The unscheduled storm
Our 'weather window' turns out to be a smashed bus shelter. Shit gets real in the second part from my cruise to Fiji with Paul Henry, aboard MY Olive!
Two days before we set off on this adventure, Paul Henry described the experience of ocean voyaging to me. “It’s a constant oscillation between boredom and fear,” he said, “and when you’re experiencing one, you wish like hell you were experiencing the other.”
Now, I've never been one for comfort eating, but, curiously, that’s a trait which underwent a rapid reversal on this trip. After I ‘found my sea legs’, that is1.
Finding those involved one final chuck over the side. It was violent. My body scraped the barrel, desperate for new colours to introduce to the vivid blue ocean. I contributed very little to the palette. For 36 hours, I had existed on three pretzels (those tiny, snacky ones), an orange and so much water it no longer tasted like water. Still, my insides had cleverly managed to fashion this all into carrots.
Rising from my quarters below deck, I had found Paul and Dave in the final throes of a sleepover in the saloon. Thanks for the invite! Both were sprawled out at opposite ends of the long couch. The fine furniture had been wrapped in blankets to protect it from any in-transit accidents. Smart move.
Sitting on the rug, I had hazily chatted to my crewmates. “You seem to be better. You’re not going to be sick again,” one of the men I could barely focus on proffered. That was it. In one movement, I jumped up like a surfer on a board, headed through the stern ranch slider and clasped those familiar stainless handrails. In position, I decorated the ocean like a Picasso2. Retching complete, the prophecy could now come true: I wasn’t going to be sick again.
In my poor condition, I’d failed to note anything whatsoever about the voyage so far. It was Thursday - at least, I believed it was - two days after we set off. I opened Google Maps and the blue dot showed us still very close to New Zealand. The boat had swayed around a little bit, but it had never put the shits up me3. Without sea sickness to contend with, there was going to be nothing to this Pacific passaging lark! As far as I was concerned, we’d programmed in a course and destination and MY Olive was driving us there: easy peasy, [anti-scurvy] lemon squeezy.
The day passed by without incident, aside from me managing to consume and keep down a whole orange (not a mandarin, an orange!), several rice crackers and a bottle of ginger beer. Admittedly, I spent the rest of it horizontal on the couch [protector blanket]. Nice sunset!
Friday morning came and I was awake in my bunk, mentally preparing to shift upstairs, when I heard Paul yell “DAVE!”. Now, I’m not Dave, but I still thought I’d better go give him half an ear. There was a definite urgency in the way he’d called “DAVE”, not the usual way Paul yells a name, in which he’d be tongue-in-cheek seeking to scold that name for something. This sounded serious.
I hauled myself up the stairs, which were somewhat more sideways than usual, and stepped into the saloon. The boat tipped the other way and I found myself looking down at the ocean, through the side windows.
Paul was in the galley, pinned against the door of the under-sink cupboard. “We’re in a squall!” he informed me, “44 knot winds! Can you get Dave up to help?”. That’s boat speak for “shit’s got real”. In the interests of inclusivity for non-boaties, 44 knots is within the “strong gale” range. It was 20 knots off hurricane strength, but still warranted getting Dave.
I dashed down below, woke him, then quickly took over Paul on cupboard door duty. What’s so vital about this cupboard, you ask? Well, the latch had worked loose and every time the boat lurched, it would vomit (sorry) several basket-loads of cleaning equipment all over the galley floor. This was pissing Paul off.
Wedged dutifully against that tricksy cupboard, Dave and Paul did some things in the wheelhouse that I didn’t understand and the troubles seemed to dissipate. Most likely because it was just a squall, rather than a full-on storm, however, for the very first time, I found myself paying attention to the intricacies of the journey: we were freakin’ motoring across the Pacific Ocean!
Later that morning, we all congregated in the saloon. There were two topics on the agenda: first, were we still going via Minerva Reef?; and second, what the feck happened to the potatoes? The potatoes in question had been stored in a cupboard - not that cupboard - since we left, but sometime overnight, had started leaking juice through the door. Dave had only bought them at the start of the week.
"How can we get our own back on New World for this?" Paul mused, before turning to the real issue and ruling out Minerva. It was becoming apparent that the ‘weather window’ we had supposedly been blessed with was more of a shattered bus shelter. It simply wasn’t worth the risk of rocking up at an isolated reef in the middle of the Pacific and becoming trapped there by a storm.
This was disappointing news to me. Paul’s election night conversation had opened with the trip sell and the sell had been Minerva Reef. He’d recounted how the depth sounder leaps suddenly from hundreds of metres to a shallow figure in the twenties. Then you enter the blue water lagoon, surrounded by coral. The loneliness of the ocean is left behind, inside one of the earth’s most remote paradises. Ah well, next time4. This was no issue worthy of mutiny.
