Rowing After the White Whale

by James Adair

  That night we rearranged the cabin so we could both sleep at the same time, opting to top and tail as opposed to the more intimate spooning we had unwisely attempted during the violent seas of the vortex. Then we slept a deep, long sleep, like hibernating bears. By the time we woke up in the morning our salt sores had greatly improved and we felt like different people. One unbroken sleep had made us feel like new.

  The next day was Day 28, which meant we had been at sea four weeks. I was beginning to love our life at sea, watching the ever-changing ocean and immensity of the heavens. I now only experienced pain in my hands or arse at the beginning of each shift, and within ten minutes it was gone. I felt completely fit and could easily row for three hours without stopping. Also, it didn’t seem like we’d lost much weight. It felt like we’d had an almighty battle to get to this stage, but that everything was getting better: the watermaker was fixed, the weather was calmer and we were seeing more wildlife every day.

  25 Fish

  ‘Within the shadow of the ship

  I watched their rich attire:

  Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

  They coiled and swam; and every track

  Was a flash of golden fire.’

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  By the first becalming we were firm friends with a number of fish. That’s not to say we wouldn’t have eaten them if we’d managed to catch them, but perhaps we were going a bit soft on them, such was our familiarity.

  The ocean wanderers we had got to know so well were the dorado and the flying fish. We saw them nearly every day of our trip. There were other fish, like the one Ben caught on Day 18, which was so ugly we put it back and have never been able to identify since, but they were occasional visitors. The dorado and flying fish were constants.

  With plenty of them in every ocean, the dorado goes by many names. Lots of people call them mahi-mahi, which means ‘very strong’ in Hawaiian; in English they are often referred to as dolphin fish on account of their tendency to jump playfully through the air; while in Spanish they are known as dorado maverikos or ‘golden mavericks’, which was fitting given some of their mischievous behaviour towards us.

  These dorados are a common sight for mariners as it is in their nature to follow boats or floating objects such as driftwood. They feed on squid, flying fish, crabs and other forage fish and have been known to feed on zooplankton, which makes sense given how dense and widespread this can be. They are easily recognisable, not only from their brilliant colouring of green, grey, gold and blue but also from their protruding foreheads which lend them a thuggish look.

  The first time we saw them was on Day 22 when they were hunting flying fish all around us. They seemed to drive the fish towards the boat or lie in wait and pounce as the boat scared their prey. We saw a sudden commotion as the flying fish broke the surface in their low, skimming flight while the dorado gave chase, leaping out of the water in a series of flashing jumps to keep sight of their quarry. Later a group of them appeared under the boat, meandering sociably as they weaved in and out of one another’s path, flicking up the bright blue dorsal fins which stretch the length of their green and yellow bodies. I dropped a silver lure into the blue and one fish took it. Immediately it flew into a spin of acrobatic convulsions until it was free. Tony told us on the satellite phone that these dorado mate for life and perhaps that’s when we started going a bit soft on them. It seemed wrong to kill one of these fish when they cruised so benignly and faithfully behind us; it would be like killing a pet dog, we agreed. They would swim right up to my hand as I held our film camera in the water trying to capture them.

  The dorado became a constant sight and entertainment to us. It was possible to see them in the wave behind the one we were in, surfing just as we did. Strangely for fish they seemed to have personalities and a playful nature that won me over. They would follow behind slowly for some time and then suddenly charge the boat swimming as hard as they could before swerving at the last moment. Other times they would chase the oars, trying to bite them as they dipped into the water only to scare themselves when they got too close. They loved to jump. Every day that they were with us, they would leap three or four feet into the air in an outlandish display of strength. Often they would perform a series of jumps in which they would go higher and higher before belly-flopping hard on the final fling. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to rid themselves of parasites, practise hunting or if they were performing some kind of mating ritual with these fantastic acrobatics. Later in our journey, as I sat silently rowing through their world, it seemed as if they might be showing off to us.

  The flying fish they pursued were equally fascinating, although harder to observe because they were forever soaring away from the dorado. The flying fish announced themselves in a big way on Day 16. I was rowing quietly along when a huge one launched itself from the surface of the sea, about three metres from the boat, taking a flight path directly towards my face. I’m not sure who was more surprised, but it was probably the fish. It can’t often happen in an ocean virtually deserted by men and boats that a flying fish takes flight and actually finds something in its path. I managed to lean back just in time to avoid the collision, feeling him whoosh by my face as I fell backwards off the seat.

  It seems appropriate that the family name of this fish, Exocoetidae, gave its name to the Exocet missile. Later on there were quite a few direct hits to the boat and even one to the body when a flying fish hit me on the arm.

  One of our frequent debates on the boat was whether these fish could actually fly or whether what they did was just a glorified glide. As we progressed, we witnessed some impressive flight times and distances. So often the fish seemed to be deliberately riding the winds or thermals as they escaped their predators. We decided that if they can’t actually ‘fly’ then they could be termed ‘serial gliders’; we observed that as they came to the end of one flight they often flicked their tail on a wave so as to take flight again before entering the water. This classification would put them above more basic gliders, such as flying foxes, which can only manage one flight at a time from one tree to another. We tried to count the flight times of the fish when they breached but they usually disappeared from sight before re-entering the water. The longest recorded flight time is 45 seconds, which was captured by a Japanese film crew.

