|
|
November 20
Jenifer Clark rules! Yesterday afternoon I received (via e-mail) Jenifer's
latest chart of the ocean currents in my neighborhood. Because of this, I
was able to surf a cold eddy most of the day and made good progress to the
southwest despite a strong wind from the south (sometimes south-southwest,
sometimes south-southeast). The rowing was a bit rough; there seems to be
a great deal of energy in the waves.
This afternoon as I was rowing, the boat paused in the water as if it was
held by a giant hand. I turned to look over my shoulder and watched a wave
from the west break over the bow and wash the deck. I have never EVER
taken water over the bow before. It can only happen if I am rowing against
the swell. As it is, in trying to work south, I must often row parallel to
the swell. This was just a freak wave from the west. Over the course of
the afternoon I saw more and more large waves from due west. I imagine
they are cast-offs from Hurricane Lenny - now Tropical Storm Lenny. By
early evening, I'd managed to row (with the help of the current) 24 miles
to the southwest.
At 7:30 PM (UTC) I telephoned Mac McClure to hear the latest weather
update. The word is that Lenny is headed straight toward me once again.
The good news is that the storm continues to weaken by the hour. Mac told
me that Dane Clark's advice was to "batten down the hatches" and be
prepared for anything. I deployed "papa bear," my big parachute sea anchor,
and climbed back inside. I was not the least bit amused to hear that Lenny
was coming after me once again. I telephoned Kathy Steward for a second
opinion.
Kathy confirmed that Lenny was moving southwest on a collision course with
me. I was in heavy thunderstorms, but the wind was from the southeast.
The wind would shift to southwest before Lenny arrived. After this
conversation, I closed all the vents in my cabin and went out on deck to
fill my second ballast tank. It was raining very hard, but I managed to
top off both tanks. I pulled my storm sea anchor out of its hold and
placed it nearer my cabin and organized my spare anchor rode (rope - line).
I did not imagine "papa bear" would last the night without
self-destructing or breaking a line. Conditions were not too bad. The
wind was 30-35 knots and the seas were 10-12 feet. The rain poured down in
sheets. By the time I climbed back into the cabin, I was drooling wet.
Sitting on the starboard side of the boat, I changed into my old shirt from
the 1st half of the row and put on my dry shorts. I heard an unusual wave.
I looked out the cabin hatch to see this wave about 15 feet high break
over the port side of the bow. The wave broke with several thousand
gallons of water into my starboard gunwale, which acted like a catcher's
mitt. Being completely swamped, the gunwale went under water and kept right
on going. Because I was sitting on the starboard side, my body weight only
added to the mix. My feet (on the port side of the boat) went up over my
head. My knees hit the ceiling and I crawled toward the port side hoping
to abort a complete rollover. It didn't work. I did a full 360. The boat
came upright again and it took a minute or two for the water to drain out
of the port gunwale. I was lucky.
Compared to other capsizes this one seems quite gentle. Heels-over-head
rolls are far better than head over heels rolls. In a heels-over-head
roll, your legs hit the ceiling first. In a head-over-heels roll, your
head hits first. Even with my fragile feet, the latter is much to be
preferred. The first instinct after a capsize is to panic. There was a
tremendous urge to open the hatch and set off the distress signal.
Instead, I took a deep breath. What made this capsize upsetting is that I
cannot protect myself or the boat from these rogue waves. I must stay on
the sea anchor in order to keep the stern perpendicular to the regular
swells coming from the southeast. This places the bow in a position toward
the northwest, and leaves the boat vulnerable to these "Loony Lennys" as I
have named the waves from the west.
Before long the fear of these waves from the west subsided. The wind
shifted and began to come from the southwest. In this configuration a wave
from due west would hit the cabin and not swamp the deck. Once the wind
shifted, my attention turned to Lenny. While the storm had been
significantly downgraded, it still had many powerful thunderstorms and
squalls. I was informed, "The models forecast 30-35 knot winds with twelve
foot seas." "This is going to be a yawn," I thought.
I was wrong and so were the forecast models. There was a strong band of
thunderstorms that went well south of my position and a moderately strong
band that came right over me during the night. As this band of
"convection" crossed me the first time, the storm changed directions. It
turned from going southeast to going northeast and the band crossed again.
This brought the wind around and the waves went from being bands of swells
to pyramids of water. The waves were shaped like shark's teeth and they
DID have a bite. I'd taken down my American Flag and used duct tape to
tape my wind gauge to the flagpole just out of curiosity. Late in the
night, I went out to heed nature's call and checked the wind. There were
gusts to 77 knots and average wind speeds of 54 knots. The pyramidal waves
looked to be 18-20 feet high. This storm was no "yawn."