A bumpy half-night coincided with the end of my watch, the swell getting up and slamming the boat almost bang on 02:00. Poor Dave, taking over from me, wrestled with the course for hours, trying his best to smooth the ride. My appetite back, I’d finally finished my pizza from day one. As I lay on my bunk, however, I began to wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake. The stern cabins were jumping violently and I became convinced the pizza was destined for some novel kind of regurgitation, so I moved upstairs to the saloon to sleep.
All the shifts in course - and the Minerva-not-Minerva detour - was affecting our progress. Every nautical mile travelled not in the true direction of Fiji equated to more nautical miles to the destination and more time at sea. Every little helps (put you off course)!
Looking back now, it’s clear we were stuck inside a big, crazy weather system. The swells continued to hammer us throughout Saturday. Olive’s super stabilisers whirred non-stop, providing some small comfort to our miserable, ocean-overdosed lives. A vegan mince and cheese pie, taken in the rocking and rolling saloon, also brought me some short-lived pleasure.
By Sunday morning, our luck appeared to be changing. The sun was shining, the raging ocean had tamed and I emerged from my quarters to find Paul steering Olive outside on the upper deck. Dave was keeping him company.
“Welcome to the Tropics,” said Paul enthusiastically. It was noticeably warmer. Were we nearly there?
We hung out up top for most of the morning. Being alone in the midst of the world’s largest ocean is something that must be experienced to be truly understood. The horizon is the furthest thing you can see. There are no boats, no land, nothing between you and it, the everlasting curve5 that prevents you from sighting anything that might mean safety. Occasionally a flying fish would break the horizon, forcing your gaze to become localised. But this would prove temporary, the ocean’s enchanting like that.
By that afternoon, the conditions had changed. Of course they had. Winds were getting up, sitting around 30 knots and creating waves that would be deemed impressive, if viewed from the perspective of a neutral, with no skin in the game. The game is “cross this bloody treacherous stretch of water” and all the skin I own was invested in this game. Far from impressed, I stood between the wheelhouse and the galley, mesmerised by the ocean’s ferocious performance. I silently willed it to stop, but remembered it was my brother who was into magic growing up, not me.
For hours we rammed giant wave after giant wave, almost head-on. Occasionally, one would catch the bow and send a huge burst of spray slamming into the boat’s five windshield panes, temporarily obscuring our vision6 of the next watery hazard. Probably for the best.
“Some of these waves are getting short!” noted Paul. “Ships get sunk by short waves. If the next wave hits before the boat has properly righted from the last wave, it can push on the bow and you lose power and the ability to steer.” My notes don’t confirm this, but I know I would have gulped.
We came across another squall. At sea, the squall-not squall boundary is well defined, with the storm clouds and sea conditions cooking up the illusion you’re entering a different physical place. This one chucked a trip-record of 46 knots at us. And a lot of water, from above and below.
Out the other side, the decision was made to change course and let the swells push us on the stern for a while. The conditions had continued to force us away from Fiji. It was time to claw back some gain on goal, although we were still heading too far east.
Dave called in for a weather forecast on the inReach. It opened with “rough night ahead”, then mentioned “five metre swells” and likely signed off with a highly necessary good luck message, which I completely missed due to the smorgasbord of bad emotions the first two parts soggily dumped into a plastic tray and force-fed me.
Reeling from this sucker punch, we did the only sensible thing a crew on a small boat, in the middle of the ocean, in crap conditions, could do: we called Shandy O’clock!
Also blighted by motion sickness for a couple of days, Paul had paused his vino intake. As a stopgap, he’d hit on the idea of mixing my Sawmill zero alcohol beers with the Diet Sprites in his drinks fridge. This gave rise to a regular crew get-together known as Shandy O'clock7.
The three of us stood in the wheelhouse, sipping away on our sugar-and-alcohol-free radlers. Each huge swell rose up behind Olive, gently pushing past every few seconds, sending every section of her hull off-kilter. I looked out the port side window. The sun was dipping, it would be dark in 30. The swells weren’t mellowing, however, they were growing!
“This isn’t just weather,” asserted Paul. “This is a fucking storm!”
He disengaged the autohelm and swung the ship’s wheel to the left, bringing Olive round in the trough between two gigantic waves. The crest of the next wave towered high above us, the dark-blue column still rising. Olive continued to turn, tilting steeply back as she rode up the crest and over it. I desperately wanted to feel sick again; they were easier times!
“Batten everything down!" ordered Paul. I scurried down to the saloon and secured a few items. The place was still in passage-mode, so there wasn’t a huge amount of in-storm admin to perform. I checked my cabin for future debris, then crashed on the couch, for a cry.
