Rowboat in a Hurricane by Julie Angus Read Free Book Online Page B

out the partially open Plexiglas hatch as he lay on his side, munching on crackers. Although his hair was blond, his beard was mostly red, and now that it was thick and bushy, he looked like a savage Viking. And, indeed, the blood of the Norse warriors possibly did flow through his veins. His mother and father are both Scottish—their families came from Caithness, an area once settled by Scandinavians.
    I couldn’t help but wonder if a seafaring heritage makes a difference to one’s level of comfort on the ocean. Colin’s father was a sea captain, and many of his relatives worked in the fishing industry. I, however, come from a family devoid of any Captain High Liners. My mother comes from a farming region in a landlocked part of Germany, my father from a large city in Syria, and, as far I knew, the closest anyone in their families got to a water-based job was when the farm fields were irrigated.
    Even if nature took a back seat to nurture, I was no further ahead. Although Colin did not meet his seafaring father until he was an adult, his mother is equally adventurous, and she instilled him with a love of the outdoors through hikes in the mountains and along Vancouver Island’s coast. Even today, in her seventies, she is a very active member of the Comox chapter of the B.C. Mountaineering Club. She consistently places near the top of her age group in running races. In comparison, my family was both sedentary and interior. My father equated the outdoors with discomfort; he had spent too much time in military arctic survival courses. My mother worried that outdoor activity was unhealthy and would make me sick, or that some other unforeseen danger would befall me. Now they both shake their heads and wonder where in the child-raising process they erred.
    A LARGE WAVE crashed over the boat, wrenching me off the rowing seat and away from my thoughts. I grabbed the lifelines for balance and struggled back onto the rowing seat. I glanced quickly at the navigational equipment to ensure we were still on the correct course.
    We relied on a brand new chartplotter/ GPS (Global Positioning System) that we’d affixed outside, alongside the compass. The GPS was undoubtedly the most important navigational tool we had, indicating our coordinates, speed, and direction using satellite technology. Because of the one- or two-second delay in the GPS output, it was easier to keep the boat on course by looking at the magnetic compass, which reacted instantly as the boat moved.
    “What do you want for dinner?” Colin asked, propping the hatch door open so he could access the single-burner alcohol stove that sat between the cabin hatch and the sliding seat.
    I questioned the feasibility of cooking in these rough conditions, but Colin seemed optimistic, and he was the one with the extensive seafaring experience.
    “We’re going to be eating pretty limited fare until it gets a little calmer,” he said. “Most of our food is stored under the deck hatches, and there’s no way we’re going to get to it until things calm down.”
    I surveyed the constant flow of water sluicing over the decks, ebbing and flowing as the waves passed by. Our boat felt unnervingly like a submarine sitting at the surface: barely buoyant, and ready to go down at any time.
    “I didn’t realize having this much weight in our boat would be such a problem,” I said.
    “We’ll be eating forty pounds of food a week. We’ll be sitting higher out of the water in no time.”
    Colin decided on a menu of stew and rice. The rice simmered in a pot of water. Just before the grains were fully tender, he added a can of stew, which would be hot by the time the rice was completely cooked. The appealing scent of garlic and gravy wafted across the boat. Then, just as I was savouring the prospect of our first hot meal of the voyage, a sinister snarl announced a larger-than-average wave bearing down on us. It hit the side of the boat with a surly thwack, and buckets of salty water