Rowboat in a Hurricane (5 page)
So many monumental voyages of exploration had commenced from this very harbour, and I felt like we were embarking on our own journey of discovery. When Colin tired on the oars, we switched positions and I pulled the blades through the water in long, steady strokes. The sun was now shining from a clear sky, and the anxiety I had felt a few hours earlier was lifting.
“We’re at
4
.
5
knots!” I said, glancing at the
GPS
.
“Wow! Those rowing lessons you took are really paying off,” Colin said as he fiddled with a rope securing the life raft. “See if you can get
5
.”
I pulled even harder on the lightweight oars, but was soon distracted by another famous Lisbon landmark, the Tower of Belém. This sixteenth-century white castle looks far too ornate to protect the city of Belém from invading forces as it once did. Although it is fortified and the windows are small, delicate carvings encircle the balconies and watchtowers.
It took little imagination to envision those great ships of the past leaving this harbour, and the crew’s conflicting feelings of excitement and trepidation. They had headed out to great discoveries and equally momentous dangers—scurvy, mutiny, and warring attacks to name a few. The sailors had left port knowing that they might not return to their mothers, wives, or children. As Laurence Bergreen writes in his book
Over the Edge of the World,
which details the circumnavigation led by Ferdinand Magellan, “going to sea was the most dangerous thing one could do, the Renaissance equivalent of becoming an astronaut.” Five vessels and a crew of
270
had left on that voyage, but after three years of unimaginable hardship, only
18
people and one ship returned to Spain. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines.
The minds of these explorers were haunted by more than real horrors. Many believed they would boil to death if they crossed the equator, sail off the edge of the Earth, or be stalked by sea monsters that lurked in the ocean’s depths. At that time, much of Europe’s understanding of the world came from
Naturalis Historia,
a
1
,
500
-year-old encyclopedia by Pliny the Elder that described the mythical horrors they would face: one-and-a-half-metre lobsters, ninety-metre eels, and tribes of cyclopean people.
Five hundred years ago, geographical knowledge was a world apart from the intricate maps and
GPS
systems at our disposal. Europeans knew of only three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa, although they suspected others existed. Mediaeval maps depicted these three continents separated by two rivers (the Nile and the Don) and the Mediterranean, which all flowed into the Great Ocean Sea. Jerusalem was at the centre of the map and Paradise at the top.
As we neared the end of the channel and the exposed waters of the Atlantic, the greater concentration of salt increased the water’s density and seemed to lift our boat fractionally higher. We spotted a handful of fishing boats and what appeared to be a patrol ship in the distance. As the high-powered grey vessel neared, we realized it was heading straight for us. The throaty diesel eased to a tiger’s purr as the ship stopped several feet from our port gunwale. Men in fatigues placed large plastic bumpers against their boat’s hull and threw us a rope. I caught the thick burlap line, looped it through a hand grip and secured it with a bowline knot.
“Where are you travelling?” asked the captain in perfect English.
“Florida,” I replied.
His eyes widened fractionally.
These Portuguese patrolmen (army, police, or navy—we still weren’t sure) undoubtedly had the authority to stop us from leaving. They could tow us back to land and banish us from re-entering their waters; it all hinged on how they perceived our proposed voyage. I thought of the culmination of backbreaking labour, money, and stresses that had brought us to the present moment, all of it in vain if they turned us around. I silently beseeched him to release us—perhaps with a warm laugh and happy wishes—while Colin fidgeted uncomfortably and the men began talking among themselves in Portuguese.
We had gone to great lengths to ensure that we departed from Portugal legally, within the rules delineated by customs, immigration, and the harbour police. A few days earlier, we had asked the marine police about departure protocol and whether we needed to clear anything with customs and immigration. The official had told us no; since Portugal had joined the European Union, yacht entrance and clearance formalities had eased. All that was required was the receipt for marina moorage, which would also serve as sufficient documentation for proof of stay when we entered the next country. However, we had purposely failed to mention to the official that our small vessel was a rowboat, and now that we found ourselves tied to a Portuguese law-enforcement boat on the dawn of our departure, I felt a little uneasy.
“Papers, please,” the captain finally said in English.
What papers? I thought we didn’t need papers?
I removed our passports and the marina receipt from a waterproof bag and handed them up to the captain, hoping that was all he meant. He perused the passport pages and shifted his scrutinizing gaze to our faces. Apparently satisfied with the resemblance, he nodded and passed our materials to an officer who began a
VHF
radio dispatch to his supervisors.
We handed the other officers a book of news clippings on our journey, hoping that it would convey our experience and preparedness. But it was hard to gauge the response. The officers chatted animatedly to one another. Occasionally one of them would gesture to our boat with a shake of his head or a burst of laugher.
After what seemed like an eternity, the captain returned our passports to us. He smiled and said, “You are free to continue. We wish you good luck.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. The last official hurdle was behind us. Ferdinand Magellan was long gone, but his nation still embraced the spirit of exploration. From now on, it was just Colin, me, and many kilometres of open sea.
W
HILE COLIN RESUMED
rowing, I attempted to restyle our home from an overstuffed closet to something a little more livable. Too many things remained unpacked; they’d been hurriedly stuffed into wall-mounted mesh pockets instead of being neatly stored in hidden compartments. The floor of our cabin was blanketed with a three-inch closed-cell-foam mattress and, of course, this space was to be not only our bedroom, but also our kitchen, living room, office, and occasionally (when storms prevented us from exiting the cabin), our bathroom. To reach the storage areas, I moved the cabin’s contents to one side, pried back the mattress, and lifted one of the plywood lids. Using my head to prop the mattress up, I crouched over the compartment and laboriously rearranged objects until I could squeeze in a few more errant items.
