Atlantic Diary: Day 83 – Mental State: 83 Days in Solitary, Stormy Conditions Continue, 52W

22 May, 07 – 22.15
15.2492N,51.5410W
24 hr progress: 16.5 Nautical Miles (1 nm = 1.85 km)
Distance left to Antigua (straight line): 561 Nautical Miles ( 1037 km)
Distance completed: 2738 NM (5065 km)
Wave height: 10-15 ft, Winds: 15-18 knots NNE, Bearing: 260-280 degrees.
Overcast most of the day with big black rain clouds like yesterday. No sign of the sun except for a postage stamp size piece of sky between clouds that appeared occasionally. The boats rocking violently from side to side with the waves coming from all directions. I've been constantly wet with spray most of the day day. Its too hot to wear the rain overalls to keep dry. The salt gets into the clothes and rubs against the skin making the sores worse.
Anyway, there is some comfort in knowing its not going to last for ever and hopefully tomorrow the clear skies, breeze and sun will be back. And the good news is that I have crossed the 52W meridian and feel tangibly closer to my next major milestone of the 55W meridian.
Well, 83 days since I last had human contact on the island of El Hierro. 83 days living on 5 meters of space. I suppose it justifies a few sentences on my mental health.
Mood
My mood very much depends on how tired I am, the time of day, the mileage of the day, the weather, problems with the boat etc. Food, music and distractions like the wildlife around the boat go a long way in improving the atmosphere on board. Food would have made a bigger difference if the cooker was working and I could have a warm meal. Unfortunately, it stopped working early in the trip due to corrosion. Still its not too bad. Everything out here tastes much better than on land and I am constantly hungry - burning about 7000 calories a day. So any meal is welcome.
Sleep & Dreams
I split my sleep into two periods of 4 hours. When I sleep depends very much on the rowing conditions. If it's good, I skip sleep and row till the conditions last. The sleep is deep regardless of weather because I am usually very tired.
In rough seas though its a bit harder to sleep as I get thrown against the cabin walls.
It still takes a while – about half a minute to remember where I am when I wake up. I've experienced this every single day since I started and I haven't adjusted to this part yet.
The dreams with 4 km of water under the bed are a lot more intense, vivid, strange and ridiculous.
I've been using Nightol to sleep and its cousine Dayol to stay awake depending whether or not its possible to row.
A while back, I was trying to force my self to sleep because the weather was rough and it was impossible to keep the oars in the water. Well, anyway, it was pitch dark and I must have picked up the wrong bottle in all the blackness around. I took a swing off the bottle that I picked up and swallowed the syrup– and to my horror I realized to late that the nasty aftertaste was Dayol. So, anyway, I decided to take two sips of Nightol. In the hope that the first sip of Nightol would cancel out the first sip of Dayol and the second sip of Nightol would overtake both of them and help me sleep. I was very wrong. I slept deeply, but dreamt I could not sleep, so woke up feeling very tired. You know, sometimes you just cant win!
Hallucinations
Trying to keep a sane mind is a challenge. Of all the effects of solitude I have been most afraid of hallucinating.
The mind is the last line of defense in survival, especially for solo sailors.
There is the story of two brothers who tried to row across the Atlantic a few years back. They were somewhere in the middle, when one of the brothers jumped overboard and started swimming towards land. Fortunately,he was rescued in time by his brother who jumped in after him. But they had to abandon the row. It later turned out that the had stopped taking his anti-depressant tablets and had seen land in a hallucination.
I have started experiencing minor hallucinations. Sounds, mostly the sounds of dogs barking, cars and truck – which I can easily dismiss as just imagination. Visual hallucinations are much harder to dismiss. Especially when the waves are high. I get only 5 seconds to glimpse the horizon - when the boat is on top of a wave, before it plunges back into the valley of water with blue walls on both sides. During those 5 seconds, I have often imagined seeing the white hull of a yacht on the horizon when its usually only a breaking wave. Occasionally I thought I have spotted tankers etc but there is no alarm on the radar or no response from the VHF radio when try to verify what I have seen.
How do I cope?
Maintaining a log book and writing a journal for the ship helps immensely to give a sense of time and a point of reference in an otherwise monotonous landscape. Keeping the mind busy with the various repairs that come up, scheduled maintenance or improvements that I carry out helps fend off boredom. I spend a lot of time looking at different maps, topography charts, star charts, fish charts etc along the route, that has made the surrounding more interesting than just different shades of blue. I've got thru quite a few books, The Kite Runner, Life of Columbus, Shantaram, Einsteins String Theory, Joshua Solocum's Diary and the Biography of Clinton. I'm probably also the first person in the world to read a water de-salinator manual cover to cover.
On the whole, I'v managed to keep the mental situation under control so far. Its getting harder with each day, combined with the slow progress, lack of sleep or proper food and the heat. But for all that, I think it will make success even sweeter when I hit land in 20 days.
B
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