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True Survival: Lost at Sea for 76 Days | Steven Callahan | Ep. 032 — Transcript

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0:00So, I leave the Canary Islands, have a
0:01dreamy, unusual week of beautiful
0:04sailing, and I'm just like exercising
0:07and reading my books and all of that.
0:09Just fantastic. And and you rarely get
0:12that, especially in the northern part of
0:13the North Atlantic, cuz you're always
0:15getting slammed by gales and stuff.
0:17And I got about a week out and a gale
0:22was brewing up, pretty big waves, not
0:25I don't know, probably 10 ft, 10 12 ft,
0:28something like that. Significant wave
0:29height. And but I wasn't too worried.
0:32The boat and I had been through a lot at
0:34this point.
0:35And suddenly, bam! Something seems to
0:38have hit the side of the boat. It looks
0:40like a World War II submarine diving
0:44with the hatches open.
0:45You [laughter] know, just water just
0:47like coming in like crazy. I bail out
0:49into a
0:51a life raft, which is a couple of big
0:55like inner tubes, one stacked on the
0:56other with a tent across the top. And I
0:59spent the next 2 and 1/2 months learning
1:02like a learning to live like an aquatic
1:03caveman.
1:05>> An aquatic caveman.
1:06>> Yeah, that's that's the story.
1:08>> good way to
1:09>> That's the story in a nutshell, cuz
1:10that's exactly what it was like. I
1:12considered it my cave. I have the like a
1:14little entry thing and I would crawl in
1:16the cave and look out my entry opening
1:18into the world. And I was kind of
1:20semi-safe within the cave. And [music]
1:24I I was living
1:26um
1:27about as a rudimentary existence as you
1:30could possibly get.
1:39>> Today, we are talking to Steven Callahan
1:44author
1:45uh sailor
1:47boatmaker. How would you describe your
1:49career?
1:51>> I I I'm not sure as I can describe my
1:54career. My career is basically stumbling
1:56from one thing into another.
1:58I
1:59started
2:01I was obsessed with boats when I was
2:03young, from the time I was like 13 or
2:05so.
2:06I helped my dentist build a boat as a
2:10high school after school project.
2:12That led me to build my my own boat, but
2:15I had always you know, where other kids
2:17were especially boys were into cars and
2:21girls, I was into boats and girls, I
2:24guess. But I was pretty inept with the
2:26girls part of it, so
2:27>> Saturday Night Live wrote a wrote wrote
2:30a song about that back in the day. Boats
2:32and girls, I think it was called, right
2:33Andrew?
2:35>> So, my father was an architect.
2:37Everything ties Everything ties together
2:39to me in a in a very
2:42long roundabout way, but my father was
2:44an architect. I grew up drawing. I was
2:46interested in boats. I'd been drawing
2:48sort of taught myself design and
2:50celestial navigation in high school and
2:53all that kind of stuff.
2:55And [laughter]
2:56And so, when I got out of school, I
2:57built a boat on which to live and
2:59started doing offshore voyaging and
3:02moved to Maine and design that I had
3:05done ended up in a magazine and a local
3:07guy called me up and said, you know, he
3:09had a design school and a design office
3:11near here.
3:12And um
3:14so, I ended up working with him off and
3:15on for about 10 years building the the
3:17school into an accredited school and
3:20um and and working on designs and but
3:27I don't know, one thing led to another.
3:28I really loved being offshore from the
3:32first time I ever went offshore. So, I
3:34wanted that to be a big part of what I
3:36did and um
3:37so, I I did do that and at all from the
3:40time I was like, I don't know, 13, I'd
3:43I'd read some books. One was Robert
3:46Manry's Tinkerbelle
3:48and he was a a editor in the Midwest
3:53and he'd bought a town class loop we
3:55built right here in Maine, which is
3:57basically a 13 and 1/2 foot boat that
4:00you would sail around a lake or
4:02something, which he did with his family.
4:04And then he sailed it across the
4:06Atlantic. He decked it over, put a
4:08little cabin on it, and I was like, "Oh
4:09my god, that is You can do that?" I
4:12could do that, you know? I mean, I could
4:14relate to that. He wasn't like some
4:16super rich guy. I mean, adventure's
4:18there for anybody who wants to grab it.
4:20And um
4:22And then there were there was another
4:23guy um
4:25um who had sailed a 21-footer around the
4:29world. So, you know, that was kind of my
4:31goal was always to kind of live afloat.
4:33I loved the
4:35um
4:36I don't know, the directness of it, the
4:37simplicity of it, almost like
4:39camping out in the wild. Yeah, it's very
4:43similar in many ways.
4:45Um
4:47And so, I just I don't know, I just
4:48followed that. Whatever people would
4:52give me an opportunity to do, I would do
4:54it. I you know, we rebuilt an old house
4:56here, built a house. Um most of our
5:00you know, our physical belongings are
5:03kind of sweat equity ac- actually from
5:06the years. And uh but it's not
5:09>> It's a beautiful house.
5:10>> It It's not It's not any one thing. And
5:13I'm I I you know, I I point out to
5:15people like I I see the flaws in
5:17absolutely everything I I do or have
5:19done.
5:21Um I don't consider myself a master of
5:23anything. I've known people. I've been
5:25privileged to spend a lot of time with
5:27people who are just incredibly talented
5:30at their thing. And I'm not one of those
5:32guys. I'm uh I'm a good enough guy. I I
5:36get involved in things to kind of
5:37understand what's in what is involved
5:39with it and to really appreciate those
5:42people who are real masters of it.
5:45Um
5:46but I guess I'm a bit of a grasshopper,
5:47jumping around from one thing to
5:49another.
5:50>> I think that's a good place to be,
5:52particularly if you're like
5:54as curious and
5:57inclination motivated as like
6:00you are. Like you're saying that you
6:03celestial navigate You taught yourself
6:05celestial navigation in high school. I
6:07mean, like that's
6:09Like I I I was like teaching myself how
6:11to like build bongs in high school and
6:12stuff. You know what [laughter] I mean?
6:13Like I wasn't
6:16Um, and ultimately that interest uh led
6:19you to some like kind of big sailing
6:21adventures, maybe the defining one,
6:24which is the subject of the the book you
6:26wrote in the '80s uh Adrift.
6:29Um,
6:31that's what we're talking about, right?
6:32The the the story of your 76 days
6:36lost at sea. And I I I said, "Well, I
6:39know this because I've read the book."
6:42Um, your kind of variation and interest
6:45all sort of played towards your ability
6:48to
6:48>> Right.
6:49>> Well, I mean, be here hanging out with
6:51us now.
6:52>> Yeah.
6:53>> Um,
6:54>> Yeah, I you know, I and I went to
6:56university and was a
6:58psych and philosophy major, and my
7:00mother never understood that at all. Um,
7:03and just the philosophy part and stuff.
7:05And she used to say like, "Don't you
7:07wish you had studied something more
7:08specific?" Meaning something more
7:11useful. But actually I I find it it's
7:13been incredibly useful throughout my
7:15life. Um,
7:17uh philosophy is the mother of every
7:19science, and it's a it's a way of
7:22thinking, um,
7:23really.
7:25Um, a a rationality and and an approach,
7:29whether you're you're building a house
7:31or you're sailing across the ocean or
7:33you're I don't know doing some genetic
7:35research or something or other. It's
7:37just
7:38uh a way of of um
7:41I don't I'm not sure exactly how to put
7:43this. Maybe it's uh uh
7:44>> contextualizing reality
7:46>> Yeah, yeah. It's a way It's It's a way
7:47of viewing things in a in a rational way
7:50that uh you and you can separate the you
7:53know, the
7:54the the possible and the probable and
7:56the likely and and and all of that. And
8:00so I always found it very useful as as
8:02an approach to everything else.
8:05And I've just found everything I've done
8:08in life is is been a
8:10you know, kind of a mast a masterclass
8:13in whatever it is. And uh being adrift
8:16was uh was a part of that. It's
8:17something that happened to me. I knew it
8:20could happen to me. I was pretty well
8:23prepared for it for that era. I had
8:26known other, you know, I had friends who
8:28had been on the edge before at sea and
8:30doing adventuresome things. But I didn't
8:33have a a life plan the way most people
8:36have in terms of like, "Oh, I'm going to
8:39get a job and be a banker or whatever."
8:41I don't I I can't even imagine it to me.
8:44Um it's just a different way of
8:46approaching things.
8:47>> It's funny. It seems like you either
8:49have people that like
8:51Well,
8:52I I I will tell you what. Like kind of
8:53the irony is though
8:56you spent a lot of your life plotting
8:58very specific courses. Mhm. In terms of
9:01sailing. Mhm.
9:04And then like but you're but like
9:06personally your life seems to be like
9:08kind of like
9:09not deviations from it but but closer to
9:13that like
9:15It's not like wandering. Like I don't
9:16want to say wandering.
9:17>> it I call it serendipity. My life has
9:19been totally ruled by serendipity. And
9:21I'll have an overall plan. I mean, I
9:23wrote down stuff when I was in college.
9:25Oh, I'm going to walk across the country
9:26and I'm going to do this and I'm going
9:27to do that. And about 1% of those I
9:30actually did.
9:32But they give you a direction.
9:34And
9:37as I as I would follow that direction,
9:40things would happen. I would meet people
9:41like you or I'd meet, you know, somebody
9:43else who is doing the you know, my
9:45dentist who was like, "Well, I'm
9:46building a boat and I know you're
9:47interested in boats, you know?" And so
9:48it's like, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that."
9:50And sometimes it turns out to be a
9:52mistake. Sometimes it ends up being a
9:54dead end. Um
9:56>> Been there, dude.
9:56>> Yeah, and yeah, [laughter] exactly.
9:58We've all been there. But it um it's
10:01it's all uh grist for the mill. And in
10:05you know, really that serendipity has
10:07just been incredible to me. Even after
10:10Adrift, 40 years after
10:12Well, what was it? Almost 40 years. In
10:142010,
10:16you know, to get a call from, you know,
10:18this Oscar-winning
10:20um director Ang Lee and says, you know,
10:24I'm I'm thinking about making this crazy
10:26movie. Would you be, you know, would you
10:27be interested in talking about it? And
10:29so we talked about it and that led to
10:31one thing to another and I ended up, you
10:33know, doing a lot of work on that film
10:34over a period of um I don't know, a year
10:37and a half or so.
10:38>> Okay, so we've talked about all this
10:41um
10:42a lot of like the pre-
10:44Adrift Steven Callahan from like, you
10:48know, the
10:49maritime curious high schooler to the
10:52eventual like
10:54person that's kind of building his life
10:57around sailing, whether it's, you know,
11:00working on boats, transporting boats,
11:03all these things.
11:05When did you start racing?
11:07>> Oh.
11:08>> Or getting interested in these like
11:10>> Yeah, I don't know. The race was Okay,
11:12I'll
11:13Let me back up a little bit. Um
11:15>> Okay.
11:17>> From the time I I I was quite young. It
11:19wasn't just the ocean. I You know, I
11:21grew up in a a very woodsy place and I
11:23was very active in the Boy Scouts at
11:26that time. Um
11:28um in fact, my Boy Scout master was kind
11:29of my sailing mentor.
11:31>> Mhm.
11:31>> And we moved up through a lot of
11:33different boats together and he would
11:35give me
11:37as much enough room to hang myself
11:39basically.
11:40>> Yeah.
11:40>> I mean and even when I was in high
11:42school he would loan me his boat he had
11:44a 25-ft boat and he says, "Well, you
11:46want to take your friends out sailing go
11:47ahead and do it." Which I would never
11:48have done to me. But anyway,
11:50>> Did you take him up on it?
11:51>> Yeah, sure. I started single-handing and
11:54stuff like that. Um
11:56racing to me was it was interesting
11:59because I am
12:01I don't know I I guess I'm a
12:02philosophical romantic in many ways and
12:05I love the living aboard and making
12:08sailing as a lifestyle because I love
12:11wilderness environments. That's why I
12:13live in a place like this. Um there's
12:16something that I get from wilderness
12:18environments which is just magical to
12:20me.
12:20And so it started out in on land
12:24um and eventually kind of moved to the
12:27to the ocean.
12:28>> You mean you sailed a bunch on lakes?
12:30>> No, no, no, no. I actually I started
12:32sailing on the on the ocean but I the
12:35thing is I moved I I was doing camping
12:38and you know, mountain climbing and
12:40doing all that kind of stuff.
12:41>> You love of adventure and exploration.
12:43>> yeah. I just love love love that. Um
12:46the freedom of it but also coming with
12:50that is responsibility. It's something I
12:52is a kind of a
12:55I don't know
12:56a theme of mine which is you know,
12:58people don't understand the real nature
13:00of freedom and which comes with equal
13:02parts of responsibility. They think
13:04well, freedom is just do whatever I want
13:06and no, it's not. You can't do whatever
13:08you want. Go out to sea and it'll teach
13:10you very quickly that you can't just do
13:12whatever you want. You end up dead.
13:14Um
13:15and if you're in a society you have
13:17responsibilities to the society. But
13:19anyway, I
13:21I wanted sailing as a lifestyle to live
13:24aboard to be in that environment. Um,
13:28but um um, through that I I also got
13:31involved with some racing because um,
13:34that's part of the scene and I like the
13:37racing because I'm very interested in
13:39technologies and the advancement of
13:41technology. So, um, that's always been a
13:44big part of my life like writing
13:46articles and stuff like that was about
13:48leading technologies.
13:50>> That's an old technology right there,
13:52that old Falcon. Look at that.
13:54>> Um,
13:55anyway, I don't know if that even
13:56answered your question.
13:57>> No, no, it
13:58it does. You know, like I was curious
14:00about your like genesis into getting
14:03into into the racing stuff and I think
14:06that answers it pretty succinctly.
14:08>> Yeah, well, Napoleon Solo was a 21-ft
14:10boat I built. Um, the in the context of
14:13that, um, I had built a 28-ft trimaran
14:16that my first wife and I had lived
14:18aboard, but
14:20>> What's a trimaran?
14:21>> It's a three-hulled boat.
14:22>> Uh, you know, I as soon as I asked I
14:24started putting it together.
14:25>> Yeah, yeah, like a catamaran's two two
14:27two-hulled boat, a trimaran's
14:28three-hulled boat, um, and they don't
14:30have ballast like a ballast keel.
14:33>> Can I ask you a dumb question?
14:34>> Sure.
14:35>> Uh, why
14:35>> There's no dumb questions, just dumb
14:37answers.
14:37>> Trimaran, I get that. Uh, I don't get
14:40catamaran.
14:41>> You don't get a catamaran? It comes from
14:43it comes from a Tamil word world, kata
14:46and maran, which is tied logs.
14:49>> Oh.
14:50>> It's a It's a very [laughter]
14:52It's a very ancient word.
14:54>> Yeah.
14:54>> Um, so, um, my we were on the living on
14:58this trimaran, my first wife was working
15:00at uh, a sailmaker's. I was helping
15:02people build boats and she decided she
15:04wanted to do some organic farming. So,
15:07we ended up buying the piece of land in
15:09Maine to do that, but it was strained
15:12uh, and the relationship and so we ended
15:16up separating and um, I took the
15:19trimaran and we had and sold it and
15:23turned it into a small boat. I What I
15:25wanted to show with Napoleon Solo is you
15:28could have a
15:29small boat. It's only 21 ft, about the
15:31size of an average van, say.
15:34And that you could live on it and it
15:36would give you kind of a ticket to the
15:37world. Um
15:39the race that I entered, the Mini
15:42Transat race in England, I'd always been
15:44interested in these uh short-handed
15:46offshore races starting with the
15:49Observer Single-handed Transatlantic
15:50race, so-called OSTAR that started in
15:521960. It's a simple kind of really a
15:56like a bet between friends. Uh you know,
15:58I can sail across the ocean faster than
15:59you and it built into this huge thing,
16:01which is in France now. Um the racing
16:04scene is um fully professional. It's
16:08it really is equivalent to football in
16:10America or baseball.
16:12>> Really?
16:12>> Yeah.
16:13Uh 500,000 people showed up to um the
16:16start of a single-handed round-the-world
16:18race. And they figured 30 million people
16:21are going to follow that on uh
16:23on TV. Um so it But in in this era, in
16:271981, it was the very budding of that.
