Rowing After the White Whale
Page 20
22. Swimming around the boat to take this photo, I was struck by how impossibly small she appeared.
23. Ben called this ‘sunning the bottom’ and it formed part of his quite unconventional stretching routine. Whilst no doubt necessary it could be a disturbing sight to wake up to.
24. Ben checking his watch five minutes into a rough, rainy shift and realising that he still has another two hours and fifty five minutes to go. No photo sums up the reality of ocean rowing better.
25. Pumping for water by hand was hard work but it was good to spend time together on deck.
26. The watermaker. No point pretending this ever served us well as it gave us trouble from the first week to the last, but we were always grateful for any water it made us.
27. The cabin and the star-gazing hatch. Without doubt the most comfortable place to be on board, apart from when it was wet or when we were forced to top and tail during stormy nights.
28. We were surprised by how cold the first 1,000 miles were and often found ourselves wearing our foul weather gear to stay warm.
29. Leaving the rescue boat with Ben’s dad we were seconds away from stepping onto dry land for the first time in four months.
30. I’d dreamed of being re-united with Tory during the row but hadn’t thought I’d have to swim the last bit to get there.
31. Celebrating with our French Mauritian rescuers.
32. Back on terra firma in Mauritius and struggling to blend in with the other honeymooners.
1. On inspecting the boat at Gallions Reach we took the seller’s word that she floated. Still my head swum with questions, foremost of which was, ‘Will Ben really insist on bringing the mustard coloured cords?’
2. Fixing up the boat. What we lacked in knowledge (and we lacked a lot) we made up for in enthusiasm, although we spent a fair amount of time surreptitiously gluing things to each other.
3. We put the names of everyone who sponsored us on the boat and whilst at sea spent many hours telling stories which illustrated what we liked about each person.
4. At the check-out at Heathrow we were naive and clean shaven, both of which were soon to change.
5. Preparing to launch the boat at Geraldton with no time to make any more changes. Fully laden she weighed over a tonne.
6. Leaving Geraldton at dawn on Day 1 it took us quite a while to navigate out of the marina, so onlookers could easily have been forgiven for wondering if we’d ever find our way across the Indian Ocean.
7. On our way, Paddington lashed to the prow like some latter-day Odysseus, Ben is feeding the watermaker having just put his socks to dry on the radio antennae – better known as the SDPs or Sock Drying Poles.
8. We only rowed together on a few rare occasions when we tried to counter the countercurrents.
9. Rowing west we had the rising sun on our face and the setting sun on our backs every day.
10. No one day ever looked the same during the voyage.
11. Rowing as a pair, you spend most of your time alone with your thoughts as the other person sleeps.
12. Sometimes our chats in between shifts lasted longer than they should as we took to arguing about films, Celine Dion and navigation.
13. Surf’s Up! Hand-steering the boat as she surfed the waves we started to wonder if we could do the whole voyage like this. Sadly it turned out we had to row.
14. Ben displays one of our biggest catches of the trip: a tiny flying fish who threw himself into the boat.
15. Part of our philosophy was that, while not always knowing what we were doing, we should at least try to look the part. Ben had his own unique interpretation of this philosophy.
16. Most evenings we would collect and steel ourselves with some grog and a cigarette before going into the night shifts.
17. One of the eerie calms we encountered in which nothing broke the surface of the sea except our oars... and sometimes not even those.
18. Each day the sun appeared and disappeared and we saw it every time.
19. Ben getting ready to document the first swim, which took place on Day 17 in water 5,000 metres deep.
20. In one of the weirder episodes of the trip, Timothy the moth lands and stays the night with us, over 700 nautical miles from land.
21. Some of our constant companions: the pilot fish and one of the dorados.
22. Swimming around the boat to take this photo, I was struck by how impossibly small she appeared.
23. Ben called this ‘sunning the bottom’ and it formed part of his quite unconventional stretching routine. Whilst no doubt necessary it could be a disturbing sight to wake up to.
24. Ben checking his watch five minutes into a rough, rainy shift and realising that he still has another two hours and fifty five minutes to go. No photo sums up the reality of ocean rowing better.
25. Pumping for water by hand was hard work but it was good to spend time together on deck.
26. The watermaker. No point pretending this ever served us well as it gave us trouble from the first week to the last, but we were always grateful for any water it made us.
27. The cabin and the star-gazing hatch. Without doubt the most comfortable place to be on board, apart from when it was wet or when we were forced to top and tail during stormy nights.
28. We were surprised by how cold the first 1,000 miles were and often found ourselves wearing our foul weather gear to stay warm.
29. Leaving the rescue boat with Ben’s dad we were seconds away from stepping onto dry land for the first time in four months.
30. I’d dreamed of being re-united with Tory during the row but hadn’t thought I’d have to swim the last bit to get there.
31. Celebrating with our French Mauritian rescuers.
32. Back on terra firma in Mauritius and struggling to blend in with the other honeymooners.