I had just put in my ear plugs. These and a bandanna wrapped about my eyes have been the best way I can find sleep out here and I was feeling like this was going to be a good one. I sighed and settled into the constant roll of the boat that, although no longer makes me sick, still makes it hard to rest as it feels like my guts shift from one side of my body to the other, causing me to constantly engage some muscle in my body.
Then Pat flew across the cabin crashing into me. In the pit of my stomach I knew what happened. That was the sound of a wave that was going to break an oar. Pat rolled off me and we both stared out at the deck and surveyed the damage.
“Is everyone alright!?”
“Adam, Markus are you injured?”
Their were nods and yeses as they surveyed the scene. Nothing had left the deck but Adam was staring blankly at half an oar still gripped in his hand.
“The riggers are too strong.” I kept swearing and mumbling to myself. On the first trip across the ocean – in even bigger weather – we had never broke an oar; however, parts of our rigger had broken. Of course I did not put it together if I had stronger riggers built it would mean that our just-as-strong oars had met their match and would be on the losing side of “Oar, Rigger, Ocean.” (its like rock, papers scissors, but ocean always wins)
I went out and deployed our sea anchor. Markus was fine but Adam still appeared a bit shaken. I told him to go inside and get dry. Once on sea anchor we cooked and sent the food into Pat and Adam. Markus and I also decided to try and stay out on deck the whole night. Pat had been feeling a bit ill that day anyway. We bundled up into our dry suits, at least five layers on the top and bottom, and spent a night under the stars. I dreamt for the first time in a while.
Jordan & Adam rowing in messy seas out of the north
The following morning we had a meeting. We were down to four oars. Still at full power but with no room unless we came in one rower at a time… Not a proposition i looked forward to. Thankfully everyone was optimistic and I was glad everyone had a full night’s sleep and the sun was finally out. Our goal is still Miami, and we have a long way to go before we are even within striking distance of any land. Anything could happen in the future but for now the practical conclusions were that we have to row more conservaativly than we would like, especially through the night when we can’t see the waves. Forecasts of waves of three meters with 20kt winds will likely mean time on sea anchor. And I hate sea anchor. That being said I would hate rowing with three oars even more. We also needed to see if there was anything we could do to our equipment. Our only option was spreading open the bronze oarlock to allow the oars to pop out easier. It would make rowing more of a pain but it might also mean preserving oars.
We spent the morning, cooking, rigging fishing line out of the broken oar handle, shrinking video (that we will send when we can string together a few sunny days), and put together the last spare oar. I spent four hours with my tool box figuring out how to gain enough leverage on a rocking rowboat to spread the heads of the thick bronze oar locks. I finally figured out I could thread two nuts to a 3/8 screw cut to size to fit between the bolts and then use some vice grips and pliers to unscrew the nuts off the screw and slowly bend the oarlock open. This would have taken maybe an hour on land. Two hours into it I was not sure if it would even work. Then one got done, two a bit faster, three, and like so many projects that last one seemed to take forever. About an hour later we were rowing. Just praying for some favorable weather, any weather that will let us keep moving to Miami.