16:30It was more of a personal adventure.
16:33And uh but it was also a hotbed of
16:36innovation.
16:38And [snorts]
16:38um a technological innovation that
16:41filtered down to average sailors, you
16:44know, whether it's, you know, roller
16:45furling headsails and self-tailing
16:48winches, navigation stuff, uh water
16:51generators, you name it. It was It's all
16:53been refined in this short-handed
16:56offshore racing scene.
16:58>> This As you describe where like the
17:00scene was, it may makes a lot of sense
17:02because a lot of the technologies that
17:04were being invented were in like the
17:06same kind of technologies that were
17:08being invented today, where it's like
17:09you know, these crazy composite
17:11materials for hulls and like, you know,
17:13this really like space-age engineering.
17:16A lot of it is stuff that through like
17:19just ingenuity, somebody who had a basic
17:21like ability to work in a wood shop or
17:24like layouts and design could make
17:27meaningful improvements that would kind
17:29of
17:30give an average person an entry into
17:32this kind of thing. Is that like a
17:34>> Yeah, basically. I mean, even the
17:36evolution of the modern multi-hulls,
17:38which is, you know, trimarans,
17:39catamarans, pros, and so on.
17:42You know, it's an ancient craft. The
17:43Pacific Islanders used multi-hulls to
17:46settle the entire Pacific basin while
17:49virtually all Europeans were afraid of
17:51sailing out of sight of land. And
17:55um
17:55you know, they they created these
17:57vessels that in the 19
18:00uh in the modern era, from the the
18:01post-war era, 1950s through the '90s, I
18:06would guess, really.
18:07They were kind of ostracized by the the
18:12yachting
18:14establishment.
18:16Um
18:17and so they were relegated to people
18:20like my dentist who was building his own
18:21boat, right? And that's what I did. I
18:23wanted around. There were a lot of
18:24people building their own boats or
18:26rebuilding funky old wooden boats and
18:28stuff like that.
18:29Um
18:30so
18:32you know, that that was kind of the
18:33background. I was interested in
18:36the countercultural element of it. And
18:38uh and that whole evolution of the
18:41multi-hulls into all these kind of
18:42technologies you're talking about. They
18:44they just have just been a really
18:47powerful source for innovation through
18:49the years. Until now they're sailing in
18:52hydrofoils. There's a offshore racing
18:54trimaran that's done over a thousand
18:56statute miles in 24 hours under sail.
19:00>> That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah.
19:02>> What what what was the name of the race
19:04that you were undertaking?
19:06>> The Mini Transat.
19:08The O Star started as
19:10uh
19:11as uh you know, really sort of the
19:13mother of all these, I call them
19:15offshore adventure races, usually
19:17single-handed, double-handed, across
19:19oceans.
19:21And
19:22>> Single-handed and double-handed is what
19:23it sounds like.
19:24>> Yeah, yeah, you're one person per boat
19:26or two people per boat. That's it. Um,
19:28and and then there's more than that. Now
19:30there are crewed races and stuff too
19:31that are going around the world and and
19:33everything, but that's really kind of
19:34how it started.
19:36And
19:37the Mini Transat grew out of the OSTAR.
19:40The OSTAR started getting professional.
19:42>> Mhm.
19:42>> And uh people started putting more and
19:45more money, getting sponsors, you know,
19:47uh
19:48uh big corporate sponsors in some cases.
19:50So the boats were getting bigger and
19:52much more expensive. So somebody started
19:55uh this guy Bob Salmon started um the
19:58Mini Transat which was going to limit
20:00the boats to 6 and 1/2 m, just over 21
20:03ft.
20:04>> Okay.
20:04>> And so that would keep the cost down.
20:06And so for me it was the perfect
20:07platform. It it melded together those
20:10the
20:11um the interest I had in
20:13living simply in close contact with the
20:19the the natural world and
20:22uh
20:24focusing on on that more than, you know,
20:28having a lot of stuff and you know,
20:30it was very much about the experience. I
20:33I
20:33I was so driven from the time I was
20:37quite young into gathering experience.
20:40Um, and I came from a middle-class,
20:43upper-middle-class background.
20:46I had to maintain a lot of that stuff
20:47myself and it was like
20:50I don't want to sp
20:51spend all my life
20:53getting, maintaining stuff. Um, the I
20:58want the minimal amount of stuff in
20:59order to give me the experience that I
21:01that I wanted. Yeah.
21:03>> Well, it seems to me that like that's
21:05kind of the perfect, like you were
21:06saying, race because it kind of
21:10it's not that it lowers the barrier to
21:12entry and skill, in fact it does the
21:14opposite, but it just allows you to
21:16compete in such an arena that you're not
21:18just going to get beat out because
21:19somebody had
21:20>> a lot of money.
21:21>> Exactly.
21:22>> Yeah, although that's changed now cuz
21:23these little boats are very, very
21:25expensive now.
21:27>> Things turn that way, man. I don't
21:29>> Yeah, I don't know whether it's
21:31skateboarding or, you know, snowboarding
21:33or anything. They usually start off with
21:35some nutcase who says, "Hey, this is a
21:38cool idea. Why don't I try that?" And
21:40then eventually it becomes a a fully
21:42professional gig. And in the Mini
21:46Transat it's no different from that.
21:47It's like a feeder race. Now there's
21:49this whole circuit, just like auto car
21:52racing. There's a whole circuit that
21:53goes on all the time. And
21:58young sailors who are talented are now
22:01getting their, you know, earning their
22:03earning their their chops and
22:05on the Mini Transat boats and then it's
22:08it's the Figaro race and that before you
22:11know it then they're skippers of these
22:1360-ft or more round-the-world racers,
22:16but there's a whole training program and
22:18stuff. It's kind of like doing, I guess,
22:21I don't know, whatever it is, go-karts
22:22and NASCAR and then you work yourself up
22:24to Formula 1, right?
22:26>> Yeah. So it's the same scene.
22:28>> I'm still on go-karts.
22:29>> Yeah.
22:30>> [laughter]
22:31>> What
22:32>> I'm still in shopping carts.
22:34>> So you are
22:37waiting for the start of the race
22:39>> Right.
22:40>> um
22:42with your boat Napoleon Solo that this
22:45is kind of you testing this boat in a
22:47big way, right? Like you knew that it
22:49was a good boat.
22:51>> Yeah, we had to launched it the year
22:54before in Annapolis and sailed it up to
22:57Massachusetts and we had gales in the
22:59way and stuff. I don't know I say we, uh
23:01Chris Latham, who helped me actually
23:03build the boat
23:04and sailed with me. I I had
23:06single-handed the boat to Bermuda, he
23:08met me there, and we sailed the rest of
23:10the way across together. And that was
23:11the main goal, actually. It wasn't to do
23:13the Mini Transat, it was to do a
23:14transatlantic on this boat.
23:16>> Okay.
23:16>> So, once we got to England, it was like,
23:18"Hey, you know, childhood dreams
23:20fulfilled." And yada yada. And now I can
23:23do this race, and I'll see I I wasn't
23:25ex- It wasn't a race boat, exactly. It
23:27was a liveaboard boat. I wanted to see
23:29how it would do against these all-out,
23:31you know,
23:32honed race boats that were just coming
23:35online in the Mini Transat. It was the
23:37first race where they were like boats
23:39specifically designed for that race.
23:41>> Where was the race from and to?
23:44>> It started in Penzance, England.
23:46Um and it would uh the first leg ran to
23:49the Canary Islands, and then the second
23:51leg goes from the Canary Islands to
23:53Antigua.
23:53>> Okay.
23:54>> Uh it's uh slightly different They've
23:56done a couple different courses since
23:57then, at least from France and and all
23:59of that now. But, um that was the course
24:02at that time.
24:02>> So, you're in England,
24:04and
24:06you're essentially doing what uh it kind
24:08of reminds me of a lot of like uh
24:11we we talked to a buddy, Tom Pollard,
24:13about Mount Everest a lot.
24:15>> Uh-huh.
24:15>> And a lot of climbing Everest is waiting
24:18for those weather windows.
24:19>> Right.
24:20>> And so, my understanding is
24:22you guys are all set up, and you're just
24:24waiting for this weather window.
24:27>> Yeah, but they
24:28we don't really wait that For those kind
24:30of races, you don't wait that much for a
24:31weather window. In fact, you go kind of
24:33It's kind of like when I did boat
24:35deliveries. It's like you're paying paid
24:37to deliver a boat from here to there,
24:39and hopefully and it's usually
24:41scheduled, and you go. And it's what
24:43Whatever is out there, you deal with it.
24:45>> they almost cancel the race or
24:46something?
24:47>> Well, there was a gale that was coming,
24:50and everybody knew it was coming. Plus,
24:52on the way over, actually, uh Chris and
24:55I dodged it, but we had another friend,
24:57uh
24:58another American guy who was going over
25:00on the race with a with a boat that had
25:02won the previous race.
25:04And he went north and he got run over by
25:07Hurricane Emily on the way over.
25:09And the boat got flipped upside down a
25:11bunch of times and he's out there like
25:13on a like like on a a dinghy on a lake
25:16re-righting it and all this stuff.
25:18Anyway, he got to he got to England
25:19eventually, but he was pretty beaten up
25:21and the boat had some a bunch of damage,
25:23so he couldn't do it. Another sailor had
25:25gotten killed, a French sailor,
25:27um on the way over from France and
25:30crashed the boat against the rocks and
25:32and died. Um but generally
25:35um you don't really want to start in a
25:38hurricane exactly, but because it was a
25:40forecast gale, it's like guess what?
25:42This is this is a
25:44basically I could call it a month-long
25:46race or something or other. Guess what?
25:48You're going to see a gale. Yeah. Um I
25:50can't remember ever crossing the
25:52Atlantic without seeing gales. So, it
25:55was like, "No, that's just part of the
25:56scene."
25:57>> Do you remember what it was like the
25:58first like not in this race, but the
26:00first time you would ever experienced
26:03being out in big big water like that?
26:07>> Oh.
26:08Um
26:09>> Like what's that like for the cuz I've
26:10never been in something like that.
26:11>> Probably '74 when my
26:13>> [laughter]
26:14>> after we I I got married to my first
26:16wife
26:17and
26:18when we built this 28-ft trimaran that
26:20we were living on and
26:22we we set off on our our wedding voyage.
26:25It should have been a sign right there,
26:27I guess. Um and we went outside Cape Cod
26:30got hit with this
26:32unseasonable gale kind of thing and they
26:35were pretty big waves and it was pretty
26:36scary. Yeah, getting down got finally
26:38got our way into Nantucket, which was
26:40amazing that we even got there without
26:42wrecking the boat and our
26:43>> But what do you what do you do when that
26:45happens? I mean, do you just like
26:47drop the sail, batten down the hatches?
26:50>> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
26:51no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um I
26:53mean, sometimes you might want to do
26:54that but
26:55>> I don't sail, I have no idea.
26:56>> It depends [clears throat] on
26:59every boat has its own personality.
27:02It deals with things in different ways.
27:04And has its strengths and its weaknesses
27:06and you get to know those. So how do you
27:08how do you adjust that?
27:11The conditions in where you're located
27:13have a lot to do with the
27:15your choices and how how to manage the
27:17things. You know, I mean if you're close
27:18to the coast you got to really pay
27:20attention. If you're in the middle of
27:21the ocean okay, then you're dealing with
27:23you know, okay, what are the waves like?
27:25What are the wave shapes like? What is
27:27the forecast going to be? How do I
27:29manage the boat? What's its
27:30capabilities? Do I heave to? Do I run
27:32down? You know, that kind of thing. If
27:34you're close to the coast it's like,
27:35well, I would love to run off and run
27:37down the waves but I'm going to hit the
27:38coast in 20 miles here. I can't do that.
27:41It's too dangerous. So it's really a
27:43it's it's more complicated thing than
27:45oh, I'm just going to do this or I'm
27:47just going to do that.
27:48>> Right. Is it is more stable if you're
27:50moving?
27:52>> Generally speaking,
27:54um
27:55I find that keeping sailing that's one
27:57of the things that these short-handed
27:59races has shown I feel like definitively
28:02is that you're better moving and in
28:04control of the boat and the boat speed
28:06than sitting still and just getting
28:08whacked.
28:09Um it's not always true and it to be
28:12again it depends on the type of boat and
28:14whatnot. There are times where you might
28:15want to just sit still, put out even put
28:18out a sea anchor, you know, the big bag
28:20>> Mhm.
28:20>> drags through the water and gives you
28:22some
28:23control over where you're facing the
28:24waves and stuff like that but um
28:26generally speaking I find it easier and
28:30the to go with go with the flow.
28:32>> Mhm.
28:33>> Don't fight nature.
28:35So much. Figure out what nature wants to
28:37do and see how you can fit into it as
28:40best you can.
28:41>> Uh we're back to the philosophy uh
28:43philosophy studies. What
28:45um
28:46Okay, so you're
28:48not really waiting for the weather
28:50window. You're kind of waiting for the
28:52weather window at the start of the race.
28:54>> Well, they would have canceled it, but
28:56they didn't It's a Okay, this is going
28:59to be the conditions and we're going to
29:00start the scheduled start, so that's
29:02what we
29:02>> And they're just like, "Okay, if you
29:04want to do it, go for it."
29:05They're just like, "Go ahead. Go ahead."
29:06>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And every you know,
29:08people in the crew in the crowd are
29:09saying, "They're going, oh you
29:10know, I don't really want to
29:12you know, start in these conditions, but
29:13that's the way the way it's going to
29:15be."
29:15>> Did you have any apprehension?
29:18>> I always have apprehension.
29:19>> I mean, specifically related to the
29:21conditions.
29:23>> I wasn't too wild about
29:26>> You weren't like, "This is a great day
29:27to go sailing."
29:28>> Well, the start actually was fine. It
29:30was going to be like within the next,
29:32you know, 24-48 hours and you know, that
29:35would take us down. We're crossing the
29:36Bay of Biscay, which is notorious.
29:39And uh and that kind of thing. So, no, I
29:41wasn't too happy about it, but it was
29:43like, well, that's the way it is and so,
29:46we're going.
29:47>> So, you're out the race has begun.
29:50You're not feeling great about the
29:52conditions. However, you are
29:53internalizing them as part of sailing
29:55and something that is just sort of
29:58I mean, it's literally a course, right?
30:00So, par for the course.
30:01>> Yeah.
30:02>> Um
30:05What are the first few days like?
30:09>> For me, always going offshore the first
30:10few days is
30:12frankly well, not not the first trip,
30:15but thereafter it was like,
30:19"Tell me again, why am I doing this?"
30:21You know, I you know, I have a I have a
30:23drawer a drawer full of t-shirts. I've
30:25been here before. I I know what this is.
30:27And it's like, "Tell me why why I'm
30:29doing this." But it inevitably it's it
30:31kind of ends up being the same thing
30:32every
30:34By the time you're
30:35you know, you get you get into the
30:36rhythm of it and it's you're in this
30:38incredible environment, the world's
30:40greatest wilderness right there.
30:42And uh covers 2/3 of the planet and
30:44gives you access to most of the planet,
30:47really. And it's beautiful and it's
30:50unpredictable and it's even though for a
30:53lot of people it looks the same all the
30:56time, not to me. It's It's to me it's
30:58ever-changing. And
31:01uh you got these fluid and amazing
31:03things happen, you know, animals will
31:04appear out of nowhere. I There's a
31:06whale. I'm looking down into the whale
31:07spout, right there, right next to the
31:09boat, you know. I mean, pretty cool
31:11stuff, really.
31:12>> stuff.
31:12>> Um big sharks or you know, the bird life
31:17is just incredible. Um
31:19it's just a different world and so by
31:22the time you get through you get into
31:24this rhythm of it and you've seen all
31:26these things
31:28and you get to the other end, it's like,
31:29that was pretty cool. When can we do
31:31that again?
31:32Even though the first few days you go,
31:33"What on Earth was I thinking?"
31:36Um and I find that about a lot of
31:38experiences, you know, you even
31:41>> Oh.
