Crossing the Ditch Page 13

  After 15 hours of paddling, we’d fought our way out of our first test – the Sydney eddy. The Tasman rewarded our efforts with a stunning dolphin performance, as a school of 30 of them gracefully danced by our starboard bow. Back on our target course, we looked forward to a good night’s sleep.

  “I wonder what the people looking at the tracking are saying,” Jonesy commented as he prepared the evening meals. “’They’re going to make New Zealand in 10 days…good on ‘em!’”

  Although we’d had a couple of tough days, we soon settled into our daily routine. Our morning ritual consisted of Justin turning on the satphone (short for satellite phone) and me looking at the GPS to see where we’d drifted through the night. Then we’d send Pat a message via the phone, communicating how the night had gone.

  As Jonesy packed up the sleeping gear, I’d tie a rope round my tummy and make my way into the rear pit, naked, to empty the bowels. Pooing in public was remarkably easy – and surprisingly good fun. I squatted at the edge of the boat, with my perfectly pristine bum still a few days away from an explosion of chafing, salt sores and blistering (sorry for the imagery there). When I was finished, I used the salt water to clean up; we didn’t have the luxury of nice soft dunny paper on board. I then lathered a thick layer of Sudocrem between my butt cheeks and under my armpits.

  Next it was time to get dressed, as I donned a wet, chilly pair of thermals which had been sloshing around in the bottom of the cockpit all night. In order to prepare for this torturous process, we’d had cold showers all through the previous winter to prepare us for the inevitable discomfort.

  Once I was dressed and ready to paddle, Jonesy would come out and repeat the same process. While he was getting ready, I’d bring in the para-anchor via the retrieval line. This floating line was attached to the apex of the parachute, so, as you began to retrieve it, the parachute would collapse, allowing you to pull it towards the kayak.

  Jonesy was on the helm as such, and I was the navigator looking at the GPS to make sure we were on course. Both of us had a deck-mounted compass to keep a check on our relative bearing but this was often slightly deceptive. It was quite difficult for Justin to maintain a consistent reading as the waves would continually buck us off course. If we were greater than 20 degrees out, I’d often say “direction” and he’d respond on the rudder. On windy, cloudy days, poor Jonesy had to stare at his compass for hours on end, cautiously fiddling with the rudder. He’d get irritated if I mentioned the “D” word when he was drifting off for more than 30 seconds, but why paddle further than we had to? The pull of the ocean dictated our direction over ground much more than we could. In that first week especially, we could be paddling due east, and find ourselves drifting just as quickly to the south, due to the strength of the EAC.

  One thing that had already amazed us about the expedition was how many people seemed to be taking an interest in our progress. Pat had mentioned in the sked that first night that the media had jumped on our departure from Australia – all the major domestic TV networks had run stories about the expedition, while CNN and BBC World had also picked it up. Jonesy seemed to get more excited than I did about this exposure, but it was still quite motivating.

  Then there was the website we’d set up to allow people to follow our journey – www.crossingtheditch.com.au. We’d expected maybe 500 people to log on to the site each day, but from day one, 5000 people logged on, and that number built throughout the expedition.

  DAY 4

  We woke in the morning to an alarming SMS – there was a serious risk of getting swept up in another adverse current. This one was twice as strong and would tear us north towards Lord Howe Island. We hit the sticks at 6.30am on a bearing of 170 to 180 degrees. Paddling hard all day, we fought to get further south. We were at 34.639 degrees south and had to get to 35 degrees to avoid being swept up in the current we dubbed the “hippy trail” (because it’d take us on a meandering detour via Lord Howe Island). As we packed up shop that evening, our GPS was showing that we were drifting north. We were heading for Lord Howe and we were buggered.

  Just making our 8pm sked, as we’d tried to paddle for as long as possible, we found ourselves at a crossroads. We either had to hit the pits all night or the whole expedition would be over. We decided to paddle two hours on, two hours off – with one of us resting and the other paddling – at least until 6am. The current was sucking us up north, and while we didn’t know whether paddling all night would be enough to get us out of this current, we weren’t going to go down without giving it everything.

