Adrift Part 1
1981
Each night I lost something. On the night before I was to leave Suva, Fiji, I misplaced my copy of WAR AND REMEMBRANCE with three hundred pages unread. Presumably I knew how World War II turned out, but I was less certain about the lives of the Henrys and Jastrows. And once underway: two buckets, six gallons of water, the moon, and then, in effect, CHIDIOCK herself. It seemed almost as thought fate and the sea were methodically reducing me to the minimum for survival.
I left the Royal Suva Yacht Club dock at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 7, 1980. The packing and plastic bagging and stowing had taken longer than usual, although CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was carrying less than the load to which she had become accustomed the previous year. What had become routine when we were moving on every month or so now had to be thought through and planned; but by 10:30 everything was in place. I had cleared Customs the preceding day, and Immigration had come by that morning--both special courtesies so that CHIDIOCK would not have to go alongside the main Customs dock, which was scaled for oceangoing shipping not 18’ open yawls.
I still had a dollar of Fijian small change, so I walked up the dock to the yacht club bar and ordered a pitcher of Chapman’s, a soft-drink mix of ginger ale and biters. Although I had worked up a thirst in the morning sun, a full pitcher was too much and no one was around to share it with. Quickly I downed three or four glasses, but I was eager to be off and left the half-full pitcher on the table. Within a week I would be dreaming of it: bubbles rising through amber liquid, ice cubes tinkling, beads of condensation forming along the rim.
During her layover for the cyclone season, CHIDIOCK had become a wildlife refuge. Toads croaked from the moist darkness beneath her hull; a colony of ants had built a nest in the centerboard well; birds found her gunwale a convenient perch; and a gecko had moved into the cockpit. Surprisingly, but perhaps because of the gecko, there were no cockroaches aboard.
I did not see the gecko until after I had returned CHIDIOCK to the water and was living aboard her at the Yacht Club anchorage. Then, sometimes in the evening when I was reading by the kerosene lamp, I would catch a glimpse of the little lizard scurrying across the periphery of light. For his own good I tried to catch him and return him to the safety of the shore. Even the best of passages aboard CHIDIOCK is not something I would wish on a gecko; but he easily evaded me. So as we sailed out Suva Pass into the predicted rough southeast swells, I half expected to see a poor seasick lizard, greener than usual, climb groggily onto the seat, stand on tiptoe, and peer longingly back at the receding hills. It did not happen. In fact I never saw the gecko again. I hope he got off before it was too late.
I cleared for Port Moresby two thousand miles west and north, where I hoped to obtain the necessary yacht permit from the Indonesian embassy so I could continue quickly on to Bali. On the chart it was a straightforward passage, the only tactical decision being whether to make the move north before or after passing the New Hebrides. More immediately we had to clear the reefs around Viti Levu.
Although I had twice sailed along the coast in other boats, I almost found myself embayed several times by long projections of the main reef reaching far to the south toward the smaller island of Beqa. The wind was steady at twenty knots, but the waves were disproportionately high. The forecast had been for up to twenty-five knot wind and twelve-foot waves off the west end of the islands. Conditions approached that near Suva, with cresting ten-foot waves in the narrowest part of the passage, through which I had to steer by hand.
By late afternoon we were past Beqa. I was able to get CHIDIOCK to balance long enough so that I could eat a can of tuna. A ketch appeared from the west, tacked twice, and headed toward me. As she came close I saw that despite being fifty feet long, she was working hard going to windward. She crossed ahead of us and fell off to reach alongside on a parallel course. Part of her rubrail was hanging loose. A jib dangled from the bow. The three crew were haggard.
“What island is that?” a bearded man in foul-weather gear called. He was pointing south.
“Beqa,” I shouted above the wind.
He relayed the word to someone in the cabin. Then, “Can you spell it?”
I did, adding that there is an alternate spelling beginning with an M on some charts.
The larger boat was moving past CHIDIOCK and the man yelled to the cockpit crew to let the staysail slat. “And where is Suva?”
This was more than I expected. I pointed over my shoulder to the northeast. “About 30 miles.”
“Our engine is broken,” the man cried, as the big ketch surged beyond shouting distance.
They turned into the wind and hardened up on the sheets.
When they were close enough, I yelled a warning about the reefs. They waved and disappeared into the gloomy dusk. I sailed around the world before I returned to Fiji and learned that they lost their boat that night on the reef.