31:41>> survival and being being adrift. I mean,
31:43a
31:44a very
31:46common question is like, you know,
31:49uh do you regret that or whatever? And
31:52it's like, no. And I have talked to
31:54survivors of all kinds of things through
31:56the years and I have to say if it's not
31:58a universality, it's a commonality that
32:01none of us would replace that part of
32:04our lives that we get
32:06even in extreme adversity. Why people
32:09climb Everest or do these things? You
32:12gain things that you could only gain in
32:14that way and it leads you down roads, it
32:16gives you opportunities, ways of seeing
32:19things in life that you could not have
32:22had without that kind of an experience.
32:24Now, it might have been painful. You
32:26know,
32:26I don't want to go back there. I don't
32:28want to starve again.
32:30I don't want to be covered with salt
32:31water sores. I don't want to lose a
32:33third of my weight starving and I don't
32:34want to, you know,
32:36just be
32:38totally beaten up Uh the way I was in
32:41the life raft, but
32:42it has given me so much over the years
32:44and
32:46it's irreplaceable and a voyage is like
32:48a little part of that. I you know, I say
32:50you know, life is a survival experience.
32:53>> Yeah.
32:54>> You know, and when you go to sea or
32:57you're climbing a mountain or whatever,
32:59it's kind of like an enhanced
33:01experience survival experience in a way.
33:03>> Yeah.
33:04I'm sure that all like the listeners
33:06right now
33:08have are hearing this perspective that
33:10is giving you are like hearing us kind
33:12of like dance around the opening acts to
33:14this thing.
33:14>> Okay.
33:15You want me to summarize it? I'll
33:17summarize the entire thing and very
33:19quickly.
33:20>> Okay.
33:20>> I I fulfilled my childhood
33:23dreams by crossing the Atlantic in a
33:25small simple boat.
33:27>> Uh-huh.
33:27>> I started the Mini Transat race. We get
33:29to
33:30um
33:31but I drop out because I have some
33:32damage on the boat. So, I starting to
33:34cruise, but still following the story.
33:36>> I want to be there. I want I want to
33:37talk about this. I I want I want to
33:39Will you tell the story?
33:41>> Yeah, yeah, but let me finish the
33:42summary.
33:43So, I leave the Canary Islands have a
33:45dreamy unusual week of beautiful sailing
33:49and I'm just like exercising and reading
33:51my books and all of that just fantastic.
33:54And and you rarely get that especially
33:56in the northern part of the North
33:57Atlantic cuz you're always getting
33:58slammed by the gales and stuff.
34:01And I got about a week out
34:04and a gale was brewing up pretty big
34:07waves, not
34:09probably 10 ft 10 12 ft something like
34:12that significant wave height and but I
34:14wasn't too worried. The boat and I had
34:16been through a lot at this point.
34:19And suddenly bam, something seems to
34:22have hit the side of the boat. It looks
34:24like a World War II submarine diving
34:27with the hatches open.
34:29>> [laughter]
34:29>> You know, just water just like coming in
34:31like crazy. I bail out into uh
34:34uh a life raft, which is a couple of big
34:38like inner tubes, one stacked on the
34:40other with a tent across the top.
34:42And I spend the next 2 and 1/2 months
34:45learning like a learning to live like an
34:47aquatic caveman.
34:49>> An aquatic caveman.
34:50>> Yeah, that's that's the story.
34:52>> That's a really good way to
34:53>> That's a story in a nutshell, cuz that's
34:54exactly what it was like. I considered
34:56it my cave. I have the like a little
34:58entry thing, and I would crawl in the
35:00cave and look out of my entry opening
35:02into the world, and I was kind of
35:04semi-safe within the cave, and uh I I
35:08was living
35:10um
35:13about as a rudimentary existence as you
35:16could possibly get, and uh spearing fish
35:19and
35:20uh producing a little bit of water, just
35:23enough water to survive, um and doing a
35:27lot of repairs.
35:29>> The night that you started having
35:31trouble, it wasn't it wasn't that gale
35:34when you left. You got to
35:35Teeg what we're not at Teeg. Well, you
35:37got to
35:39>> Marie-Galante is where I landed, and
35:42yeah, it's just off of Guadeloupe.
35:44Little island off of Guadeloupe. But, I
35:46had stopped in the Canary Islands
35:48and spent, I don't know, a couple months
35:50there before pushing off.
35:52>> You push off.
35:54Um
35:55you're sailing for like a week.
35:57>> Yeah, about a week, 8 days, I think.
36:02>> It's the middle of the night.
36:04What happens?
36:06>> Rolling along, the wind's picking up.
36:09Um fair amount of seaway. Probably I I'd
36:14guess the significant wave height was
36:16about, you know, a few meters, 10 ft, 12
36:19ft, maybe.
36:20And um so, what I was just like kind of
36:22reaching across them and doing uh
36:26doing fine. I had the the
36:29just a storm jib up and everything
36:31seemed under control. I kept
36:32>> What's a storm jib?
36:33>> A storm jib is a little a little jib, a
36:35small a small bit of sail for the storm.
36:38And uh so I thought I was pretty secure.
36:41And um
36:43I just kind of rolling along and I kept
36:44getting up and looking around. Uh one
36:47thing about sailing offshore is you try
36:49to be as preemptive as possible. You're
36:51always checking what might go wrong.
36:54And uh
36:56everything looked fine. So I finally
36:58took off all my clothes stupidly except
37:01a t-shirt and lay down. And then I don't
37:05know, probably around midnight local
37:07time, bam and there's like water coming
37:11into the boat and very fast.
37:13>> W- What do you think happened?
37:14>> I think I was probably T-boned by a
37:16whale. I'd been around
37:18I'd hit a whale and couple years before
37:21in broad daylight. They're very hard to
37:24see.
37:25Um it's like a it's like a log adrift,
37:28you know, you a little bit is up but if
37:31you're in any kind of a sea way half the
37:33time they're underwater most of it is
37:35anyway. So
37:37um and
37:39my theory is that whales do collide with
37:43boats on
37:45fairly regular basis and part because
37:48sailboats don't make much noise.
37:50>> Oh, that's a good point.
37:51>> Especially compared to breaking waves. I
37:52was in these large breaking waves, you
37:54know.
37:54>> Yeah.
37:55>> I mean what's my boat doing is like
37:56making almost no noise and it's whales
37:59swimming around, you know, making, you
38:01know,
38:02uh you know
38:03>> is just like I bumped my head on the
38:04kitchen cabinet, you know.
38:05>> Exactly. [laughter]
38:05Exactly. So I don't know. I think that's
38:09probably what happened. I mean it could
38:10have been a big shark. It could have
38:12been I don't know, something else I
38:14guess but I felt like it was like, you
38:16know, I don't know, just the movement of
38:18it it kind of to weather towards the
38:20wind which would be
38:22the same
38:22>> You
38:22>> weren't asleep when this happened? You
38:24were just kind of lying there?
38:25>> Sleeping is really weird for me offshore
38:28single-handed. I can be dreaming,
38:30actively dreaming, but being aware,
38:33consciously aware of things in the
38:36surroundings, the sounds, the feeling.
38:38And something changes, the the rhythm of
38:41the boat changes or
38:43there might be a sound that's coming
38:45through the hall and I would wake up and
38:47I was like look out and go, "Oh, there's
38:49a ship over there." Or you can hear the
38:51props from miles away sometimes.
38:53>> Yeah.
38:54>> Or, you know, the rhythm of the boat
38:56changed. Oh, well, that's cuz the wind
38:57changed and the sails aren't set
38:59properly and that kind of that kind of
39:01thing. So, I was in that stage.
39:02>> Do you think that's an experience unique
39:03to you?
39:05>> I don't know.
39:05>> other sailors
39:06>> Other sailors talk about and other
39:09sailors have talked about splitting,
39:10this kind of psychological splitting.
39:13Um
39:15where
39:16um let's say you're laying down and it's
39:19like the last thing you want to do is
39:20get up on deck and deal with the
39:22problem. So, there's that part of you
39:25that's just like, "Oh god, just leave me
39:26alone." And then there's this Captain
39:28Bligh that comes along and slaps you
39:30around a bit and says, "Get the hell up
39:31there and do your thing, you know." And
39:34these can get very strained over times
39:36and it's actually a central theme in in
39:39Adrift, um this uh
39:42this state of of our psyche which is not
39:46single dimensional, it's
39:47multi-dimensional.
39:49And we often, you know, ask questions
39:53like, "What do you think about this?" Or
39:54"What do you feel about this?" And if
39:56you really look into it, you almost
39:58always, if not always,
40:00you actually have mixed feelings about
40:02it or you have, you know, that kind of
40:04thing. And so, like when the boat's
40:06going down, filling with water,
40:08and there's a part of me that's totally
40:11freaked.
40:12And oh my god, this is, you know, I I
40:14know I might have a about this before,
40:16but I never really thought I was, but
40:17now it's actually happening and I'm
40:19probably going to die within the next
40:20hour if not sooner.
40:23>> Did you feel like that from the jump?
40:24>> Oh god, yeah. And then there's that, you
40:26know, and there's a part of me that's
40:28like, "Whiny, whiny, whiny, whiny." And
40:30it's like, "Shut the hell up, you know,
40:31just get out of my face." And that part
40:33of me that had been I dealt with it
40:35anytime if you've had any substance of
40:39experience in the wilderness and
40:40especially offshore,
40:42you fix things all the time. You're
40:44dealing with stuff all the time. And so,
40:47it's always kind of um
40:50uh
40:51a situation where you're being trained
40:53to be independent and to face problems
40:56and sort it out. So, there's that part
40:58of me that's going through my training
40:59and what I need to do. And there was
41:01even a part of me I get up on the deck
41:03and there was a I had a movie camera,
41:05old super eight movie camera, that was
41:07rigged up in the boat that I could turn
41:08on and off and
41:09>> Did you think about
41:10>> the electrical system it's fused
41:11together or something or other and I
41:13could see that it was taking these
41:14really dramatic pictures and I found
41:16that incredibly amusing. So, I had all
41:19these things going on in me at the time
41:21and even as time went on through the
41:23voyage,
41:24um this splitting
41:27into sort of multiple parts of myself, I
41:29kind of abstracted it in the book as
41:32a physical and an emotional and a
41:35rational part of me.
41:37Um and they all had different needs. Uh
41:40competing needs and desires. And uh so,
41:43there's always this battle going on
41:44within myself and you see the same thing
41:46when people are in survival situations
41:49with groups where they might be symbolic
41:52about, you know, their their varying
41:55needs and desires.
41:56>> sub role in the collective psyche.
41:58>> Yeah, yeah. But even with even within
42:00those situations, if you really, I don't
42:03know, look into those personalities and
42:04what they're thinking at a time and
42:06whatnot, it's like well, they a lot of
42:08times they have really mixed feelings
42:10about it. Like for me it was, you know,
42:12as time went on I'm living on these fish
42:15that I were kind of spiritual creatures
42:18to me, really.
42:21And really symbolic of the magic and the
42:23mystery and the grandeur of the natural
42:25world.
42:27Um
42:28You know, that emotional part of me
42:30didn't want to catch a fish. It really
42:32it was like if I had you were the bunch
42:34of companions and you know, well, I'm
42:35going to kill my companion so we can eat
42:38tomorrow.
42:38>> Yeah.
42:39>> Or or you know, people relate to their
42:42and their pets. Well, if you had to, you
42:43know, eat your dog tomorrow, you'd
42:46probably have some not great
42:48>> Some hard feelings about that.
42:50>> Um
42:50>> Boon, I will never do that to you,
42:52buddy. Well, or you might have
42:53>> [laughter]
42:55>> Yeah. So, anyway, so that's that was the
42:58scene.
42:59Total chaos.
43:01>> I'm I'm kind of like fascinated though
43:03because
43:04I mean
43:06pretty much nobody goes through 76 days
43:10at sea and gets out of it at the end.
43:12Like that that
43:13doesn't happen.
43:15Almost ever.
43:16>> Well, it does.
43:17>> In the context of the amount of people
43:18>> Yeah, it does it does happen on
43:20occasion. You know, afterwards, you
43:21know, I kept getting a question you were
43:23asking me about questions I get that I
43:25thought were kind of funny or whatever.
43:28And
43:29the inevitable question as soon as I
43:30landed with all these people from the
43:32press would call me up and then they go,
43:34"Is this a record? Is this a record?" I
43:36said, "Oh, really? Like I wasn't keeping
43:37track.
43:38>> [laughter]
43:38>> It's not a sporting event." That's what
43:40I
43:41What I told them is
43:42it's just not, right? And even if it
43:45was, we you would have to do qualifiers.
43:47Now,
43:48>> [laughter]
43:48>> I'd have to do I've talked to all kinds
43:51of survivors including oceanic survivors
43:54and everyone is totally unique. And you
43:56cannot compare one to the other in any
44:01way, shape, or form.
44:02>> Of of course.
44:03>> And I mean, you can, but it's It's of
44:05irrelevant. And I've talked to people
44:07who have had survival experiences,
44:09oceanic survival experiences of week
44:11that I consider every bit as intense as
44:13the one that I had over 2 and 1/2
44:15months. But if I have a record, it's the
44:18longest survival alone in an inflatable
44:21raft.
44:22>> Okay.
44:22>> Okay? Because the Baileys,
44:25uh an English couple, were 119 days
44:27adrift in the Pacific about 10 years
44:29before me. They had two rafts. They had
44:31a
44:32you know a a life raft like mine and a a
44:34dinghy.
44:34>> In that location, huh?
44:35>> And they were together, right? Uh there
44:37was Poon Lim during the Second World War
44:40who was 133 days adrift, but he had a
44:43solid raft off of a ship, right? So,
44:46it does happen, and since my drift, of
44:49course, there have been others.
44:51>> The The reason that I'm asking, I mean,
44:54number one, like that is like, you know,
44:56if we're like contextualizing things on
44:59scope, like it's interesting, but
45:01primarily there is
45:02is is fascinating to me that like a
45:04survival effort that focused and that
45:08successful
45:10started with the thought, "I'll probably
45:12be dead in the next hour."
45:14>> Oh, yeah.
45:15>> Cuz you were saying like that's kind of
45:16part of what you were thinking on the
45:17ship.
45:18>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so so
45:19much stuff going on. I mean, I'm not
45:21didn't necessarily
45:23say it in my head in those words, but
45:26that was very present that
45:28>> Right.
45:29>> this
45:30very well could be the end.
45:32>> But it wasn't. So, what what happens
45:36on this boat that is going down? This is
45:39Napoleon solo. Also, like
45:42Do you know, I
45:44This is like a weird reference, Andrew.
45:45I think like you'll you'll get it for
45:47sure. I think you might get it, too, but
45:49anybody born after like '94 won't get it
45:52at all.
45:54You ever see that movie The NeverEnding
45:55Story?
45:56>> Oh, I'm not sure if I have.
45:58>> that?
45:59Well, there's a scene in the beginning
46:00where this little where this like kid
46:03who's like magic horse gets stuck in the
46:04mud and it's like a cannon traumatic
46:07movie event. It's like Old Yeller
46:08getting capped or something. Like
46:11>> Uh
46:12that's kind of how I felt about the
46:14description of Napoleon solo sinking. It
46:17It was just like kind of
46:19Did you
46:20>> Oh, you get incredibly attached.
46:22>> Okay, that's sort of what I was
46:24>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I this was
46:26you know, my whole dream taking this
46:27boat across the Atlantic and you know, I
46:30designed it. I built it. Um we sailed
46:33it. Um
46:35there's a there's a very unique
46:37relationship between sailors and their
46:40boats. You depend upon one another so
46:42much. They become kind of like your
46:45I The way I feel about it is that
46:47when you're off on a boat is like you're
46:49the brains of the beast. Yeah, or a an
46:53orchestrator of wind, wave, and and a
46:56machine.
46:58Um
47:00They all go together. It becomes It's
47:02definitely not an inanimate object. It's
47:04a very much animate object and you get
47:08attached to it. It was my home. It was
47:11It was quite a lot for me. So, it was
47:14very hard for me after I lost the boat
47:17and was actually drifting off to go
47:19through a period we sometimes refer to
47:21this period as recoil.
47:24Which is you've escaped the immediate
47:25threat. Now what?