  At that low point, you seem to always be able to take one more stroke. Trying to fathom 1.7 million strokes is on a scale the body can’t digest; however, it can take just that one more. That night, we kept telling ourselves it was those single strokes that would get us to NZ.

  But I was beginning to feel beaten. I was tired, and hadn’t been able to fuel sufficiently from the previous morning’s vomiting. All I wanted was rest. Suddenly, Jonesy stepped up to the plate. “I’ll do the first shift,” he said enthusiastically.

  I was taken aback. When we were bushwalking, I’d always shoulder the heavier pack or fetch drinking water from the nearest creek: I was the stronger one. And now here was Justin taking the lead. I was too exhausted to argue with him, and he crawled over me, performing the first of many “nude manoeuvres” to come. I drifted asleep immediately, knowing I’d have to get up in a couple of hours for my shift at midnight.

  Seconds later, the cabin door creaked open.

  “Cas, it’s time for your shift, mate,” came a garbled, but chirpy voice.

  I thought it was part of a dream. Two hours couldn’t have flown that quickly.

  “Cas, get up, mate, it’s 0300,” Jonesy repeated.

  As I woke, I realised that he’d paddled three hours more than he was meant to. The next morning he explained that he’d found nirvana for the first time in his life – although he’d been past the point of sheer exhaustion, he’d never been happier. Despite the negative situation he’d felt an absolute certainty that we were doing what we were put on the planet to do. Kicking myself into gear, I knew I had to get out and paddle for my mate. He’d just done an awesome job and I wasn’t going to let him down. Exiting the cabin, looking like someone who’d had four hours’ sleep in the previous 48, I heard Jonesy say, “This is why I’m out here with you…you’re bloody tough and as mad as a chimp.”

  A blanket of stars beamed above. The sky was like a black canvas wrapped round a light globe, poked with little holes releasing shafts of light in all directions. And with the sparkling reflections of the stars in the waves, you could almost pretend you were floating…until a rogue wave would bring you crashing back to reality. As I struggled to paddle east, the sleep monster kept tapping on my shoulder: I had to get through the night. After downing a couple of No-Doz tablets and listening to a “Love Songs” playlist, the energy around started to change. The stars began to fade as the glow from the east warmed – I was surprised how light it became before the sun peered over the horizon.

  That last hour was hard. Every few minutes my head would drop, and I’d feel my hands let go of the paddle. I’d pull my eyelids open and continue for a couple more minutes before the cycle repeated itself. For the first time, I almost found the barrier where I literally couldn’t take that one more stroke. But that was why we were out here: to test ourselves. The only thing that kept me going that last hour was the all-consuming determination not to let my best mate down. Sure, we’d had our differences before we’d left, but the truth was I loved Jonesy like a brother.

  It was only later we learnt that more than 500 of our family, friends, and people we’d never met were up with us that night, watching our progress and sending us all the positive energy they could muster. I’m certain that energy had an impact on our attempts to escape the hippy trail. I paddled through to 6.30am, and as I looked down at the GPS, hands white and wrinkled, I noticed we’d begun to drift east-southeast. We’d got out.
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  DAY 5

  A rogue wave leapt stealthily into the cabin at 11am, drenching us completely. It was the Tasman’s idea of a quiet wake-up call.

  Bleary-eyed, we rose feeling exhausted, but chuffed. We were back on track. The focus over the next few days would be to try to reduce our fatigue levels and establish some sort of sustainable routine. We couldn’t keep these all-night pushes up for the entire passage: our bodies wouldn’t handle the punishment.

  We paddled a few leisurely hours in the afternoon, then entered the cabin nice and early. Before falling asleep, Justin called his parents for the first time on the passage. After some idle chit-chat, he told his dad he’d had the most amazing moment of joy and clarity the previous night, and that he’d never been this happy in his life.