Lenny had all the whistles and bells of Hurricane Danielle without the
immense Maytag waves that lifted my boat, spun it around and launched it
through whirls of froth. The shark's tooth waves sounded very loud, but
they only slapped the boat hard from side to side. The ocean did not
change color from blue to turquoise. The wind knocked the top of the wave,
blunting the shark's teeth, but I did not lose the horizon is a fog of mist
and spray. The boat did many shoulder rolls throughout the night, but did
not capsize again. More than anything else, Lenny's passing was loud. The
cacophony of thunder seemed ever present. The waves knocking on the roof
and smacking the sides of the boat made me wonder whether the structure
would hold. (My friends gave me a quote: "The Titanic was constructed by
professionals, amateurs built the ark." My friends and I built and
re-built the American Pearl. She's an "ark" for sure.) The lightning
bounced around the interior of the cabin, where we used reflective tape to
create a vapor barrier around my heat shield. I could see the flashes of
lightning even with my eyes closed.
I did not sleep. I passed much of the night with my fingers in my ears
singing hymns at the top of my lungs. My sense of faith got plenty of
exercise today.
November 21
I counted the seconds until dawn, and then I counted the seconds until I
could phone home without rousing someone from REM sleep. At 5:45 AM
Kentucky time, I called Mac McClure. Physically it had been a difficult
night, but psychologically the last 36 hours had been devastating. I was
in tears when I called. I desperately wanted Mac to tell me that the worst
was over. He tried his best. This put him in an awful position. The fact
that I was alone in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean in wretched
weather was a problem he could not fix. Men (God love them) have a
desperate need to fix things. He checked the Internet and consulted
various reports; he THOUGHT the worst was over. This was the best the man
could do, but it wasn't good enough for a vaguely hysterical person in a
rowboat riding out a storm. (I wanted a written guarantee.) I tried to
thank Mac, but the fear in my voice made the thanks sound hollow.
He recommended I call Kathy Steward to see what she could tell me. I tried
to call Kathy. Her line was busy at 6:00 AM and stayed busy until well
after 7:00 AM. She was gathering my next weather report via the Internet. By the time
I got through to Kathy I had myself slightly more under control. She
assured me that the worst was indeed over. She thought it looked like the
heaviest part of the storm had traveled over me (except for an even uglier
band in the south). Kathy let me know that the forecasters were now
calling Lenny a Tropical Low instead of a Tropical Storm. They could call
it fruit loops for all I cared as long as the worst of it was past. "Yes,
the worst is over." Kathy said she would call and confer with Dane Clark.
A few hours later, Dane through Kathy reported that I should expect that
the center of the low (the eye of the former hurricane) to pass DIRECTLY
over my position between 12:00 and 1:00 PM (EST). What are the odds of a
storm that formed 1000+ miles to the west traveling EAST and passing over a
small rowboat in the middle of the ocean? The good news was that when
Lenny stalled over the Caribbean Islands it lost most of its punch. When
the eye passed over, I saw patches of blue sky. There were no particularly
strong winds associated with it.
Throughout the afternoon I had many strong squalls, but none lasted more
than 45 minutes. In the lulls between squalls, the wind and waves followed
the forecast models. First they were 30-35 knots and 12 foot seas and a few
hours later they dropped to 20-25 knots and ten foot seas. In the squalls
I had gusts to 56 knots and average winds of 45-50 knots. The maximum seas
associated with these patches of rough weather were probably in the
neighborhood of 18 feet.
By mid-afternoon the weather was calm enough that I could nap a little.
After I'd managed to piece together a few hours of sleep between squalls,
the world seemed much better. It took until almost midnight for the
weather to calm enough that sleep was easy.
November 22
The weather continues to improve, but I have winds from the west at 20-25
knots. There will be no progress today. Funny this doesn't bother me
anymore. Two weeks ago, a "no progress" day would leave me in a snarling
rage.
I was supposed to phone Christophe Hebert at 13:00 UTC, but I fell asleep.
It was 13:30 before I made the call. This made Christophe very nervous.
I've never missed a call before. Also, from what he told, me my Argos Unit
has stopped transmitting. Between no Argos transmission and no phone call,
the European team was very worried. So, they were extraordinarily happy to
hear from me. Christophe told me to expect headwinds until Thursday.
I may not make much progress before Thanksgiving. Before Lenny, my friends
and I planned to share Thanksgiving dinner in Guadeloupe. I'm not sure
where I will land when I land. If the wind continues to push me north,
Antigua may be an easier landing spot than Guadeloupe. I'm not sure there
is much point in rowing 70 miles south against the wind when I can quarter
the wind rowing west and reach Antigua. We'll figure it out when the
weather clears.
|
|