47:27>> Mhm.
47:27>> And the recoil period is really
47:30difficult because you kind of flushed
47:32your old life down the toilet and it's
47:34like, well, how do I possibly Even
47:37though I know I've read the Baileys.
47:39I've read Robertsons. I've read all
47:40these people. I know it's doable.
47:42>> There are things on here.
47:43>> can I do this? It's It's so overwhelming
47:47that you just you're you're just swamped
47:50by it. And
47:52at that during that period of time I
47:54would just like in And lasted for
47:56roughly 2 weeks for me.
47:58I just mercilessly mercilessly beat up
48:01on myself.
48:02>> What could I have done different? And I
48:03should have done
48:04>> I was a failure in my marriage. I was a
48:06failure at human relationships. I was a
48:08failure at business. I was a failure at
48:10building the boat. I was a failure at
48:12all these things.
48:14>> I'm on this life raft.
48:15>> Exactly. It's like, what kind of a
48:17freaking idiot could you possibly be
48:20that would be worse than this?
48:22You know, as and and it takes a while to
48:26Well, I I have certain ways of dealing
48:29with things. Um but and and kind of
48:33strategies overall. And one is to
48:37>> [sighs]
48:37>> hang on to whatever you can that's still
48:40exist.
48:41Um normalize life as much as possible.
48:45Create routines if your old routines
48:47have been,
48:48you know, kind of totally displaced. Um
48:51things like that. And overall, the the
48:54the number one thing is denial is the
48:58number one enemy.
49:00And
49:02uh take things one achievable step at a
49:06time rather than focusing on the
49:09overwhelming goal of crossing, you know,
49:122/3 of the Atlantic in a rubber ducky.
49:16Which is what I named my raft, of
49:17course.
49:18>> [laughter]
49:20>> Do
49:20What did you grab The boat was going
49:22down. What did you grab
49:24off the boat? Well, once you realized
49:26that you had to bail onto this
49:29onto this raft.
49:32You made a couple trips back and forth
49:34between the Napoleon, which is
49:36>> Yeah.
49:36>> you know, obviously in the process of
49:38sinking. What What did you grab?
49:40>> Well,
49:41the Napoleon sort of kind of stabilized
49:44because I had watertight compartments in
49:46in the boat designed to really for
49:49collision
49:51um protection.
49:52>> I feel like the Titanic did that.
49:54>> Yeah, they did do that. Yeah, yeah.
49:56>> any boat designers out there, maybe
49:57don't.
49:58>> [laughter]
49:59>> No, they actually saved my ass because,
50:01uh, the way the boat went down, by the
50:04time I'm bailing out of the boat, the
50:05the whole bow of the boat is
50:07definitively underwater.
50:09>> Sure.
50:10>> Feet underwater, and but the stern, the
50:12way it went down that way, the stern had
50:14come up and between the water tight
50:16compartments and an air lock that had
50:18formed in the back, it kept the boat
50:19actually afloat. Now, every wave was
50:22like basically sweeping across the whole
50:24boat, so it was virtually impossible to
50:26stay aboard, but it gave me a chance
50:30because I had,
50:32uh, a ditch kit, a bag full of all kinds
50:35of gear that would become critical for
50:37to my survival. There was some gear in
50:39the raft, but standard gear bags and
50:42rafts are
50:45basically designed short for short-term.
50:47Most people are picked up within 48
50:49hours or so.
50:50>> Yeah.
50:51>> So, even though I had this gear in the
50:53raft, there's no way I would have
50:55survived without more gear from the
50:56boat, and I had all kinds of stuff I
50:59didn't get to, but, um,
51:01I made
51:03some trips, and dove down into the boat,
51:06and pulled out a a piece of cushion so
51:09I'd have some insulation.
51:10>> actually diving down? Like, when you say
51:12dove down in the boat, are you
51:14>> Yeah, I'm I'm sliding the hatch forward,
51:16and the the boat is basically full of
51:18water. Now, there's an air lock back
51:19there somewhere, but I I'm basically go
51:22down, and I it's pitch black, I can't
51:24see a thing, so it's all feely you
51:26what I what I can actually grab, and
51:29uh, and get loose. But, I got my, um, my
51:32ditch kit, which had all this gear, I
51:33got a sleeping bag, a piece of cushion,
51:36and
51:37after all that, I was so exhausted, I
51:40can't tell you. And I was just like
51:42laying around in the in the raft hanging
51:44on because it was like being tied to the
51:46boat, which is really stable in the
51:47water. It was like being in an auto
51:49accident every few minutes. We'd be, you
51:51know, this big breaking wave would hit
51:53the raft and like
51:55crush it. All this water would come
51:57pouring in and you know, that I'd be
51:59squeezed in between the tubes and it was
52:02it was really pretty much a nightmare
52:04for a while and that gale would end up
52:06lasting about 3 days. But just before
52:12Oh, I don't know.
52:13Sometime before dawn, I several hours
52:16anyway,
52:18a wave hit the raft and it I I was tied
52:22to the boat with this this line and
52:24something gave way
52:26and I went drifting off. And so then it
52:29was like, oh, well, guess what? That's
52:32>> Now we're
52:33>> Now now that's it. And like every single
52:36thing that happens, there's
52:39a dichotomy, a kind of a
52:42a black and white side of it, a yin yang
52:45side of it. Because I was very worried
52:48that if I'd stayed tied to the boat that
52:51these breaking waves would actually tear
52:52the
52:53the raft apart which has happened. And
52:56if that happened then forget about it.
52:58I'm done.
52:59Um on the other hand, if I could have
53:01stayed tied to the boat, I might have
53:03been
53:04I could have gone daylight comes, I can
53:06go get 5 gallon jug of water which is
53:08like 40 days of survival ration, you
53:10know, I mean it just would have been
53:12fantastic. But
53:14as it turns out, it probably was the
53:16best thing for me to get broken away
53:18from the boat.
53:19>> The first day
53:23How long did it Did you Were you like as
53:25soon as you became untethered, were you
53:26like lost sight of Napoleon solo in a
53:29matter of
53:30>> Oh, minutes.
53:31>> Minutes, yeah. Okay.
53:31>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could see it over on
53:33its side. It kept tilting more and more
53:35and it's the mast on its side and you
53:38know, wave waves. I couldn't see a
53:40little bit little bit, and then
53:42gone.
53:42>> Gone.
53:43>> Yeah.
53:44I didn't I I I wasn't like I was totally
53:47focused on that anyway.
53:48>> Sure.
53:49>> I was basically holding on for dear life
53:52because
53:53>> It's still storming.
53:54>> It's still storming. It's going to storm
53:55for 3 days and and pretty big waves and
53:59you know, you're in an
54:00in an inflatable little raft and
54:03although it had ballast pockets on the
54:05bottom that scoop up seawater to
54:08>> Give you some
54:09>> some stability. It's like well, every
54:11once in a while, you know, the raft gets
54:14basically almost overthrown and all this
54:17water comes gushing in. I'm in danger of
54:20losing equipment and it's cold, cold
54:23enough.
54:24Um there was snow on the islands in the
54:26Canaries on in the mountainsides when I
54:29left. So the water temperature and well,
54:33the air temperature was probably
54:37I want to say probably in maybe 50° or
54:41something, but blowing hard and
54:43totally wet.
54:45>> And and I'm not in the Caribbean yet.
54:47I'm the Canaries are even though they're
54:50off the coast of Africa, they're the
54:52water is it's not like 80° or 90°.
54:56>> like totally geographically challenged.
54:58So like for whatever reason, I just
55:01heard the Canary Islands, I was like
55:03>> Yeah, they're pretty warm overall if you
55:05can stay dry, but if you're wet and you
55:07and it's windy and all of that, I mean
55:09hypothermia is a real issue. So
55:11>> Sure.
55:12>> for the first [clears throat] half of
55:12the voyage, staying warm
55:14during the night was was a challenge. Uh
55:18and then the second half of the voyage
55:21as I'm drifting further further towards
55:22the Caribbean and things are getting
55:24hotter and hotter, staying cool enough
55:26during the day was was a major issue.
55:29>> So you're getting just bucked around by
55:31this
55:32storm in like
55:34I mean like torturous
55:37They're really like kind of torturous
55:38like conditions. It's
55:40freezing.
55:42>> Well, yeah.
55:43>> Not literally freezing, but
55:45>> worse. Everything could have been worse
55:46in a lot of ways. I was very lucky that
55:49I you know, a lot of things happened in
55:51the not just my own experience, but a
55:53lot of survival experiences where you
55:54look back and you go, "God, if that had
55:57just been a little bit different, I
55:58wouldn't be here." And there's
56:00piles and piles of these things. So, if
56:02it was a little bit colder, I probably
56:04wouldn't be here. If I had not If I had
56:07had somebody else with me, I wouldn't be
56:09here cuz probably we both would have
56:10died of of um
56:12>> You wouldn't have been able to
56:13>> Uh we we wouldn't have I wouldn't have
56:15had enough water for two people.
56:18Um there's so many things like I say, I
56:21kind of look at everything as sort of
56:22having this yin-yang balance. It is
56:24exactly what it is. I don't care what
56:26you feel about it. I don't care what you
56:28think about it. It is exactly what it is
56:31and your best
56:33strategy is to figure out what that is
56:36and try to
56:37appreciate that balance. That is like,
56:40"Okay, that's the negative. That's not
56:42good, but this might be a positive that
56:43comes out of it, you know, or
56:45>> Yeah.
56:45>> whatever."
56:46>> I don't like exercising. It makes me
56:48tired. It hurts like my muscles for 2
56:50days, but like it's what's ultimately
56:52going to give me longevity to like
56:54>> And so, I did stuff like that. I
56:56immediately I I said, "Okay, this isn't
56:58the end of a voyage. It's just a
57:00continuation on a more humble craft."
57:02>> Okay.
57:03>> And I so, what's important to do? I get
57:05up in the morning and I do my navigation
57:07as best I can. I keep a log. I
57:11um I figure out what are the best times
57:13of day to fish. Um
57:15how do I produce water? How do I solve
57:17it? Well, you prioritize every day. What
57:20What is the most important thing to pay
57:22attention to and focus on that and then,
57:25you know, you have other priorities
57:26whether And of course, if the raft goes,
57:30I ain't going anywhere. So, the raft is
57:31like the top priority, but beyond that
57:34you have you know in terms of
57:37physical survival there's
57:39hypothermia which you can't really do
57:41much about if you're in a raft. There's
57:44very little you can do if you got a
57:45major injury you're kind of toast.
57:48Then there's
57:51hypothermia which can kill you in
57:53minutes and then there's water.
57:56And lastly food. So it you get down to
57:59these like real basics actually but even
58:03though they're real basic to solve that
58:05problem is quite complicated.
58:08>> So you're just kind of getting
58:09brutalized by the storm for a couple
58:11days.
58:12>> Yeah.
58:13>> The
58:15storm breaks
58:18and you're able I would imagine for the
58:21first time to like meaningfully triage
58:24the situation.
58:26>> Yeah cuz up until that time I was kind
58:27of hanging out.
58:28>> look through stuff.
58:29>> Yeah I was looking through you know I
58:30had the inventory and like I said you
58:32know I started doing some things I
58:34taking notes
58:35when I can you know
58:38have things dry enough but um
58:41>> In that first day like
58:43the first day that you're able to like
58:45kind of have some dominion over your
58:47thing without waves
58:49>> Yeah.
58:50>> You know I mean I guess they're still
58:52there for sure a little bit but like
58:54>> Yeah.
58:55>> without the constant demand of attention
58:58that like a storm warrants.
59:02Can you tell me like
59:05it doesn't have to be like a list like
59:06kind of thing but more or less what you
59:08had in that kit.
59:10>> Oh god yeah it's it's actually pretty
59:12extensive. Um
59:14>> I remember being like surprised at how
59:16extensive it was but also kind of
59:17surprised at some of like the choices
59:19that whoever put that kit together made.
59:22>> Yeah well I had my own ditch kit.
59:24>> Yeah.
59:24>> And the The one in the raft is is
59:26standard, you know, there's there's some
59:28cans of water and
59:31a collapsible bucket which really is
59:33like
59:34kind of a useless thing, frankly. Um
59:37>> I've always called those bags.
59:38>> Yeah, yeah. Um I mean, in the life raft
59:41itself, I had a a coffee can that came
59:43floating out of the grab
59:45and and that was very useful because I
59:47could push my knees down into the floor
59:50and have a low spot so I could actually
59:52bail water out and stuff like that. Um
59:56They had I had flares. The raft itself
59:59had some flares. It had a couple of
1:00:01solar stills that would produce most of
1:00:03my fresh water, about a pint a day.
1:00:07Just enough.
1:00:09Um
1:00:10In my own kit, I had a another solar
1:00:13still. I had um
1:00:15uh paper, pencils. Uh I I often talk
1:00:19about, you know, my favorite inventions
1:00:20of humankind are are are, you know,
1:00:23writing stuff, paper, pencils, uh line
1:00:27or rope.
1:00:28>> Mhm.
1:00:28>> And knives.
1:00:30With those, you can build a whole
1:00:31kingdom.
1:00:32>> Mhm.
1:00:32>> And so that was always my like basic
1:00:34tools, raw materials, things like that.
1:00:36I had uh little squares of plywood for
1:00:39use as cutting board. I had grabbed a
1:00:41piece of sail off of the boat. I cut it
1:00:43off before I got separated from the
1:00:46boat. I had um
1:00:49this horseshoe ring that I grabbed off
1:00:51the boat which is, you know, to if
1:00:53somebody falls overboard, you throw it
1:00:55to them. So that I cut in half and put
1:00:57little notes on it and set them adrift
1:00:59like
1:01:00>> Oh.
1:01:00>> messages in a bottle
1:01:01>> Yeah.
1:01:02>> saying who I was, where I lost the boat,
1:01:04and all that in case somebody might trip
1:01:06over them.
1:01:08Um
1:01:09Uh I don't know what else. Oh, and a
1:01:11shorty spear gun that I'd bought in the
1:01:13Canary Islands. It's really I mean,
1:01:15you've seen it. It's on my wall. It's
1:01:16not It's pretty pretty tiny. It's almost
1:01:18like a toy.
1:01:19>> Yeah. I yeah.
1:01:21>> It's not like one of these big giant
1:01:23things and I figured, ah, well, you
1:01:25know, it might be useful I get to the
1:01:26Caribbean I can eat off off of this and
1:01:30Napoleon Solo being such a small boat it
1:01:32only had sitting head room and I tried
1:01:34putting it in different places in the
1:01:35boat and I kept hitting my head on it
1:01:37and I said, that's no good. And finally
1:01:39it just sneaked into my gear bag. Kind
1:01:42of caddy-corner. So, I'm really glad I I
1:01:44had that because um
1:01:45that fed me essentially 90 90% of what I
1:01:49ate. Um
1:01:51I don't know. Bunches of
1:01:53>> [gasps]
1:01:54>> bunches of flares and kind of a whole
1:01:57arsenal of flares, really, but they
1:01:59would do me no good. Did you have any um
1:02:03I can I can't remember. Did you have any
1:02:04potable water with you those first few
1:02:06days?
1:02:07>> Yeah, cans of water. I think I had uh
1:02:09six pints or eight pints. I can't
1:02:11remember now, actually. It's been a long
1:02:13>> negligible. I mean, like it's like a
1:02:15week's worth of water
1:02:16>> Yeah, basically. Basically.
1:02:17>> Um and any like food like biscuits or
1:02:20like any sort of like
1:02:21>> I gre- I had some stuff packed in my
1:02:23bags in my bag. Um
1:02:26there weren't any ship's biscuits or any
1:02:28survival food like that in the kit. Um
1:02:30but I had I grabbed a
1:02:33a half a little cabbage that came
1:02:34floating out out of the
1:02:36>> I remember that.
1:02:37>> the cabin and then came floating out. I
1:02:39grabbed that and threw it in the in the
1:02:41raft and I was like, that was that was
1:02:43toast in about 10 seconds. [laughter]
1:02:45>> to say
1:02:46>> You know, stuff like that, but um I had
1:02:49a uh a a can of beans, actually, that I
1:02:52ended up throwing overboard because the
1:02:54can had blown out. Um
1:02:57a pea- some peanuts and a couple other
1:03:00things. I can't remember what else was
1:03:02in there.