A gentle swell rocked the boat, and I was pleased that my stomach remained settled. Before we left, I’d been terrified of being incapacitated by seasickness. As a child, I had suffered horrific bouts of carsickness, and even as an adult, I often feel nauseous as a passenger on winding mountain roads. I knew that the success of this expedition mainly came down to mental endurance. Coping with monotony, isolation, tedium, and fear was something I had some control over. Seasickness, on the other hand, is a physical condition that no amount of determination can quell. Over time, severe seasickness can lead to physical deterioration, fatigue, dehydration, and possibly even death. I had never been on the open ocean before, and could only hope motion sickness wouldn’t strike me down.
Suddenly the state of the ocean began to change. We had emerged from the shelter of Cabo da Roca—the westernmost tip of Europe—and huge, slow-moving swells began to rock our boat. I stopped packing gear and stuck my head out the cabin door, inhaling deeply.
“Are you all right?” Colin asked.
No, of course not. Look at me,
is what I wanted to shout. Instead, I said, “Oh yeah, I think it’s just a little too early for me to be rooting around in there.”
“For a second, I thought you were going to burst into liquid laughter,” Colin said.
“What?”
“You know—technicolour yawn, praying to the porcelain god, chewing in reverse, or . . .” Colin paused for a second. “Rowing and blowing.”
He’d obviously just made the last one up; he looked extremely pleased with himself. I wanted to smack him for his lack of sympathy.
Better yet, “row and blow” all over him,
I thought to myself with a chuckle.
I knew the best way to deal with seasickness was to focus on distant objects or the horizon, but foolishly, I spent the next thirty minutes with my head lolling out the hatch and my eyes closed, willing the nausea to pass.
When Colin’s two-hour shift at the oars came to an end, I extracted myself from the cabin and slid into the now-empty rowing seat. My feet slipped far too easily into the men’s size
10
rowing shoes affixed to the foot plates. The shoes were oversized for me, but they fit Colin well. I grabbed the oars. Once settled, I looked at the cabin-mounted compass and noticed we were no longer pointed in the right direction. The forty-five-second interlude in which we had switched places had been enough to push us off course.
The swell, the wind, and the waves now bullied our heavy boat, and I struggled to correct our position and maintain course. The boat was constantly trying to broach, or turn sideways to the waves, and it seemed I was putting far too much energy into corrective strokes and not enough into direct propulsion. I looked at the
GPS
, and my heart sank. The
4
.
5
knots I had achieved in calm waters with a favourable current had dropped to
2
. And I was working twice as hard.
The waves were now bigger than they’d been when I was inside the cabin. I wasn’t sure if the conditions had changed, or if the waves just appeared larger from this exposed perspective. They crashed against the hull, dousing me with foaming white water. Just as intimidating were the large swells that lifted us to the height of a mid-sized house. These rolling mountains had a wavelength—the distance from the crest of one wave to the next—of several hundred metres, and a height of six metres from trough to peak. Despite the size of these swells, however, they did not rock the boat. Like giant elevators, they gradually lifted and lowered us. It was the turbulence of the smaller waves that rocked us.
“There must be a big storm in the distance creating these swells,” Colin guessed.
But forecasters had made no mention of an approaching storm. I hoped they were right. The weather forecast when we departed had been for stable weather, with stiff but manageable winds from the northeast.
Timing is everything when planning an ocean crossing, and we had carefully chosen our window of opportunity. Leave too early and you encounter hurricanes farther south; too late, and it’s foul weather off Europe. Hurricanes form in the western regions of the Atlantic Ocean from June to November, while winter storms roll into Portugal and the European coast starting in late September. Although mid-September is the latest recommended time to safely leave the European coast, it is actually the earliest safe departure date when considering the hurricane belt further west. It would take about two months to reach the perimeter of the hurricane region, and our arrival in these lower latitudes would coincide with the end of the hurricane season. Our window of opportunity for avoiding the worst of both seasons was only about two weeks. We had been fortunate to get away in time and, according to pilot charts and hurricane records, our chances of encountering a major storm would be very low.
Considering that our current conditions were called good weather, I was shocked by the turbulence and size of the waves. The towering waves, crashing foam, and violent motion of the boat were what I would have expected of a storm—not a sunny, breezy day off the coast of Lisbon. It made me realize just how much I had to learn about the sea. Clearly, canoeing trips with friends in Canada had done nothing to prepare me for the reality of rowing in the open ocean.
Feelings of anxiety bubbled to the surface, and an annoying voice nagged,
What have you gotten yourself into?
There was no going back. Even if I changed my mind, we could not row against the currents to return to Lisbon. We were completely committed to this row. I created a mantra out of the truism “the greatest rewards come from the greatest commitments,” and tried to push the negative thoughts out of my head. They didn’t go away easily, though. I had invested an enormous amount of time and all my finances into this endeavour, but I was not prepared to pay the ultimate price.
I focussed on my rowing technique. The words of my Vancouver rowing coach, Alex Binkley, echoed in my mind: “Keep your back straight; push with your legs; increase your speed towards the end of your stroke; don’t clench the paddles.” But it was harder rowing here than in the calm waters of Coal Harbour. The choppy conditions made it difficult to pull both oars in unison, and waves repeatedly smashed the oars into my legs. If I was a mediocre rower in calm water, I was a dismal rower in ocean chop. And to say I was a moderate rower in civilization was really being kind.
I gave up on technique. It was all I could do to keep moving. I felt exhausted; my arms ached, my knees hurt, and I couldn’t imagine rowing for another minute, let alone another several months. I looked at my watch; I had been rowing for thirty minutes.