I lay on my back, with my fingers crossed and palms down on the top of one thigh. It was an unnatural position, but placing my hands on my tummy still felt too forceful amid the boat’s movements. Scared as hell, I set about some 4-4-4-4 breathing. I wished I could see Zoe and give her a hug. Actually, I wished I could just not be on this boat, out in the middle of this stormy, bitter and enraged ocean any more.
Olive bravely took on each wave, the saloon steeply rocking from front to rear, as each crest passed. Here I was, stuck on a real-life pirate ship ride! The kind I’ve always paid money for, only to get booted off after just ninety seconds. Here was one that might never end!
I held the breathing together and it worked, sort of. Perhaps it only worked to distract me, I don't know. My heart was still racing and my body temperature was high enough to heat a vegan mince and cheese pie right through. What a waste of energy!
Olive rose up, her hull pivoting at an all-new angle for this adventure. She swept over the top of the wave she was on and came flying down the other side, again at an exceptional angle for this passage.
“That was six metres!” Paul confirmed from the wheelhouse.
Autopilot set, he entered the saloon and took up his spot on the other end of the long couch, needing a rest from the day's navigational whack-a-mole.
"Ahhh now Duncan, you're not great at picking a passage now, are you?" he joked. He then took a few minutes of shut-eye, only to awaken when I got up to check the wind strength.
"What did you want to know in there?"
”I was just seeing if wind had dropped,” I replied nervously. It hadn’t.
He could sense my fear, so asked, “what are you worried is going to happen?”
“I dunno. That the waves are going to swamp the bow… or we’re going to capsize and sink. I’m a planner, so my head is going over every eventuality, working out exactly what to do if the need arises.”
He reassured me that Olive had been through far worse on her maiden, round-the-world journey, before taking me through the protocol, in the unlikely event that she capsized. He ended with the even less-likely abandon-ship procedure.
“The ship would always right itself. It wouldn’t just sink,” he assured me. “We’d have time to assess the situation. Abandoning her really would be a last-resort.”
He peppered the talk with jokes. “There’s no vegan snacks in the life raft. You’d have to grab something.” Then after a thoughtful pause, added, “we’d have to save the paintings, too, wouldn’t we?”, nodding towards the saloon’s centrepiece - a print of Warhol’s Elizabeth Taylor.
“Totally. It’s an eight-person raft, so I guess we can make room?” The distraction of conversation was easing me. The boat repeatedly slamming itself over the humongous waves was also becoming strangely comforting. My confidence grew; Olive had this.
Paul’s therapy session wasn’t done. “What's your favourite restaurant?”
“In Auckland or anywhere?”
“Oooh, what the heck, just anywhere.”
And so began a hugely entertaining and distracting conversation about dining locations. Myself, the budget-conscious, more is more, curry-loving vegan, and Paul Henry, the cob-salad, half-duck veteran, with a home in Palm Springs, talked food. It helped a lot and left me thankful for his tact and care.
By the time 22:00 and my watch shift rolled around, the insane motion of the boat had settled to a more predictable rhythm. Holding onto every fixed implement, I scrambled up into the wheelhouse. I was definitely no longer sick: I managed to focus on every instrument - each one’s screen shaking violently - and filled out the log book. I then visited the galley, desperately hunting wraps, chips, fruit, chocolate and whatever I could find to comfort me through the long, bumpy night.
Perched on the black vinyl seat, facing the windshield, but with nothing to see, except the occasional sea spray blast, I found myself rather enjoying the storm. Don’t get me wrong, I was no Lieutenant Dan, working for the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company (“Now, me, I was scared, but Lieutenant Dan, he was mad” - Forrest Gump), more like ten-year-old me, visiting the London International Boat Show, pleading for a go on the simulator. The video track was a bit dark and under-produced, but the creaking sounds and jerky movements were just like the real thing. Plus, you could eat yourself silly on this ride. And I did.
Still to come: getting the wobbles, a ship, a ship and “land ahoy!”. To be continued… read part three now!
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‘Sea legs’, what a bullshit notion! It was a ‘sea stomach’ I needed. There’s nowt wrong with my legs, I’m not an eighteenth century pirate.
A poetic gesture, given some of the artwork aboard this boat.
Literally the opposite, as part one (gruesomely) detailed
Not saying there will be a next time. My answer is a definitive “No. For now. Ask me in four month’s time!”
Sorry, not sorry, flat earthers, the curve is there and it’s a thing.
“It’s a good thing those windows are armoured glass,” Paul reassured us. It was a very good thing.
It was initially a great success, but later had to be cancelled due to a lack of beer.
Wow that is scary. Probably not what you had in mind when you were offered the spot on the boat!