1:03:02>> So, you're in like
1:03:04Yeah, it was a pretty spare
1:03:05>> Yeah.
1:03:07>> Um
1:03:09uh when we talked earlier you
1:03:11it just like a minute ago you were
1:03:13talking about that recoil
1:03:16and that feeling like
1:03:19like kind of like a self-loathing.
1:03:22>> Yeah, and it's more than that. It's just
1:03:23the the to
1:03:26try to come to grips with overcoming the
1:03:29challenge is so overwhelming. You just
1:03:32think you know, most people anyway, even
1:03:35if they're pretty tough and resilient
1:03:37people, it's like if if they get into a
1:03:40situation like this, it's like
1:03:43I don't see any way out of this. I don't
1:03:45know I I I just can't I can't see myself
1:03:47being
1:03:49resilient enough and adaptable enough in
1:03:51order to to make it through this. Cuz
1:03:53you really can't
1:03:55You know what the You know what all the
1:03:56challenges are, but you don't know what
1:03:58the answers are to
1:04:00to facing those at the time. And it
1:04:03takes Sometimes it takes a really long
1:04:05time to figure things out.
1:04:07>> Did you ever feel like you kind of
1:04:08deserved to be there on some level?
1:04:10>> yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It's
1:04:12like
1:04:13Well, this is what you get for such a
1:04:15misspent life, you know. And I think
1:04:18inevitably that happens to people, but
1:04:21um
1:04:21>> What's that like?
1:04:23>> It's dismal. It's depressing. I mean,
1:04:26it's just really hard to overcome the
1:04:28the
1:04:30I don't know, the anxiety and the
1:04:31depression and um
1:04:34these kind of feelings.
1:04:36Um
1:04:36but eventually you do. And you do things
1:04:39I've often talked to people about, you
1:04:41know, the experiences, you know, as as
1:04:44we like to say it's life on steroids.
1:04:46It's It's the same as everyday life. We
1:04:48face challenges and so on. It's just
1:04:50that it's
1:04:51much more intense. And so you have these
1:04:54feelings that are really intensified,
1:04:58and you'll have these really low lows.
1:05:01And then something happens.
1:05:04You make a little discovery. You figure
1:05:06out how to solve a problem. And all of a
1:05:07sudden you're like the king of the
1:05:08world.
1:05:09>> Just ecstasy. Yeah, and and you know,
1:05:13okay, fine. Maybe I'm going to die
1:05:14tomorrow, but look what I've Look what
1:05:16I've achieved. And uh actually in the
1:05:19documentary that this guy made of it
1:05:21made of a drift and he he he cuz I
1:05:24referenced this. It's like um
1:05:26in survival films
1:05:28Cast Away with Tom Hanks. There's just
1:05:31this great scene where he's struggling
1:05:33and struggling and struggling to make a
1:05:35fire. And then he goes he's dancing
1:05:37around the fire Look what I have
1:05:38achieved. It's exactly like that. It
1:05:42really is incredible. And but then
1:05:44[clears throat] it could be 10 minutes
1:05:45later you hold the I hold the bottom of
1:05:47the raft and it's like now what now you
1:05:50idiot, you know, how could you possibly
1:05:53I don't know overcome this. So it's very
1:05:57high highs and very low lows. But in the
1:05:59zone in general, I mean, I think a lot
1:06:01of people can a lot of sports people can
1:06:03relate to this.
1:06:05Um
1:06:06you know, I've talked to
1:06:07survivors of uh mountain climbing who
1:06:09have fallen off of cliffs and lost legs
1:06:12and stuff like that. And we when we talk
1:06:15about these things and we really relate
1:06:17on this issue and it's the same as just
1:06:19the offshore sailing.
1:06:21Um
1:06:22it's it's a very Zen-like experience.
1:06:24You're you're almost totally in the
1:06:27present. You know, the the past and the
1:06:29future are you know, they're out there,
1:06:32but you're so focused and you can be in
1:06:35the zone.
1:06:36Um
1:06:37if you're
1:06:39getting good at it. Um and so you're
1:06:41totally present and you're really
1:06:43sensitive to everything that's going on
1:06:45around you and what everything you do
1:06:50um how it has an effect on everything
1:06:52else. And and so it in in many ways it's
1:06:55a it's a kind of strange high too.
1:06:58>> In those early days
1:07:00um
1:07:01I have two questions. I'm just going to
1:07:02kind of layer them on top of each other.
1:07:05Uh
1:07:06one
1:07:08with your limited
1:07:10consumable supplies, that being like,
1:07:12you know, the peanuts, the canned water.
1:07:15>> Um one, how quickly did you
1:07:18[clears throat] or did you not use
1:07:19those? And then two,
1:07:22for the first
1:07:253 weeks
1:07:27cuz like I I I would assume that that's
1:07:30like
1:07:31maybe how long it took you to get into
1:07:35Well, I also kind of know, but like a
1:07:36meaningful rhythm.
1:07:37>> Yeah.
1:07:39>> What is day-to-day life like for those
1:07:42first
1:07:4420 days, say?
1:07:46>> Um yeah, actually for me it was 2 weeks.
1:07:50Really, almost exactly 2 weeks.
1:07:52>> That was the acclimation.
1:07:53>> That was Yeah, I mean it's hard to put a
1:07:56>> Right.
1:07:56>> what you know, a really clear dividing
1:07:58line on it, but um
1:08:00>> Of course.
1:08:00>> it took me
1:08:03um
1:08:042 weeks to figure out how to get one of
1:08:07these solar stills to work because as
1:08:09far as I know, I'm the only one to have
1:08:11ever gotten one to work in the real
1:08:12world.
1:08:13>> Really?
1:08:14>> They were made during the Second World
1:08:15War. I've talked to lots of vets. I've
1:08:17read books that mention them and stuff
1:08:19like that. I've never heard of anybody
1:08:21getting one to work in the real world.
1:08:23I'm sure they worked in a pool someplace
1:08:25at some point.
1:08:26>> like a great idea, but
1:08:27>> great idea. [laughter]
1:08:28>> hear somebody being like, and then the
1:08:30solar still still came in a ton of
1:08:31handy. It worked exactly as it was
1:08:33supposed to.
1:08:34>> Yeah, exactly. And then the only way I
1:08:36got them to work was used as not
1:08:37directed. So, you know,
1:08:39anyway, it took me a long time to sort
1:08:41that out.
1:08:42>> a solar still for somebody?
1:08:43>> still is like a
1:08:45um
1:08:46it's it's it's it's it's like a balloon
1:08:49and it's got a little valve on the top
1:08:50that allows seawater to drip down inside
1:08:54and then it's in the atmosphere on the
1:08:55inside. It's got a black cloth suspended
1:08:58on the inside of this balloon and then
1:09:00when the sun comes out, it evaporates
1:09:02the fresh water out of the sea water and
1:09:06which basically collects as condensation
1:09:08on the balloon and then rains down to a
1:09:11collection bag. Sounds very simple but
1:09:14the valve has to be just right. The
1:09:15inflation has to be just right. If it's
1:09:18floating in the water as directed
1:09:20a wave passes by and it zooms off and
1:09:23then comes at the end of a tether and
1:09:25goes
1:09:26like that and flings all kinds of salt
1:09:28water into the fresh water and tears
1:09:29itself. So it took me a long time to
1:09:33kind of sort my way through that and
1:09:35figure out how I could
1:09:37actually get one to work. So that's part
1:09:39of the day.
1:09:41Keeping a log, navigating, exercising. I
1:09:44had had problems with my back and so I
1:09:47was doing these kind of modified yoga
1:09:49exercises every day.
1:09:51Um
1:09:52and then fish started showing up on the
1:09:54third day and so they were my source and
1:09:57actually the story of a drift to me
1:10:00is
1:10:03it's really a fish tale.
1:10:04>> Mhm.
1:10:05>> And the fish the the dorado dorado mahi
1:10:09mahi whatever you want to call them
1:10:10they're the stars of the show. I'm just
1:10:12this idiot who's out there showing the
1:10:14worst possible way to cross the
1:10:16Atlantic.
1:10:17And they're
1:10:18they've got a
1:10:21the ecosystem that develops around the
1:10:24raft of which they are the stars
1:10:27is
1:10:29what long term oceanic survivors depend
1:10:31upon. Anything that floats in the ocean
1:10:33becomes an island. It can be a little
1:10:36square of Styrofoam and it'll grow weeds
1:10:38and barnacles and fish will park under
1:10:40them.
1:10:41>> And this starts to happen day three of
1:10:43this
1:10:43>> well the 14 day period start showing up
1:10:46and then they get closer and closer and
1:10:48I'm trying to spear them and they prove
1:10:50to be way smarter than me and way faster
1:10:55and they're out there I mean through the
1:10:56whole thing, I'm looking at them and
1:10:58going, "Hey, you know, they're out there
1:11:00making love and having fun and I'm
1:11:02dying. Who's the superior being here?"
1:11:04You know?
1:11:06And um
1:11:08So, it took me a long time to figure out
1:11:09how to fish. Um in on the 14th day, I'd
1:11:12gotten a solar still to work and I
1:11:14caught my first dorado. I believe that
1:11:18was the dorado I caught the 14th day.
1:11:21>> Are your and uh are your cans of water
1:11:23gone at this point?
1:11:25>> Yeah.
1:11:26>> Yeah, pretty much. The peanuts gone at
1:11:27this point?
1:11:27>> Pretty much. Yeah, yeah. I I I didn't I
1:11:30didn't eat them right away cuz I
1:11:32figured, "Ah, well, I'm not going to
1:11:33starve in a day or two. You don't really
1:11:35starve. Most people won't starve to
1:11:37death for several weeks at the very
1:11:40least and maybe a month."
1:11:42So, that wasn't a wasn't a huge priority
1:11:45and not that I enjoyed being hungry, but
1:11:48>> Do you start fishing as soon as you saw
1:11:50the fish?
1:11:51>> Yeah, I tried doing several things. I
1:11:53tried catching it with a piece of line.
1:11:56Um they just bit the line off.
1:11:59Uh then I found I had a piece of wire
1:12:02that I could use as a
1:12:04a leader.
1:12:05>> And and at this point like a flying fish
1:12:07crashed into the raft, right? And I was
1:12:09like, "I'm not going to throw the flying
1:12:10fish away. I'm going to eat that." But I
1:12:12saved the head and the tail and stuck
1:12:14them together with some hooks and stuff
1:12:16in them made a lure.
1:12:17Threw it out. Okay, they just bite that
1:12:19off. All right, make another one with a
1:12:22wire leader.
1:12:23Ah, I catch another one and it just
1:12:25suddenly swims. These fish can do 50
1:12:27knots.
1:12:28>> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
1:12:29>> So, it just suddenly swims really fast
1:12:31forward and clips the line off right in
1:12:32front of where the wire where the leader
1:12:34is. And then they would tease me because
1:12:37I'd be trying to catch them with a you
1:12:39know, shoot them with the spear gun.
1:12:41And they learned within 24 hours what
1:12:44exactly the range of that spear gun was.
1:12:46And they would go like just tease me,
1:12:48but they would hit the bottom of the
1:12:49raft in different ways and we're not
1:12:52sure why they do this behavior, but some
1:12:54people say oh, it's to get rid of, you
1:12:56know,
1:12:57pests on their skins and stuff like
1:13:00that. We don't really know, but they
1:13:02certainly seem to enjoy it. And so, I'd
1:13:04be out front of the raft, you know, with
1:13:06my my little opening to the raft, and
1:13:09>> [laughter]
1:13:09>> and they come up and
1:13:11sneak attack me in the back, and you
1:13:13know, and and really and these big males
1:13:15are they can be
1:13:17the largest one I caught was
1:13:20pretty close. It stretched all the way
1:13:21across the raft, so pretty close to 6 ft
1:13:23long, and it just about beat me to
1:13:25death.
1:13:26>> Yeah.
1:13:26>> And plus, I'm in a
1:13:28inflated raft with a spear sticking
1:13:29through this thing trying to keep it
1:13:31under control, so it's all kind of
1:13:33>> high anxiety.
1:13:34>> freaky. And so, I tried to stick to the
1:13:37the the littler the the littler females,
1:13:40but when these big males would come up
1:13:41and hit the bottom of the raft, if I if
1:13:43I had just laid my head on the bottom of
1:13:45the raft, it'd be just like if I had
1:13:46just like really whacked you.
1:13:48>> Yeah.
1:13:48>> And so, I always kept my head up on a
1:13:51gear bag and stuff like that. And
1:13:53>> Uh how long was it until cuz
1:13:56you had huge sharks.
1:13:58>> Yeah, I had some sharks.
1:14:00>> pop in the bottom of that thing.
1:14:01>> Yeah,
1:14:02I was fortunate compared to survivors in
1:14:04the Pacific with sharks. I mean, some
1:14:07some of whom I know
1:14:09basically learn to have to learn to live
1:14:11with sharks around them all the time,
1:14:1324/7.
1:14:15Um I had encounters. I I can't remember
1:14:17exactly how many, but um the first was I
1:14:20saw a hammerhead, and of course, I was
1:14:23freaked out. And mostly
1:14:24I frankly, I wasn't as freaked out about
1:14:27being eaten right away. What I was
1:14:29really worried about was them damaging
1:14:31the raft.
1:14:32>> When was this first shark encountered?
1:14:33Do you remember?
1:14:34>> I can't remember what day it was. It was
1:14:35sometime in that first couple of weeks.
1:14:38>> Okay, yeah.
1:14:39>> And and you
1:14:42know, I'm seeing it swim up to me,
1:14:45And uh it just kind of glided under the
1:14:48under the raft and just went on its own
1:14:50merry way, but there were others where
1:14:52they would come up and one of them
1:14:54I was what I call the afternoon bake
1:14:56off, the second half of the voyage where
1:14:58I was like just like wanting to pass out
1:15:01cuz it was so hot and um
1:15:04all of a sudden I'm awakened by my you
1:15:06know, the whole raft's going like this
1:15:08and a shark was upside down grab one of
1:15:10the ballast pockets and was like doing
1:15:12this with the raft.
1:15:13>> my gosh.
1:15:14>> And there are other other times where
1:15:15they would hit the in the second week
1:15:18actually, the first ship that I saw this
1:15:2014th day
1:15:22I think it was on the 14th day or around
1:15:24then.
1:15:24Um
1:15:26I was awakened immediately all of a
1:15:28sudden there was you know, the dorado
1:15:30would gather around the raft and at
1:15:33night I'd get up and I'd look at them
1:15:34and anything going through the water and
1:15:37>> The bioluminescence
1:15:37>> disturbs the planktonic bioluminescence
1:15:40and so they glow. So it was like I'd get
1:15:42up and it was like being surrounded by
1:15:44these incredible I don't know silver
1:15:46platters or something or other, but
1:15:49a shark I think had seen one of the
1:15:51dorado under the raft and came up to
1:15:54grab the dorado and all of a sudden the
1:15:56raft's like being punched out the water
1:15:59and
1:16:00it
1:16:01took a number of swings and I'm trying
1:16:02to hit at these flashes of
1:16:04bioluminescence and finally finally it
1:16:07went it went away, yeah. But um
1:16:10later that same night
1:16:12um
1:16:14there was a disturbance another dorado
1:16:17I think it was and it it woke me up and
1:16:20I looked out and there was a ship. So I
1:16:23I had this fantasy of you know, the ship
1:16:25was going to pick me up in a couple
1:16:26weeks before anybody even knew I was
1:16:28missing and I had this dorado that I had
1:16:31just just killed and I was going to
1:16:34share that with the crew and
1:16:36I'm drinking water and you go, "Hey,
1:16:39this is great." You know, what a
1:16:41freaking idiot. So, cuz I had
1:16:44just [laughter] went steaming right by.
1:16:45Like, "Woo!"
1:16:47>> So,
1:16:48>> Into the sunset or sunrise.