A few hours later the light marking the island of Vatu Leile, about twenty miles south, and the last obstacle before we had open ocean to the New Hebrides, appeared off the port bow. The wind and waves had increased. CHIDIOCK was sliding down waterfalls, constantly on the verge of either broaching or gybing. Despite having the jib sheeted to the tiller and balanced by four shock cords for self-steering, I had to keep my hand on the tiller. But sometimes we still gybed when, despite my putting the helm hard over, the stern was carried through the wind by a wave. The force of the wind was so great when this happened that I had to use both arms to bring the tiny yawl back on course. Some return to the sea, I thought. Or is this normal and I’ve forgotten? Several waves swept CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE, but I did not discover the consequences until morning.
By midnight the light on Vatu Leile was well astern. I knew that we had made more than sixty miles since noon. I was tired, and there was no reason to exhaust myself by steering through the night, so I hove to for a few hours’ sleep.
At dawn the wind and waves were still high, the waves higher than those in the fifty-knot storm we had been in around Tahiti, perhaps as high as fifteen feet, though the wind was only thirty knots. I reached for the small water jug I kept lashed to the mizzen mast for daily use. It was not there. More irritated than alarmed, I crawled back to see if it had fallen beneath the inflatable dinghy lashed to the stern locker. But it was gone. The passage to Port Moresby should take three or four weeks and I had debated carrying three or four of the collapsible five-gallon water containers, in addition to the small one-gallon jug. Because CHIDIOCK was stern-heavy when loaded, I did fill a fourth container and lashed it to the bow cleat. Now I saw that it too was gone, leaving behind only the nicely secured handle. Overnight, twenty-one gallons of water had been reduced to fifteen--more than ample, but distressing.
After eating a granola bar and drinking a cup of cold coffee, I tried to get underway again. A wave caught CHIDIOCK just as I was turning her and threw us sideways a couple of boat lengths. Once we completed the turn and the wind steadied on the port quarter, I was able to get her to steer herself as we fled westward at six knots.
Steadily throughout a day of fast if wet sailing, we made our way through the worst of the band of rough water off Viti Levu. The odd wave continued to break, but now the waves were six feet to twelve feet and the wind had dropped to twenty knots. That second night I was able to let CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE continue to sail, although I slept very lightly, a part of my mind alert to an accidental gybe, which threatened every half hour or so. Usually I awakened in time, but twice I was too late and we were hammered. I knew I was pushing her too hard, that it would be safer to heave to, but I also knew that every mile was carrying us out of the rough seas.
The next morning I found that the two buckets, one inside the other, that I used as the head, had washed away, leaving--as had the water container--their handles neatly lashed behind. I had one bucket left, but I began to wonder what would be next.
All that day, Friday, conditions improved, although I still could not get the stove to remain lit or manage a sun sight with the sextant. That night we lost nothing except the last sliver of the waning moon, hidden by clouds.
Saturday, wind and waves dropped further to about eighteen knots and four to six feet. Saturday night I fell asleep at 8:00 p.m. in the belief that I would have my first real rest since leaving Suva.
Just before 10:30--when I looked at my watch a few minutes later it was 10:33--CHIDIOCK slid down a wave and pitchpoled. It is difficult to separate what I concluded later must have happened from my sensations at the time. One moment I was sleeping wrapped in the tarp on the port side of the cockpit, and the next I was flying through the air, catapulted like a pebble, as the stern came up. Dimly I recall a clank, seemingly metal to metal, and then the stern rising. I was afraid it would come down on me, that I would be impaled by the mizzen mast. Then I was in the water. I struggled free from the tarp, choked as a wave passed, and swam the five yards back to CHIDIOCK. I believe that given time she would have righted herself, but when I reached her, she was on her starboard side, her masts 30º below the water. Worse than last time, I thought as I swam around the bow. When I put my weight on the centerboard, she staggered upright.
I flopped over the side, which was not difficult. The gunwale was level with the sea. Much worse than last time. I fumbled beneath the water for my eyeglasses and found them still wedged in place by the bilge pump.
CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE felt as though she were sinking. Except for a few inches at the bow, she was completely below the water. With each wave, she dropped from beneath me and I though that she was gone. But each time she came back. Her sails cracked in the wind. The pitchpole had been explosive and the jib and main were ripped along the leech tapes. The mizzen mast support bracket was broken, and the mast and sail floated astern. I pulled them back inside the hull, though I do not know why I bothered. Inside, outside, there was no difference.
Food bags, clothing bags, the bag with navigation tables, all were secured to a long line tied to the mainmast, and all were bobbing around the surface. An oar floated away, as did a bag I recognized as containing books. It was still within arm’s reach and I could have saved it--later I regretted that I didn’t--but it did not seem important at the time.
A mess of lines writhed like snakes. I felt beneath the sea for the jib-furling line. We were lying beam on to the waves, the sails trimmed for a broad reach, and by the time I furled the jib and found and released the main halyard, both sails were in shreds.