  The dorado and the flying fish were with us all the way. At first it felt like we were trespassing in their strange world but as our journey wore on it felt more like we were all trying to survive the unforgiving sea together.

  26 Storm

  ‘The mind jettisoned everything that might prove harmful to it, since a thing that is of no use can only be harmful. Only the animal instinct which remains hidden deep inside each one of us had risen to the surface, there to exaggerate its dimensions, take complete possession of the boat-man unit, and impose on it the only order that made any sense; to hang on, whatever happens – hang on.’

  Bernard Moitessier, Sailing to the Reefs

  After the brief respite of the first becalming, we were hit with our first storm. The weather built over the course of Day 29 and during that night we were hit by a big wave while I was balancing on the side, taking a leak. The boat shuddered and lurched onto its side. I managed not to fall overboard but couldn’t stop what I’d started and so pissed all over myself. This trick of balancing on the gunwales to answer the call of nature was, we eventually discovered by Day 60, far too dangerous. We’d both fallen in in such circumstances, but luckily both incidents were in daylight while the other person was on deck to help. Accuracy in high winds presented another problem; it was after a disastrous attempt to piss into 25 knots of wind blowing in the direction of the other rower that ‘the bottle’ was instigated, which greatly improved matters.

  We used surfboard straps to clip onto the boat in rough weather, which mitigated the danger of falling in at night; if we had ended up in the sea the combination of exhaustion and strong currents co
uld have been fatal. However, we did become, if not blasé, then more confident in the boat and in each other’s ability to survive the night. At first, when you were rowing along in the dark and a big wave hit, the cabin door would open and the other person would sleepily say something like, ‘Are you okay, that sounded like a really big one, are you sure you’re alright?’ But after a few weeks, the massive night-time waves failed to provoke a response; the cabin door would remain tightly shut and you’d carry on rowing, muttering to yourself, ‘Here I am rowing away and he doesn’t care whether I live or die.’

  If you were the sleeper the scenario went like this. At first you’d hear the wave hit, which always sounded much louder in the cabin, and you’d think, How did we survive that? I better check he is still there. But after a few weeks you were so tired that, after the crashing wave woke you up and the rowing ominously stopped, you would think to yourself, I’ll just wait until I hear him rowing again to make sure he’s alive. Ah, there’s the sound of him swearing and, yes, there are the oars going again, he must be okay, and you’d promptly fall straight back to sleep. Having said this, it was our constant nightmare that one dark night we’d come out of the cabin to find that the other person wasn’t there.

  The weather was worsening on Day 30 and, during my off shifts, while listening to music and watching Ben getting drenched by waves, I would count down the hours and minutes before it was my turn. On days like this we always entered the night shifts with a sense of dread. The first night shift was mine, so as the sun disappeared I was left battling increasingly violent seas and lashing rain. We were constantly being hit by large breaking waves and the boat was filling up, so every twenty minutes I would precariously crawl from the rowing position to the bilge pump to empty the deck. Back in the rowing position, it was virtually impossible to point the boat in the right direction because of the strength of the wind behind us and the state of the sea, which was churning like a washing machine. The outlines of the waves were visible only at the last moment before they hit us. The constant din of the storm raged all around. I kept thinking to myself, Is this safe? I had nothing to compare it to, so it was hard to judge, but I thought probably not. However, not wanting to get it wrong or give up too easily I sat it out until the end of my shift. A couple of hours later Ben came out in his foul weather gear and crouched on the deck ready to take over. We were right next to each other, but he had to shout to be heard: ‘What are you doing? It’s definitely not safe to be out here!’ So we locked down the oars and got into the relative safety of the cabin to top and tail for a stifling night. At one point I clambered out to go to the loo amid the mad, mountainous, moonlit waves. In the cabin our fatigue got the better of our fear and we were easily able to sleep despite the swell slamming loudly into the sides of the boat. When we emerged next morning we were thrilled to discover that we had been blown forward ten miles.

  27 Catch 22

  ‘I hate storms but calms undermine my spirits.’

  Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

  The following night I was once again rowing the first night shift and as we rolled along I could see flashes of lightning in the distance in front of us. At first it seemed like we were heading straight towards another storm and, terrified, I’d look back over my right shoulder every few minutes to see the erratic forks of lightning silently illuminating the distant sky. The jagged shards of light seemed to be reaching the sea to the south of us. But it soon became apparent that we would miss the storm by a long way, which made it easier to enjoy the natural fireworks display.

  With following seas, which is when the waves and wind come from behind the boat, we were flying along again. We recorded our top speed, an exhilarating 12.5 knots in one wave. Surfing these waves was without a doubt the most brilliant fun, but the drawback to such speed was the general lack of comfort that accompanied it. In this sort of weather we would cover good miles and the rowing was exciting, but everything would get wet, and sleeping in a damp and pitching cabin was not fun.