1:16:50>> You had two
1:16:52devices
1:16:54by which you hoped to attract attention
1:16:57from, you know, either ships or
1:17:00or I guess planes with the
1:17:02>> Yeah, I had a a thing called an EPIRB,
1:17:04an emergency position indicating radio
1:17:06beacon, which is like a I don't know
1:17:08they're called some place PLB. Some
1:17:11versions of it are called PLBs, personal
1:17:14locating beacons. You know, all
1:17:16aircraft, little aircraft and stuff have
1:17:18these things.
1:17:19And uh at the time they were only being
1:17:22monitored by aircraft that were within,
1:17:25I think it was 250 mi or something like
1:17:27that. But, I was in a very empty part of
1:17:29the Atlantic Ocean. So, that never
1:17:31brought help.
1:17:32>> And then your other method of getting
1:17:35>> flares.
1:17:35>> Yeah.
1:17:36>> And I had a pile of flares.
1:17:38Uh parachute flares that go up and they
1:17:40pop open a little parachute as they
1:17:42drift down, so they stay up quite a lot
1:17:44longer. They're the best.
1:17:46And um and I thought the ship had seen
1:17:48me. It it seemed like it had maybe
1:17:50changed course, but it it
1:17:53just came steaming right by.
1:17:56>> Um
1:17:58how many flares did you
1:18:00How many flares do you think you had and
1:18:01how many flares did you spend on that
1:18:02first ship?
1:18:03>> I can't remember the number that I had
1:18:06total, actually, or even how many I used
1:18:08on that ship cuz I used to I used two or
1:18:10three pin parachute flares, I think, and
1:18:12then some handheld flares and stuff. And
1:18:15And when it went by and after drinking
1:18:16the water and using these flares, I you
1:18:18know, I really
1:18:19>> Oh, the drinking the water wasn't part
1:18:20of your fantasy? Like, you
1:18:22>> No, no, I actually drank some water. I
1:18:24drank probably a pint and a half or two
1:18:26pints of water and it was like that took
1:18:28me so long to
1:18:30stockpile.
1:18:32And it was like, "Oh my god." It was
1:18:33just another one of those moments where,
1:18:35you know, you just like beating yourself
1:18:37up for being such an idiot.
1:18:38>> up all your resources.
1:18:40Uh whether it's like, you know, the
1:18:42flares to signal help or the water.
1:18:45And how far away was this boat from you
1:18:49at its closest, would you think?
1:18:51>> Less than a mile. I could smell the
1:18:53diesel in the air. And I could, you
1:18:55know, you you know, it could sets up a
1:18:57wake and I could feel the wake under the
1:18:59raft after when they came out, so.
1:19:02>> I mean, like that's like across the bay.
1:19:05Actually, across the bay is probably a
1:19:06little further.
1:19:07>> Uh
1:19:08no, I would say yeah, I would say it's
1:19:13it might have been closer than that.
1:19:14Like that house over there something
1:19:16like that, but and I
1:19:18another ship that passed me by I could
1:19:20if somebody had been out on deck, I
1:19:21could have told you what kind of clothes
1:19:22they were wearing.
1:19:24But they didn't see me.
1:19:26>> And these are tankers. These These are
1:19:27large
1:19:28>> tankers, offshore stuff and uh you know,
1:19:31the reality I knew what the reality was.
1:19:34I mean, I'd been offshore enough and
1:19:36talked to ship on radios and a lot of
1:19:38times you're on a big boat and talking
1:19:40to a ship on the radio and they go,
1:19:41"Where are you?" And I go, "Well, I'm
1:19:43bearing this degree from you." And they
1:19:45go, "Really? I can't see you." And I'm
1:19:48I'm in a 40-ft sailboat and you can't
1:19:50see me.
1:19:51And
1:19:52so and if there's somebody
1:19:56you know,
1:19:57in the middle of the night, you know,
1:19:58maybe somebody's on the bridge or more
1:20:00likely you're just sitting in the radio
1:20:02room, you know, in 15 minutes, you know,
1:20:04even if they come out and look in your
1:20:06direction, they're gone, you know, so
1:20:09it's just one of those things.
1:20:11>> What What is that like
1:20:15when a boat passes like, you know, I
1:20:17mean
1:20:18>> Well, the first one was tough, but
1:20:19mostly it was tough because I really
1:20:22admonished myself for being foolish.
1:20:24>> Mhm.
1:20:24>> You know, and it's like again, it's like
1:20:26reality is exactly what it is, not what
1:20:28you want it to be. I wanted to be you
1:20:32know, have this fantasy fulfilled and I
1:20:35would be saved, but the reality was you
1:20:37never know when you're going to be saved
1:20:40until you are saved. Don't ever like
1:20:44jump the gun cuz that's when you make
1:20:46big mistakes.
1:20:47>> How do you come back from that?
1:20:50>> You forgive yourself and move on. I knew
1:20:52I knew that too. I went through that all
1:20:54my with myself in in the raft. I You
1:20:57know, I First of all, I'm by myself. I
1:20:59have nobody else to bounce stuff uh
1:21:01>> In the first 14 days, this is?
1:21:03>> Well, yeah, really throughout the whole
1:21:05thing the whole thing. I I had to kind
1:21:08of keep repeating this these mantras,
1:21:10you know, um
1:21:12you know, forgive yourself if you made a
1:21:13mistake. You don't even know how many
1:21:15mistakes you're making.
1:21:17Um not to mention all the missed
1:21:20opportunities that you could have,
1:21:23you know, exploited had there been
1:21:24somebody smarter than you with you, you
1:21:26know, that kind of thing. Um
1:21:28but you can only do the best you can and
1:21:30I knew from the very first day I wrote
1:21:32that in my log about, you know, look,
1:21:35you know, you say this often in your
1:21:36life that, you know, you got to do the
1:21:38best you can, but I I'm I'm not
1:21:40bullshitting here. You have to do
1:21:41exactly the best you can every minute
1:21:44until you're out of this thing because
1:21:47we're not talking about, you know,
1:21:49writing a script or something like that.
1:21:51This is This is here. This is now and
1:21:53you don't know what you're going to be
1:21:55forgiven and what you're not going to be
1:21:57forgiven.
1:21:58>> It seems to me that like
1:22:00in the way that you were describing your
1:22:02dream state versus your state of
1:22:05awareness on the boat, that's kind of
1:22:07like analogous for
1:22:09how the survival situation seems to be
1:22:11divvied up between activity and
1:22:14inactivity. Like it has to be this
1:22:16almost like
1:22:18Well, it's like meditation almost like a
1:22:19really like active passiveness if that
1:22:22makes sense. Is that like a
1:22:23>> Yeah, to a certain degree. I I I
1:22:25realized that I had to ration
1:22:26everything.
1:22:28And
1:22:29that included my own energy.
1:22:32Um
1:22:32>> What does that look like?
1:22:33>> Um well, it meant that you okay, morning
1:22:37comes and I'm feeling pretty good and
1:22:39chipper. I'm going to do everything that
1:22:42I need to do in the morning, you know,
1:22:43top up the raft with this this little
1:22:46pump that I called the beast. Um
1:22:49uh
1:22:50to keep the tubes tight and all that
1:22:52kind of stuff and um you know, when I'm
1:22:55in shape, I can do that. But then
1:22:58at a certain point, it's like, okay,
1:23:00now's not a really a good time to fish
1:23:02cuz the fish go off and they do their
1:23:03routine. You know, you learn the secrets
1:23:06of your universe.
1:23:08And um and so it's like, yeah, I could
1:23:10stand there for you know, the next 4
1:23:11hours trying to catch a fish, but that's
1:23:13probably wasted energy. It's better for
1:23:15me now to conserve my energy, try to
1:23:18stay cool or warm, depending on where we
1:23:21were in the voyage, that kind of thing.
1:23:23But it's a constant shuffle.
1:23:25>> What does the rest of your time look
1:23:28like from
1:23:32developing your
1:23:35routine post wreckage?
1:23:38Um
1:23:41in that stretch of water before it gets,
1:23:44you know, between the Canary Islands and
1:23:45where it starts getting warm. About how
1:23:48many days do you think that is? Like
1:23:50>> don't know. It's such a slow transition,
1:23:52really. It's It's not like going through
1:23:54the Gulf Stream where you know, you're
1:23:55in cold water off the East Coast and
1:23:58then all of a sudden you're actually
1:23:59seeing like right there the all of a
1:24:02sudden the temperature's getting to be
1:24:0390° or 85 or something.
1:24:07>> You know, a
1:24:08a better place for me to go before we
1:24:10get there is you had mapped your
1:24:12progress in a startlingly
1:24:15startlingly effective way.
1:24:18Um
1:24:20you were kind of plotting as you were
1:24:22going and kind of being like, "Okay, I
1:24:24think that I might hit this if I keep
1:24:26going here and if I miss this, I will go
1:24:29to this."
1:24:30>> Right.
1:24:30>> Onward and onward. You measured how fast
1:24:33you were going or made a rough
1:24:34measurement of how fast you were going.
1:24:36Can you describe like plotting your
1:24:39trajectory?
1:24:40>> Yeah, I I trailed a line out the back of
1:24:43the raft that had this man overboard
1:24:45pole that I'd yanked off in Napoleon
1:24:47Solo.
1:24:47>> Mhm.
1:24:48>> And I tied a bunch of mirrors to it cuz
1:24:50I figured, well, it might be up on a on
1:24:52a crest while the raft is down and vice
1:24:55versa. So, it's reflecting light. So,
1:24:57maybe somebody goes by, they might see
1:24:59that. And it was very convenient in
1:25:02terms of the length of it.
1:25:04So, I made up a little speed distance
1:25:06table. So, I could time a piece of
1:25:09seaweed, say, or I had a chart of the
1:25:12Indian Ocean which I didn't need. I
1:25:13might crumple off a little piece of that
1:25:15and put it in the water and I would time
1:25:17when it it
1:25:19the past the man overboard pole so I
1:25:21could tell what speed I was going
1:25:23through the water. And in the the chart
1:25:25that I had, it estimated what the
1:25:27currents were which I think were
1:25:29probably a little overdone. I had an
1:25:32unbreakable compass in the sky in the
1:25:35morning. The the sun would rise and I
1:25:38had a table of declinations in my
1:25:41survival manual written by another ocean
1:25:43survival dude, Dougal Robertson.
1:25:44>> What is a table of declinations?
1:25:46>> It it It tells you basically if you're
1:25:49at this latitude that the sun is rising
1:25:52at this angle from you.
1:25:54So, you can tell
1:25:56direction.
1:25:57>> Not just east, but like this kind of
1:25:59east.
1:25:59>> Not just east. It's it's, you know, 110°
1:26:03or something if you're on this latitude,
1:26:05whatever.
1:26:06And
1:26:07at night, of course, I could see the
1:26:08North Star and stuff like that. So, I
1:26:11had unbreakable compass in the in the
1:26:13heavens.
1:26:14A little speed distance table and
1:26:16whatnot. And I would sit there and plot
1:26:18oh I went this far in the chart today.
1:26:21>> [laughter]
1:26:21>> Was that something that gave you a level
1:26:24of like
1:26:26solace and control or was that something
1:26:28okay?
1:26:29>> Definitely. Yeah, I like I say I mean
1:26:31all that stuff keeping a log exercising
1:26:34and everything normalizing life as much
1:26:36as possible is really important so that
1:26:39you you might not have control of your
1:26:41life but you could at least have some
1:26:42effect on it.
1:26:43>> Are you
1:26:45are you talking to yourself on on the
1:26:47raft to kind of
1:26:48>> Mostly in my head.
1:26:50>> Okay.
1:26:50>> Yeah. I don't really
1:26:53it was weird at the end of the of the
1:26:56voyage actually getting out and talking
1:26:58to people.
1:26:59>> Yeah.
1:27:00>> That was a strange
1:27:01>> So I imagine you know stranded alone on
1:27:04a raft talking to yourself might be a
1:27:05little comfortable and
1:27:08>> Yeah, but I do that kind of I don't know
1:27:10as a writer and stuff like that I'm
1:27:11always talking in my head.
1:27:14>> What
1:27:15um
1:27:16>> Sometimes I did do it out loud.
1:27:18I there are times like I had some
1:27:20meltdowns.
1:27:22>> [laughter]
1:27:22>> I I really did have some meltdowns where
1:27:24I was just like you wouldn't believe the
1:27:26curses that came out of this mouth.
1:27:29>> [laughter]
1:27:30>> It drives my wife crazy if I get out and
1:27:33get really ticked off or something and
1:27:34start cursing Neptune or something or
1:27:36other. She goes oh no don't do that.
1:27:38>> [laughter]
1:27:39>> You have no idea how I have cursed
1:27:40Neptune at times you know that kind of
1:27:43thing or it just frustrated like there
1:27:45was a I went through a period of time
1:27:47where it was stormy again and whatnot
1:27:49and the raft almost get picked up up you
1:27:51know almost flipped over and all this
1:27:53water gets comes in the raft. I'm
1:27:55spending about half my time wet anyway
1:27:58and I get all these salt water sores
1:28:00which are like little open ulcers on the
1:28:01skin hundreds of those.
1:28:03They're not very pleasant and um
1:28:06so I just get the the raft bailed out
1:28:09and then all of a sudden the the same
1:28:10thing would happen again and I just lost
1:28:12it one day. And
1:28:14again with this kind of splitting of the
1:28:17personality, there was part of me that
1:28:19was saying,
1:28:20"You're being an idiot, you know, this
1:28:23is silly. You're acting like a
1:28:255-year-old."
1:28:26And then that was that 5-year-old was
1:28:28saying, "I don't give a damn. I need to
1:28:31do this right now." And then after 10
1:28:34minutes or something or other, I chilled
1:28:36out and
1:28:37it's time to move on. But sometimes you
1:28:39just need to unload.
1:28:41>> Well, yeah, I mean, cuz if you got all
1:28:42that penned up, you can make a lot of
1:28:44bad decisions.
1:28:45>> Yeah.
1:28:46>> Right. And if you're like get yourself
1:28:48to a place of calmness, at least you're
1:28:50maybe making bad decisions for
1:28:52>> Right.
1:28:53>> 10 minutes, not 10 days or hours.
1:28:56>> Yeah.
1:28:56>> Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes you just I
1:28:58don't know. It's a balance of those
1:28:59things. Trying to keep your emotional
1:29:02self together is a challenge, for sure.
1:29:06Um there are times where I I sang,
1:29:08actually. I had a couple of favorite
1:29:09songs. There are Beatles songs. Help.
1:29:12And
1:29:13which is like totally suited my life.
1:29:15>> Yeah.
1:29:16>> And
1:29:17what was there There's another one about
1:29:19I'm so tired. I haven't slept a wink.
1:29:22You know, that.
1:29:24I'm [laughter] so tired.
1:29:26>> Or Or is that Beach Boys song Sloop John
1:29:28B?
1:29:28>> Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you
1:29:30know, things like that come back to you.
1:29:33>> What
1:29:34uh
1:29:35Okay, so you're plotting your course.
1:29:36Where did you expect
1:29:39What was the best
1:29:41case scenario
1:29:44as far as where you expected where you
1:29:46might expect to land? Like what is like
1:29:47the man I hope that I'm plotting this
1:29:49right because if that means this, then
1:29:51I'm here.
1:29:52>> Yeah. Well, um
1:29:54I don't know. I'll do it for the for for
1:29:55for the camera. If you If you've got,
1:29:57you know, the United States with Florida
1:30:00and you've got the Caribbean islands,
1:30:02like, you know, Cuba and Puerto Rico and
1:30:05And the the island chain curves down and
1:30:07it goes kind of
1:30:09almost north-south. So anywhere along
1:30:11that line would have been okay
1:30:14because that would be the closest to me.
1:30:16Antigua was pretty close.
1:30:18Um
1:30:20I was worried that if
1:30:22uh with the currents and things as as
1:30:24they get close to those islands the
1:30:26currents sweep to
1:30:28uh well first of all they're they're
1:30:29going west and then they kind of bend up
1:30:31and end up going north and then back it
1:30:34gets swept up in the Gulf Stream and
1:30:36next stop is England.
1:30:38Uh I definitely didn't want to do that
1:30:40so I tried to coax the raft to go south
1:30:42as best I could just hoping that I would
1:30:45get somewhere.
