Rowboat in a Hurricane Read Online Free PDF

to prepare our boat in time, but now we were ready to go.

3

LEAVING LAND
    “R ISE AND SHINE. High tide is two hours away,” I said, nudging Colin in the side with my elbow.
    He issued the expected response: a dissatisfied grunt. It was 4 : 00 AM on Thursday, September 22 . We’d had only three hours of sleep, and now we were embarking on a ten-thousand-kilometre row across the Atlantic.
    We extracted ourselves from the snug rowboat cabin and began the final preparations for departure. We needed to leave with the outgoing tide, which was in three hours; otherwise we’d have to wait another day. Our boat was now in the water, tied to a pontoon at Doca de Belém, which was located on a two-kilometre-wide channel on the estuary of Portugal’s main river. The Tagus boasted currents so strong that they changed the geography of the river to form a partially inverted delta. The raised triangle of sediment that usually collects at a river’s mouth was absent. Now the incoming current—intensified by strong tides that accompanied the nearly full moon—was still close to its peak power; it would be impossible to row against. Within a few hours, however, this great force would work in our favour.
    After storing the last of the food, repacking gear to make it fit in the cramped compartments, and filling water containers, we were ready to go. At least I hoped so. I was both terrified and thrilled that our trip was finally underway. We were setting off only a few days later than the target date we had set months ago. It was tempting to postpone our departure another day so that we could give the boat one more inspection and get a good night’s sleep, but we worried that the stable weather would soon deteriorate. The sooner we travelled south, the better.
    “I can’t shake the feeling that we’re forgetting something,” I said.
    “I’ve got the list here, and we’ve checked everything off,” Colin replied.
    “It’s too bad we can’t get delivery on the ocean,” I joked. “It’d be great if we could call up a Lisbon restaurant and have them bring us a few meals of grilled fish and veggies.”
    “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Colin laughed. “And we could be teleported to a soft bed every night.”
    Our light banter only further emphasized the spartan existence we would soon be facing. A few hundred metres from our boat, cars and trains whizzed along the waterfront as Lisbon’s work force prepared for another day. Behind the busy street, old stone architecture stood bathed in city lights, and a predawn glow hinted at the city’s permanence. Only a few days before, I had been longing to escape this hectic world of noise, dust, and machines. Now I wasn’t so sure. In the other direction, towards the open Atlantic, the water absorbed and diffused what little light there was, creating a thick grey mat. I felt I was looking into a chasm of nothingness, a world yet to be created.
    Once we pushed off from the dock, our world would be restricted to the space between the gunwales of our small plywood boat. Forgetting something that might normally be inconsequential, such as sunscreen lotion or a can opener, could lead to devastating consequences. So could many other things, such as miscalculating the amount of fuel we’d need for the stove, not bringing enough batteries for the backup GPS , or forgetting a crucial tool. The list of considerations was seemingly infinite. We had realized we must be able to remedy any problem that might occur—from a snapped oar to a broken bone. Self-sufficiency was paramount to survival.
    “Wow, that is one packed boat,” Colin said, as he stood on the dock surveying the vessel.
    He was right. The gear that we couldn’t fit in the storage compartments was lashed onto the deck or squeezed into the cabin. The sleeping berth, designed to be just wide enough for two people, was crowded with supplies that should have been stored elsewhere. Not only did our home look like a cross between a