. I was able to reassure her on this point. Yes, I had picked up the phone. Therefore I was incontrovertibly alive. But apparently my positioning unit had not been reporting my whereabouts, and I had been too busy trying to stay cool to tweet as much as usual today. So one way and another, there had been no news from Brocade for more than 18 hours. According to our impeccably documented emergency procedures, this was about the time to start panicking. My mother was duly following the protocol.
I had to sigh. Time was when sailors would set off around the world and nobody would hear a peep out of them until they arrived—or sometimes didn’t—at their intended destination. Months could go by with no word. But not anymore. Regular check-ins were now expected, and indeed required. From then on, to save my mother from more worry, I promised to be more regular with my tweeting. Twitter has been appropriated for many things, but this voyage may have been the first recorded use of the platform as a marine-safety technology.
By Day 15, the satphone had become a much greater bane. When at sea, I use it as a data modem to post text and photographs to my blog. It’s slow, but it usually works, more or less. I write my blog post, then I plug a cable into the USB port of the laptop and connect it to the satellite phone. I launch a software application called SkyFile, a very basic e-mail client, and through that I send my blog post via satellite to a server on dry land, from whence it is posted to my blog on WordPress.
Or at leas
t, that is how it’s supposed to work. This time I had been persuaded that the new Iridium 9555 satphone was a significant improvement over its predecessor, the 9505A. So at enormous expense, I had bought one. It was, from beginning to end, a complete disaster. I would have switched back to the 9505A, which I still had on board as a backup, but it refused to recognize its own SIM card. To cut a very long and boring story short, it was buggered.
Here’s how I reported it in my blog:
BIG techno hassles today, as you may have gathered from the very belated appearance of my blog. After trying for an hour last night to upload my blog, and another half hour this morning, I then spent an hour on the phone to Rob at Remote Satellite Systems trying to resolve the problem. We tried various things, none of which worked. Then it just started working randomly, without any further changes being made. Gaaargh! Intermittent problems are just the worst—almost impossible to find out the root cause. I’ve also found out that my Tweets are not being posted to Twitter. I don’t know why this is. Half the time my phone rejects my Tweet anyway, neither telling me why, nor allowing me to resend it.
When things start breaking down on the ocean, there are generally three possible outcomes:
Fix it. Straightforward enough with low-tech objects such as oars, but with exponentially diminishing chances of success as the complexity and technological sophistication of the object increase.
Decide you didn’t need it anyway. On the Atlantic, the demise of the camping stove had fallen into this category. Faced with little choice, I decided there are worse things in life than cold freeze-dried food. Not many, but some.
Find a workaround. This is my usual approach. I try to have a backup plan of some sort, and even if I didn’t have one before I set out, it’s amazing what complete isolation in the middle of an ocean does for one’s powers of resourcefulness and creativity.
