~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As freezing water thrashed
their rowboat in some of the most treacherous waters in the world, six men
fought for 13 days to make history, becoming the first people to traverse the
infamous Drake Passage with nothing other than sheer manpower.
They dodged icebergs, held their breaths as
giant whales breached near their small boat and rode building-sized waves while
rowing 24 hours a day toward Antarctica.
The team of men from four countries finished
crossing the Drake Passage on Wednesday in just under two weeks after pushing
off from the southern tip of South America.
“This is a really big deal in Antarctic history
to hear about this,” said Wayne Ranney, a Flagstaff, Arizona-based geologist
who has led expeditions to Antarctica and crossed the Drake Passage in
motorized vessels more than 50 times. “One hundred percent of their progress
was done with those 12 arms for 600 (nautical) miles. That’s just phenomenal. I
can’t even imagine.”
Besides the threat to their lives, the men
labored under grueling conditions. Their 29-foot (9-meter) rowboat, named the
Ohana, had to be in constant motion to avoid capsizing. That meant three men
would row for 90 minutes while the other three rested, still cold and wet.
“You’re rowing inside an open hold, 40-foot sea
waves are splashing in your face, near-freezing water is splashing over the
bow,” said 34-year-old Colin O’Brady of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one of the six
men on the boat.
“It was quite harrowing,” O’Brady told The Associated
Press on Thursday in his first interview after the journey. “By the end, we all
lost a good amount of weight and were delirious from the sleep deprivation.”
The men had to use a bucket to go to the
bathroom. To rest, two men needed to lie shoulder to shoulder in a tiny space
while a third would lay in a fetal position in an even smaller area.
“You’re curled up and jammed into a small space,
trying to get a few winks of sleep before the alarm would go off and boom,
you’re back at it again,” O’Brady said.
The toughest part for O’Brady’s fellow rower,
Jamie Douglas-Hamilton of Edinburgh, Scotland, was the constant bombardment
from the elements.
“We were hit by winds from every single
direction ... and the seas down here are very violent — it’s the roughest ocean
in the world,” the 38-year-old said. “We almost capsized many times, and the
problem with that is the water is so cold that if you go in, you’ve probably
got two to five minutes.”
Physically, Douglas-Hamilton said he fought
crippling seasickness and numb hands and feet. At one point, a strap he had to
wear around his ankles while rowing wore through his boots and cut into his
skin all the way to the bone.
“It was absolute agony,” Douglas-Hamilton said.
The other men on the expedition were: Fiann Paul
of Reykjavik, Iceland; Cameron Bellamy of Cape Town, South Africa; Andrew Towne
of Grand Forks, North Dakota; and John Petersen of Oakland, California.
Paul, Douglas-Hamilton and Bellamy are
record-breaking ocean rowers, Towne is a championship rower and has climbed the
tallest mountain on every continent, and Petersen was a championship college
rower.
In addition to storms and waves, the men dodged
icebergs and whales that could easily have destroyed their small vessel. And
then there were the mental challenges, especially during the night shift.
“At night we can’t see the waves as they roll
and crash into us and we can’t see the horizon so there is no sense of
progress,” O’Brady wrote on Instagram as
he documented the journey. “It feels like being inside of a washing machine,
blindfolded where time is standing still.”
Discovery
documented the journey while following the men in a larger, motorized boat.
O’Brady’s wife, Jenna Besaw, was on the
Discovery boat running logistics and watching her husband’s death-defying
adventure.
“There have been some frightening, intense
moments when our boat — a 120-foot-long boat — was lurching forward and up and
over these massive waves, to see the rowboat hidden for minutes at a time was
rather unnerving,” Besaw said.
The row across the Drake Passage is just the
latest adventure for O’Brady, who became the first person to
traverse Antarctica alone without help last year.
A book about that journey is coming out on Jan.
14, 12 years to the day since O’Brady was severely burned in a fire in
Thailand. After the fire, he said he was told he would never walk again.
He said that prognosis has helped fuel each new
adventure.
“I am dreaming of what’s next,” O’Brady said.
“To be determined, but I don’t think my expedition life is over.”
For Douglas-Hamilton, the journey across the
Drake Passage might be his last time setting a record, and he’s content with
that.
“I would rank this as the toughest challenge any
of us has ever done,” he said. “This was such a good one, I’d be happy leaving
it at this. The memories from this one will last forever.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, I guess the adventure is the root reason for this - like climbing Mt. Everest (though of late, that has become a pretty crowded venue!); why? because it's there! We here at Maritime Maunder are quite happy just to read about it.
Until next time,
Fair Winds,
Old Salt
No comments:
Post a Comment