1:30:46Oh, I could tow the
1:30:49man overboard pole on a
1:30:51the head of this exterior turn
1:30:54uh handline and I could slide that along
1:30:57to kind of tilt the raft and hopefully
1:30:59guide it
1:31:00like a sailboat like a really low aspect
1:31:03sail.
1:31:04Go
1:31:05just kind of coax it to go even 1° or 2°
1:31:09can make a huge difference.
1:31:10So um so I did that and actually landed
1:31:14on Marie-Galante which is probably about
1:31:16the best I could have done
1:31:18in terms of the easternmost island but I
1:31:20was worried by the end. I thought I
1:31:21might have missed the islands entirely
1:31:24and that all my navigation was total
1:31:27nuts.
1:31:28But
1:31:28>> Going back to the fishing stuff.
1:31:32That
1:31:35describe the first fish
1:31:39that you successfully caught with that
1:31:41spear gun.
1:31:43The role the spear gun like kind of
1:31:45played
1:31:47um throughout that trip is both
1:31:49something that could like bring good
1:31:51stuff and something that could cause
1:31:52like complete disaster.
1:31:54>> Yeah.
1:31:55>> And then
1:31:56>> And it almost did both.
1:31:58>> And then I I would love to hear more
1:32:00about your feelings on like the fish
1:32:03as these beings.
1:32:05>> Yeah.
1:32:06Um
1:32:07Well, I was starting to get to know
1:32:09them. They had different behavior
1:32:10patterns, too. Like there was this big
1:32:12male who would like to come up in the
1:32:13middle of the afternoon and whack the
1:32:15the side of the raft and like push it
1:32:17around on the ocean. I just thought it
1:32:18was entertainment for him, you know.
1:32:21Um some I could recognize. Oh, well,
1:32:23there's the one that still has that
1:32:24piece of line trailing from its mouth
1:32:26where I tried to catch it or they have
1:32:28these scars and stuff like that. So, I
1:32:29got to know I started to get to know
1:32:31them kind of individually and
1:32:34um they were just so beautiful and
1:32:37talented and
1:32:39uh I don't know, just these supreme
1:32:41creatures, really. And um
1:32:44but I knew I had to eat them.
1:32:46Um
1:32:48and I it was as time went on, I got more
1:32:50and more attached. At first, they were
1:32:51really more of like, hey, there's
1:32:54there's a chunk of food right there.
1:32:57>> So, I was very happy to have caught that
1:32:58first fish, but like I say, it was
1:33:02it's a dangerous operation cuz I'm
1:33:03catching a fish with a spear and an
1:33:06inflated raft. So, I made sure I had
1:33:08everything really prepared to pad as
1:33:10much as possible and all that kind of
1:33:12stuff.
1:33:13And uh
1:33:14but as time went on, it got more and
1:33:16more difficult. One of the most uh
1:33:17crushing things for me personally was
1:33:21um
1:33:23I there was a
1:33:25a fish that went by and I I shot this
1:33:28spear gun and it hit the fish and
1:33:31right along the spine. You can usually
1:33:33see there's like a line that runs down
1:33:35along the spine. Yeah, this lateral line
1:33:37and
1:33:38>> so, I hit it,
1:33:40but it didn't drive all the way through
1:33:42the the fish.
1:33:43And so, I'm pulling it back into the
1:33:46raft really slowly and gingerly. And
1:33:51just as I'm starting to try to pick it
1:33:53up, it falls off the end of the spear
1:33:55and it's dead. And this is a whole scene
1:33:58in a drift, too, because it was like it
1:34:00starts spiraling down under the ocean.
1:34:03I'm watching it spiraling down and the
1:34:06weirdest thing that all these other
1:34:08dorado dove down to it and it was like
1:34:12really it was it was like this whirling
1:34:14flower
1:34:16of, you know, the dead fish in the in
1:34:18the in the middle and all these like
1:34:20little petals of of other fish reaching
1:34:23down to it. And it was
1:34:25it was just devastating to me, the
1:34:27waste. You know, I just it just was
1:34:29really horrible for me, but
1:34:32after that,
1:34:34um
1:34:34I don't know. I I just tried to catch
1:34:36what I needed because I needed to also
1:34:39ration the use of my equipment. The the
1:34:42um
1:34:43the fish were an obvious threat. Um
1:34:47they proved themselves very strong
1:34:50and
1:34:51capable of beating me up quite a bit.
1:34:53And
1:34:55they kept breaking the spear gun. Uh the
1:34:57power strap disappeared. So, then I tied
1:35:00it together and I had to learn how to
1:35:03use this very shorty spear close to the
1:35:06raft.
1:35:07>> the power strap. You're talking about
1:35:08tying that thing to make just a like a
1:35:11hand spear.
1:35:12>> It was like a hand spear now, yeah. So,
1:35:14that's that was the first thing to go
1:35:16was this, you know, the the elastic
1:35:19strap that shoots the spear. So, then I
1:35:22had to use it like that and then they
1:35:23would break it again and again and on
1:35:25the 43rd day one managed to
1:35:28break it break the end off and twist the
1:35:32spear around and run it into the bottom
1:35:34tube, which put a hole in the bottom
1:35:36tube of the raft and that was a total
1:35:38disaster. So, and it took me it took me
1:35:41really close to very close to the edge
1:35:43of death to figure that out.
1:35:45>> How how did you end up figuring that
1:35:47out?
1:35:48Because
1:35:50it seemed to me that they were a handful
1:35:51like really I mean the whole challenge
1:35:54is like profound, right? But like
1:35:57the major existential things are
1:36:01the solar stills and the water
1:36:02collection.
1:36:03>> Right.
1:36:04>> Cuz one point you made yourself horribly
1:36:06sick.
1:36:06>> Yeah, I did. I was I had some polluted
1:36:09water or I thought it was polluted water
1:36:11and I kept trying to make it more
1:36:12drinkable and all the canopy of the of
1:36:15the raft is international distress
1:36:17orange.
1:36:17>> Mhm.
1:36:18>> Or at least it started out that way and
1:36:19it ended up almost as white as your
1:36:21shirt by the end of it.
1:36:22>> Oh, really?
1:36:22>> Yeah. And all these like little orange
1:36:24particulates were coming off. I mean you
1:36:26can collect water off the canopy, but
1:36:30they it was undrinkable. It was really
1:36:32it was literally like trying to drink
1:36:33somebody's vomit.
1:36:34>> Just accurate.
1:36:35>> Yeah, it was all it just so horribly
1:36:38disgusting. So, I tried to dilute it and
1:36:40do all this other stuff and in the end I
1:36:41just made myself sick.
1:36:43But it didn't last too long,
1:36:44fortunately.
1:36:46>> Um the other existential threat is
1:36:52getting this
1:36:55puncture in the raft.
1:36:57>> Oh, yeah.
1:36:58>> Cuz
1:36:59it's a series of
1:37:01Is it a
1:37:03the way that I was imagining it in your
1:37:04book is that it's a like an octagonal
1:37:08kind of like
1:37:09>> It's more roundish. I mean there's made
1:37:11by segments, but basically it's a round
1:37:13raft and there two
1:37:16tubes that are isolated from one
1:37:19another.
1:37:20Inner tubes, nobody uses inner tubes
1:37:22anymore. When I was a kid they were
1:37:23standard, but you know,
1:37:25it's like like that one stacked on top
1:37:27of the other.
1:37:28And then there's a inflated arch that
1:37:31holds up the tent that's over the whole
1:37:33thing. And then there's a thin rubber
1:37:35yeah, it's like 1/16 inch or 1/8 inch of
1:37:38reinforced rubber across the bottom.
1:37:40That's it.
1:37:41>> Is there any
1:37:41>> You're feeling every bubble that goes
1:37:44under the raft. I I tell people I it was
1:37:46like living on a water bed with a couple
1:37:48of kangaroos. And uh
1:37:50>> [laughter]
1:37:50>> and uh
1:37:51uh yeah, I got pretty good at it it
1:37:54you know, moving around in it and
1:37:56towards the end if it was kind of a
1:37:58nice day like today and you know, open
1:38:00ocean waves might be a few feet,
1:38:02something like that and I could I could
1:38:04get up and I could I'd stand up in the
1:38:06raft regularly and sometimes not I could
1:38:08even let go of the canopy and just like
1:38:11balance my balance my legs as waves went
1:38:13underneath and that kind of thing.
1:38:14>> Wait, so wait
1:38:16this hole that gets torn in the in one
1:38:19of the pontoons. Which pontoon was it?
1:38:22>> one.
1:38:23>> Okay.
1:38:24>> Which is a nightmare because
1:38:26the water pressure would push up on it.
1:38:29So you end up with this big bubble on
1:38:31the inside and that loses the shape that
1:38:34gives you the freeboard.
1:38:37It's a little hard to explain.
1:38:39>> It takes it from being something that's
1:38:41like deep enough to like
1:38:43>> of having like let's say a foot of
1:38:45freeboard or 14 inches or something or
1:38:47other, it ends up being a few a couple
1:38:49inches, few inches.
1:38:51>> between trying to hold a golf ball in a
1:38:53bowl versus trying to hold a golf ball
1:38:54on a plate?
1:38:55>> I
1:38:58guess so. I don't know.
1:38:59>> see what I'm saying what I'm getting at
1:39:01though? It's like
1:39:02the sides are kind of like uh
1:39:04>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, you
1:39:06know, like a ship can be made of steel
1:39:07and float because of its the total
1:39:09displacement of the shape underwater.
1:39:11Well, if you destroy that shape, all of
1:39:13a sudden
1:39:14>> Oh, okay. I see that.
1:39:16That makes a lot more sense.
1:39:17>> that's going to sink. So the whole raft
1:39:19even moving around in it was
1:39:21incredible nightmare. It was you know, I
1:39:24could say it's like you know, it's like
1:39:25water walking through rubber quicksand
1:39:28and I was worried about my legs being
1:39:30hit or bitten you know, bitten or
1:39:32whatever. That kind of
1:39:34that kind of threat and um
1:39:37so it was really and plus I'm dragging
1:39:39this bag of water through the ocean.
1:39:41It's not all of a sudden I'm not going
1:39:43very fast. I mean, the whole structure
1:39:45of the raft gets very wobbly and made it
1:39:47really difficult to um
1:39:49uh
1:39:50almost impossible to fish or produce
1:39:53water and or really be functional at
1:39:56all. And this is caused by the spear gun
1:39:59ripping a hole in this thing. Yeah, it's
1:40:01tore a hole in the bottom that's you
1:40:03know,
1:40:04pretty big and there's no real clear way
1:40:08of how do you fix this thing because
1:40:10>> What did you do?
1:40:11>> Well, I tried all kinds of things and I
1:40:13tried to you know, I had to this foam
1:40:16this closed cell foam that doesn't
1:40:18closed cell foams are like little
1:40:20individual bubbles. They don't let water
1:40:23air pass through them and so it's really
1:40:25good. It's waterproof.
1:40:27And um so I cut a piece of that out and
1:40:30made like a tongue like if you think of
1:40:31the hole as your mouth you know, I put
1:40:33this thing in it and wrapped around it.
1:40:35>> Oh, yeah.
1:40:36>> But then as soon as I as soon as I
1:40:39inflated the raft what to do?
1:40:41>> Well, I can poke it like this but if I
1:40:43didn't pull it this way the side falls
1:40:45out.
1:40:46>> So I tried external
1:40:48pressure patches. I tried
1:40:49I tried tying it harder and tighter and
1:40:52tighter till I wore a hole in my arm. I
1:40:55I don't know. I just tried all this
1:40:56stuff and nothing nothing worked.
1:40:58Nothing ever worked. And it really
1:41:00brought me to a very low point um where
1:41:03I thought I that was it. I I wasn't
1:41:06going to go any further and uh it kind
1:41:09of woke me up.
1:41:10>> this big adrenaline spike because I
1:41:13realized give I'd pretty much given up.
1:41:14It was like
1:41:16>> You got a hole washing in and out of the
1:41:17raft I mean
1:41:19>> I'm done. You know, I just can't I
1:41:21didn't have any more strength to deal
1:41:23with this.
1:41:24And um
1:41:26and and then I realize you know, I it
1:41:28really came on me. I was like you're not
1:41:30just talking about this is being a
1:41:31possible eventuality. You know, this is
1:41:34this is happening.
1:41:35>> This is impending.
1:41:36>> This is it and you you either you got to
1:41:38make a a choice here and it it woke me
1:41:41up, kind of slapped me in the face, at
1:41:43least metaphorically, and I went through
1:41:45all the equipment that I had and you
1:41:48know, what can I do? What can I do? You
1:41:50know, it's a different approach. I mean,
1:41:51you're always
1:41:52you're always balancing these things.
1:41:54Some things you give up for a reason
1:41:55because they don't work. It's that then
1:41:57that could be gets into me in the
1:41:58insanity thing where you keep doing the
1:42:00same thing expecting a different result.
1:42:02But, there's a certain I I'm a very
1:42:05tenacious person. I'm very persistent
1:42:08and I tend to figure out okay, that's
1:42:11what didn't work.
1:42:14So, we how do we address that part of
1:42:16the problem? And I I've been very good
1:42:19at that most of my life with different
1:42:22things.
1:42:23And in this case, I just had run up
1:42:25against a wall. It's like I just keep
1:42:27doing the same thing again and again and
1:42:29it's just not going to work, but I
1:42:31finally
1:42:32sat down and figured out you know, I
1:42:33said, oh, well, what do I have? And then
1:42:35in something sparked that idea in me and
1:42:37it was like, ah, you've got this fork
1:42:40and you can break the handle off and
1:42:41make a pin and drive it down in there
1:42:43and then you can lash stuff around and
1:42:45it doesn't matter how much the raft
1:42:47wants to straighten it out, it can't do
1:42:50it cuz I've got this pin driven right
1:42:52through it.
1:42:53Why didn't I think of that a week ago
1:42:55before? It was, you know, and that
1:42:57that's another thing where you can you
1:42:59got to forgive yourself for not seeing
1:43:02what
1:43:03in hindsight was obvious.
1:43:05>> When was this in relation to like around
1:43:09what day?
1:43:10>> 43rd day.
1:43:11>> Oh my gosh.
1:43:12>> I yeah, and I I had a party kind of for
1:43:15myself which meant I allowed myself to
1:43:17drink like, I don't know, half a pint of
1:43:19water or something like that, which I
1:43:21was carefully stocking.
1:43:23Um on the 38th day because the survival
1:43:26manual that I carried was written by
1:43:28Dougal Robertson who was 38 days adrift
1:43:31in the Pacific with his family and it
1:43:32was a really good manual.
1:43:35And
1:43:36to me to even equal that to be he was
1:43:40incredibly
1:43:41the whole family and he were incredibly
1:43:44creative in in solving problems and
1:43:48making special tools and whatnot. So um
1:43:53to me I had a I had a party as like ah I
1:43:55made it to his I made it to his
1:43:58>> benchmark
1:43:59>> benchmark and I never thought I would.
1:44:02Um and then just a few days later this
1:44:04happened and it lasted until I think the
1:44:0650th day or something like that. And
1:44:08that entered
1:44:09you know I I'd gone through the recoil
1:44:12and slow adaptation which is what we
1:44:14want all survivors to get to really so
1:44:16you can live indefinitely
1:44:19in your situation and once you're you
1:44:22know kind of fully adapted. And then
1:44:24this crisis within the crisis which
1:44:26often happens.
1:44:28And that that took me into a final stage
1:44:31which is basically just hanging on day
1:44:32by day. I I was pretty my body was
1:44:36pretty wasted by that time.
1:44:39>> We are coming up to a our own
1:44:42>> Yeah.
1:44:43>> very minor water crisis. Our astute
1:44:45viewers will notice that we have moved
1:44:47up the log.
1:44:48>> [laughter]
1:44:49>> So
1:44:51we were talking about the final
1:44:54kind of like the home stretch where
1:44:57you solved this problem with
1:45:00your pontoon being all messed up.
1:45:02And now you're as you say you're like
1:45:04day by day in it.
1:45:06>> Yeah.
1:45:08>> What's that like cuz
1:45:10I would imagine and
1:45:12you know it should be noted then you
1:45:14guys should really read the book Adrift.