  On Day 36 Tony reported that we were now 39 nautical miles ahead of where the record holders had been in 2009. In contrast to the four-man team we had been quite vocal before we left about not aiming for any records. From our limited understanding of ocean rowing, we suspected that pace all depended on the weather you got – and this certainly turned out to be true for us. Also, from a psychological point of view, we thought that aiming for a record could ruin our enjoyment of a once-in-a-lifetime voyage by making us liable to worry every day about how we were comparing to two different people, in a different boat, rowing the ocean in different weather back in 2009. On top of this the simple fact is that not many people have rowed oceans, so there’s nearly always some kind of record to claim. We’d heard some ridiculous ones and we’d amuse ourselves by coming up with new outlandish records we could claim such as the first lapsed, inter-faith (Catholic–CofE) crossing of the Indian Ocean; the first pairs crossing of an ocean to be done in total silence; the first crossing of the Indian Ocean conducted only in French by non-native French speakers; the most number of cumulative days spent not rowing during an ocean row; the record for the pair carrying the most non-essential supplies; the most books read whilst rowing an ocean; or the record for the most claimed and rejected records in connection to an ocean row.

  Of course, this isn’t to say we weren’t more than a little seduced by the idea of becoming the world record holders for the quickest pair’s crossing of the Indian Ocean, especially if it came relatively easily. People back on dry land wouldn’t understand that it was weather-dependent, wouldn’t know that we were only up against two pairs who both rowed across in 2009 only a day apart. Maybe we’d get lucky with surfing conditions the whole way across, and people back home would think that we were superhuman athletes. This is what we’d discuss over our nightly brandy and cigarette. We imagined how, on Christmas Day, we could leave the Guinness Book of World Records handily open on the ocean rowing section when we’d achieved our record. Now that we were off the shelf and well on our way, we’d made a pretty big statement to all those who doubted we’d ever even attempt an ocean, but to go on and break the record would finish any arguments for good. So, telling ourselves that we weren’t getting obsessed, we started to become a little bit more competitive. We stopped our short communal breaks for meals, so that now someone was always rowing, twenty-four hours a day. We started pushing ourselves harder – all in pursuit of something we believed to be illusory and meaningless, an ocean rowing world record.

  28 A Brief History of Ocean Rowing

  ‘But if adventure has a final and all embracing motive it is surely this: We go out because it is in our nature to go out, to climb mountains and to sail the seas, to fly to the planets and plunge into depths of the oceans. By doing these things we make touch with something outside or behind, which strangely seems to approve our doing them. We extend our horizon, we expand our being, we revel in the mastery of ourselves which gives an impression, mainly illusory, that we are masters of the World. In a word, we are men and when man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man.’

  Wilfred Noyce

  Just as ocean rowers can be categorised as endurance rowers and romantic rowers, so can ocean rows be split into historic and modern rows. The people who undertook the historic rows did so without a watermaker, GPS, satellite phone or any of the other kit now considered vital to an ocean crossing. In short, they were lunatics. In the words of Gérard d’Aboville, who rowed the Atlantic in 1980, ‘We were like test pilots without a parachute.’ Before all the modern equipment became available, teams would often accept assistance from passing boats or do their crossings in a series of legs, and the difficulty in corroborating or comparing these voyages has led to the historic/modern divide.

  Historic

  The first recorded ocean row took place in 1896 on the west to east North Atlantic route when two Norwegian-born American fishermen rowed from New York to the Scilly Isles. Harbo and Samuelson completed their fea
t in 55 days. The specially built eighteen-foot boat, called The Fox, was fitted with rails, which they used to right the boat when it capsized mid-ocean. At the end of their row, they were cheated out of their prize money by the very newspaper editor who had promoted the event. On the voyage home the ship ran out of coal and when the master ordered all wooden objects to be broken up and fed to the fire the pair decided to relaunch The Fox and row all the way back to New York just to preserve her. That’s the Victorians for you. Their extraordinary voyage remained the quickest crossing for 114 years until a four-man crew beat it in 2010.

  Nobody attempted another ocean row until 1966 when two British teams set out on the same route as Harbo and Samuelson. The first boat to leave was called Puffin, although tragically she was later lost at sea along with both crewmembers. Their last log entry was on Day 105. It’s thought that they’d drunk their supplies of fresh water, which doubled as ballast, then failed to replace it with seawater. This left their boat unstable and it was later recovered upside-down, suggesting that the cause of death was mid-ocean capsize.

  The second team to leave consisted of two soldiers, Chay Blyth and John Ridgeway, who completed the row in 92 days. They rowed into the history books and were feted at home. However, Blyth was uncompromising when asked about the fate of the Puffin. Citing his rivals’ mistake of not replacing the ballast water, he said, ‘I wouldn’t even call it a tragedy. They made so many mistakes. The first one was publishing their plans, allowing others to dovetail right into them, which is exactly what we did. Then they changed their plans and for the worse. We got the idea to leave from Cape Cod from them, but then they started from Virginia to be closer to the Gulf Stream. It was a mistake. They had to cover about five hundred miles just to get to where we started . . . they didn’t stick to the plan. If they had, they might be here today.’