Another oar floated into the darkness. The cloud cover was complete, broken by not even a single star. Beneath the black sea, CHIDIOCK was unfamiliar. I could only reach into the depths blindly, catch an object and lift it to my face for identification. So far surprisingly little seemed to have been lost. But I could not find the last bucket. Only a plastic bowl was left to use to bail.
Gradually I gained confidence that CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was not going sink. She was, as a former friend liked to say, an object for going out, rather than an object for going down. And had I been able to clear the water from her within those first hours, we could have resumed sailing not much the worse for wear.
I had contemplated such a swamping and made preparations, but the reality was more chaotic than I expected. The unsolvable problem was the centerboard slot. I had cut two pieces of wood to screw into place to block this slot, but in more than six thousand miles, even in an earlier capsize in which I was also thrown from the boat on the passage from San Diego to the Marquesas, I had not needed them. When last seen they were in the forward starboard bin with the spare anchor rode, now hopelessly twisted with the mainsheet, bags, oars, and tattered pieces of sail. I waded forward gingerly--with each movement CHIDIOCK dropped away like an express elevator--but I could not find them. Presumably they had already floated away. With a sense of futility I gave up the search, returned aft, and sat down in waist-deep water. I took my little bowl and began to bail. I did not expect it would do any good, but I did not have anything better to do that night.
CHIDIOCK almost seemed to try to help, to try and ride higher, though probably it was only that the waves decreased slightly without my noticing, and gradually I made some progress. The gunwales were now sometimes an inch or two above the sea. I stopped bailing and stuffed pieces of my foam sleeping pad around the centerboard, but turbulence carried them away.
After another hour of bailing, I permitted myself some hope. We had several inches of freeboard, the seats were usually clear, and the water was mostly confined to the cockpit well. Only four more inches and I would reach the top of the centerboard trunk. But it did not happen. For two more hours I struggled without gaining even a fraction of an inch. The Pacific Ocean and I had reached equilibrium. Whenever I thought I might be gaining, CHIDIOCK heeled a few degrees and took on more water.
At 3:30 a.m. my back cramped. I was very tired. Perhaps the answer was to wait until dawn, jettison everything not absolutely essential that had not already jettisoned itself, and try again.
CHIDIOCK was too awash to permit any useful rest, so I inflated the dinghy, pumping a foot pump by hand. When the dinghy could support me, I secured it to CHIDIOCK with two lines and fell inside. Soaked to the skin beneath my foul-weather gear and no longer warmed by exertion, I lay shivering through the remainder of the night.
By 6:00 a.m. I was back aboard CHIDIOCK. She seemed lower in the water than when I left her. I transferred the food bag and the two remaining water containers to the dinghy. One container held about a gallon and a half of slightly brackish water; the other, a gallon. The third container had been punctured during the night. I also moved the navigation bag, the document bag, a Nikonos camera, two of the three compasses, the sextant, the solar still, the big tarp, and two bags of clothes. The clothes were not important, but I had already learned that even a small amount of water in the inflatable made rest difficult, and I wanted the bags to lie upon.
Almost everything else I threw away: the spare rudder; a box of screws and bolts; the typewriter; two new camp stoves; camera equipment, which I had trusted to an allegedly watertight aluminum case that wasn’t; and the kerosene lamps. When I untied the main securing lines and opened the aft lacker, other things I would have liked to keep, such as the medical kit, a suit of new sails, and an underwater flashlight, washed away.
Finally, one way of the other, CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE was stripped of all but her fifteen pound CQR anchor and rode, which I thought would be useful if we ever reached land.
Once again I settled in with my bowl and once again I made progress to the same level of four inches of water over the centerboard trunk. No matter how furiously I scooped, that, once again, was all.
Every hour my back cramped and I had to flop into the dinghy to rest. With such breaks I continued to bail through the day.
In late afternoon I accepted the inevitable and climbed into the dinghy, this time to stay. I sprawled on the clothes bags. Something hard dug into my leg. Too exhausted to sit up, I squirmed until it slipped to one side. I noticed that the sextant case had washed away; but I did not care. The navigation bag was beneath my head. I pictured the chart. Navigation had been by dead reckoning all the way from Suva. We were about halfway between Fiji and the New Hebrides, 18º or 19º S, 172º or 173º E. Not very precise, but what did it matter? Three hundred miles from the nearest land.
The dinghy spun so that I could see CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE. Torn sails snapped. The mizzen mast floated off the stern again. I should do something, I thought, but I did not move. I just lay there, thinking how much had changed and how quickly, in the passing of a single wave.