  Unfortunately, from my perspective, I hadn’t come anywhere near reaching nirvana. In fact, at times I’d felt almost the complete opposite – out of my element and scared. Speaking of nirvana, though, that night, for the first time on the voyage, we were able to get a decent sleep – about eight glorious hours.

  DAY 6

  As we stuck our heads out of the cabin the next morning, we realised day 6 was going to be wet. When it was a wet day’s paddle, we had our spray skirts done up and Gore-Tex cags over the top. Although this kept us relatively warm, the barrier didn’t give our skin a chance to breathe. We soon discovered that this resulted in both of us getting violent outbursts of prickly heat when we entered the cabin in the evening (prickly heat being a skin irritation that attacks in waves, feeling like thousands of needles jabbing into you – it’s kind of unpleasant).

  Lying side by side, Justin’s head was crammed up the far end near the rudder and mine was next to the cabin door, so I could spew easily if I had to.

  Jonesy kept me awake for about two hours that night as his body spasmed – with his hands involuntarily slapping and punching his naked torso. Sleeping in the womb of Lot 41 was cramped to say the least, and whenever Justin uncontrollably spasmed, I’d be woken up. It wasn’t his fault, though, and I couldn’t get angry at him.

  That day we’d had our first decent “deep and meaningful” chat. Adventures have always given us the time out to think and talk about all the important stuff in life – back home in Sydney, we were often too busy to reflect on the past and dream about the future. We mulled over the universal topic – girls and love – for hours. Our conversations out in the wild have always seemed to gravitate towards this supernova. We’ve spent hours – no, days – in these kinds of discussions while kayaking and bushwalking. On this particular day, I found myself talking about my high-school sweetheart Jen, who I never properly dated (she was the girl I’d invited to the tragic school formal), while Justin was reminiscing about a girl he’d gone out with a couple of years earlier (his only “real” relationship).

  Another game we played that day was to paint a picture of our lives in a year’s time. One of us would prod the other in growing the vision. We then did the same for two years’ time, five years’, 10, 20 etc. The rule was that you had to spit out exactly what you were thinking – you weren’t allowed to let your mind get in the way of what you said. As a result, the words came out so quickly they were almost incomprehensible. Which made the game more entertaining, for some reason. After listening to my premonition, Justin concluded with absolute certainty that I was destined to be a madman.

  Our conversations were interrupted only by the occasional wave crashing over us, and the Squealing Game. Each time we were splashed by a wave, we’d see who could make the most girly sqweal – a hardcore game for two courageous young adventurers, I know. Somehow, Jonesy always seemed to one-up me on the sqweal pitch.

  Getting ready for cabin mode at the end of day 6, we did a stocktake of our bodies. We were both alarmed by the chafing between our arse cheeks, the angry-red skin reminding us of the bubbling surface of a lava flow. My right shoulder felt as though I was back in Year 5, with the school bully giving me dead arms all day for eating olives in the playground. The final point of note was the large blisters that had formed on our thumbs. We’d been training close to 30 hours a week in the build-up to the crossing and before we’d left we had significant calluses. Unfortunately, because we were so wet the calluses disintegrated and fell off, leaving soft, tender skin underneath which took a beating.

  As we did our 8pm sked, Pat told us that we’d paddled 70 hours out of the last 130 – no wonder it was like experiencing the world’s worst hangover. We’d never imagined that our hangover expertise from all those parties at uni would actually prepare us for dealing with the Tasman!

  DAY 7

  We began the day with a contentious question, destined to fire the debate and scorn between us for hours: who’s the most gorgeous woman in the world?

  “I can’t remember her name, Jonesy,” I said, because I couldn’t remember her name, “but she’s short, blonde, in a modern, olden-day movie…”

  “You’re going to have to give me more than that, Cas.”

  “Okay, in the movie she has really red lips and small feet.”

  “Oh, that’s a giveaway,” said Jonesy, possibly with a hint of sarcasm.

  We went on for an hour, with my clues becoming more and more hopeless. Eventually, Justin asked exasperatedly, “Is it Elisha Cuthbert?”

