Two Tough Cookies

To continue with the oceanic theme of the previous post...

Tough cookie #1: Jessica Watson

I've been meaning to write a post on Jessica Watson since she left in October last year and have blissfully neglected to do so but now she's put the pressure on me by actually finishing. Bearing in mind posts such as these very quickly lose their currency after the milestone/event in question passes (hence the posts I wrote relating to Bill Henson will forever remain unseen...or until he next makes headlines), lo and behold, I write!

Jesse needs no introduction but I'll summarise her achievement anyways for those of you who don't give a hoot about the whole affair: 16 years old – well, 17 now, but 16 at the time, completed a circumnavigation around the globe (eh there are some technical questions over that, but in my humble layman opinion, she did it) solo and unassisted in 7 months.

Reading her blog that she kept whilst on the high seas was rather therapeutic, particularly the early posts in October which coincided with a rather annoying series of big quizzes.
Jess would describe the ocean glassing out, schools of jellyfish drifting by, dolphins swimming in the wake of her boat and post pictures of stunning sunrises and sunsets and I would read it and wish I were out there in her place, instead of learning Crucible quotes.



I’m obviously over-idealising her experience. I mean, there were also days that looked like this:



But at the time, I’d have rather faced knockdowns and 10 foot waves than another HSC paper.

Anyways, without getting into a debate about whether she should have gone in the first place, it’s great that she’s back safe and sound having proved, amongst other things “that all is not lost after all, that dreamers propelled by their inward vision still live, that romance still manages to survive” as Vito Dumas, an Arginetine solo circumnavigator rather nicely puts it.
I take my (proverbial) hat off to you Jess!

Well, then enough smushy sentimentalism from me.

Now onto tough cookie #2: Vito Dumas (the silly blogger won't let me upload a picture of him...)

If you thought Bear Grylls was extreme, then you haven’t heard of Vito Dumas (same Vito as above). I am undecided as to whether he was insane, but he certainly was brave and an extremely good sailor. What makes him such an extreme adventurer, apart from completing a circumnavigation around the world when WW2 was raging and churning out lovely quotes, was to complete a spontaneous roundabout voyage from Havana to Brazil where he was basically starving for most of it.

Below is my rendition of his torturous 3 months at sea (credit to Alain Grée and his book “Sailing: A basic Guide” where I first read about Vito Dumas and his crazeh antics)

Dumas left his home in Buenos Aires in his boat Legh II in 1946 for a “short trip up north”. Little did he know...

After a sail across the Caribbean he reached Havana. Then on the 2nd of June he headed for New York, where his problems began. The current was against him outside NY Harbour and without any motor power he had no chance of entering. “I did not think twice” he said, “but pushed the tiller over and headed to the Azores [3380km away]. He had 10 days worth of food left.

Just under a month later (obviously he’d strung out the food very well!) he approached the first of the Azores islands. But during the night, the winds and seas began to rise, making an approach extremely difficult.

So our brave (foolhardy?) Vito decided to skip the Azores and head directly for Madeira (another island) 957km away, with 20 gallons of stale water and some flour as his sole food provisions.

However on the 21st of July, he realised that he had borne away from his planned course and had reached a position just under the latitude of Madeira. Not wanting to add miles to his journey by tacking up to Madeira, he once again decided to change plans and head for the Canary Islands. One can only imagine how hungry he would have been by then!!! Indeed, he was nearing hallucinatory exhaustion.

Then on July 26, he sighted a lighthouse on one of the Canary Islands. But it was not to be, Mother Nature conspired against him again; once again the wind and currents thwarted his approach and he was unable to put in to port. The Islands soon disappeared over the horizon and poor Vito was left feeling pretty hopeless I’d imagine, having spent 56 days at sea and more than a month without more to eat than a paste concocted from flour and water!

See below for a little map in Spanish (but it’s still gives a good visual indicator as to the prolonged pain of his “short trip up north”).



Without any food and water left, he headed for the major shipping lanes, where he happily managed to attract the attention of a cargo ship which at last provided him with fresh supplies (or else the story might have ended there, or never have been heard at all, after all he was the only witness to it).

But as it were, the story was not quite over – Dumas had not suffered enough it seemed, because the cargo ship had only given him enough food to make it as far as the Cape Verde Islands 1126km south. Of course, with his fantastic luck, when he reached the islands on the 10th of August, the wind completely dropped off and the current pushed him away from the islands. For the next 7 days, Dumas was once again progressively reduced to a living skeleton “Every one of Legh II’s movements causes another spasm of pain in my poor body to add to those already suffered during my 106-day battle” he lamented in his diary. At long last, on the 17th of August, the Brazilian coast appeared and Vito Dumas entered into a harbour at last!

I am now sick of typing. Well then, there you go – I should have read about Vito Dumas’ plight and I’d have been very glad to be doing a few exams with 3 months holidays to follow, rather than 3 months without real food or any idea when you were going to arrive back on land!
Also, if you made it to the end of this post, I salute you!

c.l.