Last September, Colin Angus and fiancée Julie Wafaei set off from Lisbon on a quest to row across the Atlantic. In this, their first update of the new year, Angus reports on their progress after more than 100 days at sea.
Cirrus and alto-cumulus clouds streaked the blue skies above our boat. These delicate white whiffs painted with long, even brush strokes immediately evoked feelings of dread. We have only seen such clouds three times since we left Lisbon and each time they indicated the presence of a tropical cyclone.
After consulting our cruising guide, the Atlantic Pilot Atlas, Julie and I felt somewhat reassured. Only one tropical storm has occurred in the month of January in the North Atlantic since records were started. After having battled two hurricanes and one tropical storm in our open row boat, we were hoping that Mother Nature's wrath was over for the year.
A phone message from a friend earlier this week, however, confirmed our worst suspicions. Tropical storm Zeta, spawned in the eastern Atlantic was heading westward.
We called the U.S.-based hurricane centre and learned that the second January cyclone in history was only 540 nautical miles away and heading in our direction.
Julie and I are currently going through our well-rehearsed routine of preparing for a potential encounter with the storm. We are lashing everything down, padding the cabin interior and inspecting our safety equipment.
So far, our closest storm encounter was with hurricane Vince, when the eye passed about 150 kilometres northwest of our vessel. Huge foaming waves and strong winds pounded our small boat and the experience served as both an initiation and a foreshadowing of things to come.
Last week, our biggest adventure was an encounter of a different sort: with a giant dorado we named Legend. The fish, almost two metres long, joined the school of smaller fish that had been following our boat for several days. We had been catching the small dorado for food and tried not to tempt Legend with our last good lure.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to choose one's prey when throwing a line, and we watched in dismay as Legend changed his colouring from bright blue to stealth grey and, in the blink of an eye, lunged at the flying-fish-shaped plug.
The force of his strike caused the cable leader to part and the line went slack.Losing our last decent lure was a disappointment that goes beyond the woes of sport fishing. Julie and I still had at least two months to go before reaching land, and it is essential that we continue catching fish to supplement our food stores. We had one remaining hook, no weights and a rubber squid, which has all but two tentacles bitten off.
Legend, infuriated by the lure hanging from his lip, did a series of three-metre leaps into the air trying to shake it off. We tried without luck to re-catch the fish to get the lure back.
Just when we were about to give up and continue rowing, Legend, gleaming a bright yellow, leapt for the umpteenth time into the air about 10-15 metres from the boat. This time, however, he succeeded in shaking free the lure, which arced through the air into the water.
With encouragement from Julie, I leapt into the ocean and swam frantically towards the plug, certain that the neutrally buoyant lure would be dragged down into the depths by the two-metre-long cable leader attached to it.
Miraculously, the fish had fatigued the metal with it's thrashing and the leader had fallen off.
Minutes later I was back on deck with the lure in my hand. We had the lure, the hook, and the weight safely back in the boat.
It looks like we'll be eating fish for a while yet.
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