  I still wasn’t sure, but the name kind of rang a bell. “Yeah, that’s it – she’s beautiful.”

  Two weeks later, Jonesy was talking about a movie with Scarlett Johansson, and I realised it wasn’t Elisha I’d been thinking about at all, it was her. It’s probably pretty obvious I don’t subscribe to Who magazine.

  These conversations were a great distraction from the niggling physical problems we were experiencing. For instance, the chafe on the bum was getting bad: we’d quickly learnt that as soon as you planted yourself on the beanbag any wiggling would agitate the raw chafe and pain would dart right up your back. The pain was so bad, in fact, that every hour I found myself having to lather Sudocrem all over my backside.

  As I was in the front pit, poor Jonesy was subjected to the hideous sight of me dacking myself, bending slightly forward like a lawn bowler and rubbing this cream into my bum crack. Prior to the ditch, Justin (like most people) had associated zinc cream with beach family holidays and summertime. Sadly, he now sees it in a completely different light – it’ll never be the same!

  It came out of nowhere. The monotony of life in a stark landscape tends to bring out your inquisitive nature, and we were no exception. Paddling along in silence that afternoon, Justin blurted out, “I think there’s something in the water 100 metres up ahead.”

  I muttered the first thought that occurred to me. “Great, our first shark…”

  “No, mate,” Jonesy replied. “It’s yellow.”

  I stupidly tried to picture a funny looking yellow shark. Even more stupidly, I pictured it out loud.

  “No, you idiot, I think it’s a buoy or something.”

  We eagerly paddled towards it, welcoming anything at all to break the monotony. Bobbing up and down, we were only able to get a fix on it when both the mystery object and Lot 41 were on the crest of a wave. As we pulled up, we realised it was a yellow fishing buoy – about the size of a soccer ball. We glided next to it, stared at it excitedly, poked it…then lifted it out of the water. To our astonishment, the underbelly was littered with barnacles and algae. An ecosystem had formed underneath with countless slimy mackerel: little did we know that Lot 41 would nurture a similar ecosystem in the not-too-distant future.

  It was a fantastic discovery. Our faces beamed with childlike excitement and we laughed and yelled as if the Wallabies had won the World Cup in the 80th minute. This simple encounter kept us talking and happy for hours. Where had it come from? Had it fallen off a fishing vessel in a storm or drifted from a distant land? How long had it been at sea for? The questions allowed our minds to roam and drift for the rest of the afternoon.

  As we paddled eastward late in the day, with the
conversation having finally petered out, an ominous-looking storm cloud hovered in front of Lot 41. Would it engulf us?

  “Hey, Jonesy, do you reckon we can try and steer around this thing?” I asked optimistically. With a cruising speed of less than 4 kilometres per hour, we hardly had a chance of manoeuvring around the front like a bigger vessel might.

  Out at sea, you can clearly see the boundary where rain ends. It was a concept I’d never thought about back on land – with buildings, trees, hills, etc obscuring the view – but there has to be a line where sun starts and rain stops. Because you’re free from obstructions out on the ocean, the line is quite distinguishable.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t miss the squall. Strong winds hit us, then rain, but before long we popped out the other side to a beautiful afternoon.

  We’d seen the beauty of the ocean but I hadn’t felt it. Well, not till the twilight hours of day 7. The last hour of paddling – between 6.30 and 7.30pm – quickly became my favourite time of day. It was when the sun had just disappeared behind us, leaving the water a rich black and the sky a soft array of pastel colours. Through most of the journey, to our left the sky was baby blue, violet and purple, with the occasional burning orange cloud providing a contrast to the backdrop. On the right, the sky was a little angrier, with fiery oranges, reds, and yellows.

  We often talked about the different landscapes on either side of the kayak personifying two females. On the left was the quiet, elegant lady wearing either a long night gown or dinner dress; on the right the much more fiery woman, with bright red lips and fingernails – great dancer and super sexy. It wasn’t hard for us to see how natives around the world created folklore around “the heavens” and nature, when here we were, doing the same thing ourselves.