1:45:16Um
1:45:17You can find it pretty much everywhere.
1:45:19Um and also you can get a really great
1:45:21audio book that you read.
1:45:22>> Yeah.
1:45:23>> And it comes with like a like a
1:45:25radio interview from the 80s.
1:45:27>> Oh, does
1:45:28>> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this
1:45:29>> don't know.
1:45:29>> Oh, dude. Well, you should check that
1:45:31out. It's pretty cool.
1:45:33>> [laughter]
1:45:33>> Um no, it's it's it's it was really
1:45:35insightful. It was
1:45:37It was it was a cool little interview.
1:45:38It wasn't super long, but yeah. Anyhow,
1:45:41um
1:45:43we you
1:45:45you get to this point where after all
1:45:47this uh and
1:45:48as I was about to say, multiple ships
1:45:51>> Right.
1:45:51>> coming by. I mean, like
1:45:53>> know. Nine ships or something by the end
1:45:54of it.
1:45:55>> At a certain point did you just like not
1:45:57care about the ships?
1:45:58>> Oh, yeah. By the end of it. It was like
1:45:59I had no more flares then anyway.
1:46:01>> You're like, "There's one."
1:46:02>> Yeah, yeah. Okay. See you.
1:46:04It was a night and there's no way that
1:46:06was going to see me, so.
1:46:07>> Was that easy to get over?
1:46:09>> I felt I don't know. I felt I think I I
1:46:12entered a kind of very fatalistic
1:46:15period of my life, which is probably
1:46:16gone to the current day, which is, you
1:46:18know, things are what they they're
1:46:20they're going to be what they are. It
1:46:21doesn't mean you have to be apathetic
1:46:23about steering your own course or
1:46:25anything like that, but
1:46:27um
1:46:29if I die, I die. If I don't, I don't. Um
1:46:32you know, if the ship
1:46:34uh is probably a good sign.
1:46:37>> Right.
1:46:37>> Sure.
1:46:38>> Uh
1:46:39you know, cuz I'm interpreting things in
1:46:41terms of when I'm in shipping lanes or
1:46:42where they might be and so on and that
1:46:44I'd been waiting actually by the last
1:46:47one, I'd been waiting to see islands for
1:46:50some days and I was starting to wonder,
1:46:53you know, am I dead?
1:46:55>> Really?
1:46:56>> If I'm this Is this
1:46:57>> Yeah, kind of kind of like that. And I
1:46:59said, you know, in a rational sense, I
1:47:01said, "No, of course not. That's
1:47:02absolute nonsense." But
1:47:05on the other hand,
1:47:06anything is possible and
1:47:08>> [gasps]
1:47:09>> I don't know. I just felt, you know,
1:47:11uh how maybe I'm fated to drift forever
1:47:13in this bloody raft and um
1:47:17so I I don't know. I just
1:47:19It did It doesn't [clears throat] do you
1:47:20any good It didn't do me any good to,
1:47:22you know, moan about the ship and all
1:47:25these other ships that passed me and it
1:47:27was by after the first ship. The first
1:47:28ship was kind of
1:47:30heartbreaking, you know, because and but
1:47:32it was mostly heartbreaking because of
1:47:34my mismanagement of the situation.
1:47:37And so even by the second or the third
1:47:40ship when they still went quite close,
1:47:43it was like I had no expectations.
1:47:46And I think that was a big part of it is
1:47:48is not to have expectations.
1:47:52>> That's a really good way to like
1:47:56work within your mental health. Your
1:47:58physical health at this point is like a
1:48:00major
1:48:02major problem in that you have all these
1:48:05like open
1:48:06wounds because of the salt and
1:48:09I would imagine sunburn and just
1:48:11>> No, I wasn't I had been outside sailing
1:48:13for almost a year beforehand. I
1:48:17Although you can't see it now, but you
1:48:19know, when I tanned as a as a young
1:48:21bloke, I'd end up looking like mahogany.
1:48:23I mean, I was pretty dark and sunburn
1:48:26itself was sun exhaustion and that kind
1:48:30of thing, you know, heat exhaustion.
1:48:31That that was
1:48:33a much more major issue, but I wasn't
1:48:35worried about the sunburn, but I did
1:48:36have lots of
1:48:38salt water sores. You can actually I
1:48:41don't know if you see any of these like
1:48:42little white dots and stuff. Those are
1:48:44all from the salt water sores and back
1:48:45then. I had hundreds of them and then
1:48:48they would be all like on my on my ass
1:48:50and you
1:48:52which
1:48:54meant that I was in pain basically all
1:48:57the time
1:48:58cuz like I say there if you ever had a
1:49:00canker sore, it's like having a canker
1:49:02sore. Only I had hundreds of these
1:49:03things. So
1:49:03>> gosh.
1:49:04>> it wasn't it wasn't a lot of fun.
1:49:06But I knew that they weren't going to
1:49:08kill me exactly. Um
1:49:11and I lost about a third of my weight.
1:49:13So I was pretty weak.
1:49:15But otherwise in pretty decent shape
1:49:18overall.
1:49:20And my my bro- my brother told me, you
1:49:22know, I missed my opportunity cuz I
1:49:23shouldn't have written adrift. I should
1:49:25have written this uh Stevie Callahan's
1:49:27Secret to Thinner Thighs in 76
1:49:29[laughter] Days.
1:49:32>> Um,
1:49:34you know, I think some people might try
1:49:36it. I don't think it would have caught
1:49:37on.
1:49:38>> [laughter]
1:49:39>> Hey, it's It's pretty much like the Long
1:49:41Beach diet, isn't it? It's high protein,
1:49:44nothing else.
1:49:45>> [laughter]
1:49:46>> What did
1:49:47uh
1:49:50I'm trying to like kind of like wrap up
1:49:51like the prevailing feelings of those
1:49:53final days, you know, the
1:49:56>> Hope, but increasing kind of
1:50:00worry, like apprehension.
1:50:02>> What was giving you hope?
1:50:04>> What was giving me hope was every day
1:50:06I'm in this raft, every minute I'm in
1:50:08this raft is a is a minute closer to a a
1:50:11successful resolution. And I have to
1:50:13have faith in
1:50:15you know, my navigation and what I'm
1:50:17doing here.
1:50:17>> And you were beginning to see physical
1:50:19like signs that you were entering
1:50:22>> I I you know, uh bird life um started
1:50:25showing up that
1:50:27uh you know, kind of again, in Dougal
1:50:28Robertson's manual, you know, was
1:50:30showing oh, migration patterns of birds,
1:50:33you know, you're A friend of mine in in
1:50:35New Zealand uh uh kind of coined this
1:50:38term uh natural literacy.
1:50:41And that's something that anybody who
1:50:43wanders around in the wilderness or
1:50:44makes their makes their life on the sea,
1:50:47fishermen, whoever, they develop a
1:50:49natural literacy, which is, you know,
1:50:51what does that pattern on the water tell
1:50:52you? What does this tell you? What does
1:50:54that bird tell you about about what's
1:50:57going on?
1:50:58And so, this was a part of that. I
1:50:59started seeing what I thought was a bit
1:51:02of change in color. I went through what
1:51:04I called the highway of trash,
1:51:06uh which was all kinds of weed, but also
1:51:08human waste all bundled up in this
1:51:11highway that stretched from
1:51:13one horizon to the other, which was a
1:51:15sign of current changes, uh bird life,
1:51:19etc. So, I had those hopes, but I was
1:51:21also very apprehensive that I may have
1:51:25been just kidding myself and I was swept
1:51:27up in a current and I was going to go to
1:51:31at least the Bahamas if not England
1:51:33before I
1:51:35actually reached any kind of safety. And
1:51:37if it had been England, forget about it.
1:51:39There's no way I would have would have
1:51:41made it.
1:51:42>> Well, that didn't happen.
1:51:43>> No.
1:51:44>> You ended up
1:51:48You know, you like
1:51:49>> The dorado. The dorado were the I tell
1:51:51you, they're the stars of the show the
1:51:53show.
1:51:54>> Yeah.
1:51:54>> Because it was the dorado
1:51:57they're so symbolic in this whole
1:52:00tail because they fed me.
1:52:03>> Mhm.
1:52:04>> They were spiritual guides
1:52:06>> You move down the log with me a little
1:52:08bit cuz you're I see you you're starting
1:52:10to get wet.
1:52:11>> All right. They're spiritual guides in
1:52:12many ways.
1:52:13>> Uh-huh.
1:52:14>> Um they almost killed me.
1:52:16>> Mhm.
1:52:17>> Um
1:52:18and in the end they brought my
1:52:19salvation.
1:52:21Because the dorado, this whole school of
1:52:23fish that had been building over time,
1:52:26more and more fish, even if I pluck one
1:52:28out, there would be more that would show
1:52:29up.
1:52:30They surround the raft and they feed on
1:52:33flying fish, which is what frigate birds
1:52:36feed on. Now, frigate birds are not
1:52:37supposed to spend the night at sea,
1:52:38although I think that that's completely
1:52:40wrong because at first light I would
1:52:42look up and there would be some.
1:52:43>> Mhm.
1:52:44>> Um
1:52:45but fishermen from
1:52:48this island
1:52:49uh which I found out later, can't they
1:52:52had never fished on the windward side of
1:52:53the island, they always stayed on the
1:52:55leeward side, you know, and um
1:52:58but they hadn't been having much luck,
1:52:59so they went on the windward side and
1:53:01they look out to sea
1:53:03and being smart guys, they saw all these
1:53:06birds hovering.
1:53:07And there was a sign that fish were in
1:53:10there so they came out to find the fish
1:53:12and I'm floating around in the middle of
1:53:13them.
1:53:15>> And what did you do?
1:53:17What Cuz your reaction everybody's
1:53:20everybody's
1:53:21>> to me.
1:53:21>> I know everybody says that and to me it
1:53:23was like completely logical in a way. I
1:53:26didn't reason it, you know, it was just
1:53:28this emotional, psychological,
1:53:32rational outpouring. These fishermen are
1:53:35there, they're living right on the edge
1:53:38the way I've been living but I've been
1:53:40fortunate also only been two and a half
1:53:42months in my life. These fishermen in
1:53:44the Caribbean, they are not wealthy
1:53:47people there. It's a it's a it's a real
1:53:50tough living.
1:53:52And
1:53:54And here I had I had nothing to give
1:53:57them except the most precious thing that
1:53:59I had which was the dorado.
1:54:02And so I told them fish fish the
1:54:04greatest fish in the world are right
1:54:05here and so they
1:54:07buzzed around the raft. They kept an eye
1:54:09on me.
1:54:10>> Mhm.
1:54:10>> And you know, I'd see them pulling the
1:54:12fish in on on the boat and eventually it
1:54:16got to be the afternoon bake-off.
1:54:18And I was having a hard time kind of
1:54:21just staying upright and they could see
1:54:23that so they loaded me on the boat and
1:54:25we all went ashore with me sitting
1:54:27feeling like a bit of a Judas
1:54:30surrounding surrounded by my
1:54:33my fishy buddies.
1:54:36>> Huh.
1:54:37Good.
1:54:41What was that a boat come by?
1:54:43This is
1:54:45this is a first. I I don't think we've
1:54:47ever done one with a
1:54:49>> The [laughter] tide coming up.
1:54:51>> in the water.
1:54:52>> Yeah.
1:54:54What a
1:54:56We're going to wrap up here in just a
1:54:57minute.
1:54:58>> Okay.
1:54:59Yeah, the tide says it has to happen.
1:55:02>> Things are how they are, man, right now.
1:55:06>> What um
1:55:10>> You come back, you get some medical
1:55:11attention, you write this book.
1:55:14You as a person
1:55:18what is the thing?
1:55:20Like the thing, like what is the
1:55:23What is
1:55:26You know what I mean? What's like the
1:55:27thing?
1:55:28>> Um
1:55:30I'm not sure if there is just like one
1:55:32thing. I took away so much from this. Um
1:55:36I don't know. It's I'm not sure anyone's
1:55:38put it quite that way before. Um
1:55:43God.
1:55:44Like I say, there there's so many things
1:55:46that I've I've talked about in this
1:55:47about well, lessons about
1:55:49>> You can give me a few. It doesn't have
1:55:50to just
1:55:51>> All right. Well, one is about, you know,
1:55:54the
1:55:56It fascinates me. Let me tell you this.
1:55:58There's a big question
1:56:00for me is that I have met so many people
1:56:03in
1:56:04who've gone through incredible things.
1:56:07>> If I get what I get what I get
1:56:08>> as we may happen happen to do in a
1:56:11moment.
1:56:12Um
1:56:13And what fascinates me is how different
1:56:16they
1:56:16they process it and face it. It's like
1:56:19what what does that mean exactly?
1:56:22>> Oh, that's all right. I'm okay.
1:56:23>> Okay.
1:56:25Um
1:56:28You know, I I I
1:56:30As a
1:56:31There's been a saying for many years
1:56:34that quoted by many people or attributed
1:56:36to several people that, you know,
1:56:38problems are opportunities in disguise.
1:56:42Uh or things to that effect. And I I
1:56:44think that's true. Um you mean this tale
1:56:47for me is exactly that. I learned so
1:56:51much about myself in the world by going
1:56:54through this that I could only have
1:56:57been awakened to
1:56:59by going through this.
1:57:00And it didn't include just that I was a
1:57:02lot more resilient and stronger than I
1:57:05thought I was.
1:57:06But it also was like, oh, here are all
1:57:08my weaknesses. Oh my god, you're
1:57:10terrible at that. You're terrible at
1:57:11this. You need to work on that. And part
1:57:14of that came from even the recoil stuff
1:57:16and my, you know, repurposing my life,
1:57:18if you will.
1:57:20So it gave me that opportunity to come
1:57:22back and and do that. Um to discover the
1:57:25opportunities that were hidden in this
1:57:29what was really kind of a hellish
1:57:31experience in many ways.
1:57:33But also
1:57:34gave me views that were like, oh my god.
1:57:37Kathy says the core of adrift is a line
1:57:41I wrote in my little paper logs.
1:57:44Um it's a view of heaven from a seat in
1:57:47hell.
1:57:48>> Mhm.
1:57:49>> So that's it.
1:57:52>> Well, I just want to thank you so much,
1:57:54man, um for [music] sharing all this
1:57:56with me,
1:57:57um
1:57:58sharing this all of us.
1:58:00Uh
1:58:01I got I can't think of a better place to
1:58:02end it, can [music] you?
1:58:03>> No, that's good.
1:58:04>> I think the tide is about to drown.
1:58:06>> Let's go. [laughter]
1:58:08>> See you guys next time.
1:58:12>> It's beautiful.
1:58:13>> Uh
1:58:15>> Oh, good.
1:58:19>> The gunboat continues up to Combahee
1:58:22Ferry, [music] and we know that Harriet
1:58:23Tubman,
1:58:25her men,
1:58:26James Montgomery, were on the gunboat.
1:58:30So, this boat stops at Combahee Ferry,
1:58:34and it [music] tries to go up past
1:58:36Combahee Ferry, and it encounters the
1:58:38obstructions that the Combahee planters
1:58:41had put in the river.
1:58:42>> Mhm.
1:58:43>> So it turns around and comes [music]
1:58:44back.
1:58:46And here
1:58:49two more companies of the Second South
1:58:51Carolina disembark. [music]
1:58:53>> Mhm.
1:58:53>> And two disembarked at Long Brow. And at
1:58:55both Long Brow and Combahee Ferry, they
1:58:58also send out rowboats
1:59:00>> Okay.
1:59:00>> to more distant plantations. We know
1:59:03that Tubman was on a rowboat. That
1:59:06rowboat probably went to a plantation
1:59:08[music] called Bonnie Hall, which is a
1:59:10little bit further off the river.
1:59:12Um but a number of people from Bonnie
1:59:15Hall were liberated in the raid.
1:59:18Tubman talks about people on the
1:59:20rowboats, people who got to the river
1:59:25too late
1:59:26to get on the boat. The boat was already
1:59:28full. They were afraid it was going to
1:59:29[music] capsize.
1:59:31And the people who got there too late
1:59:33are holding on to the sides of the
1:59:34rowboat [music] to keep it from taking
1:59:36off.
1:59:37And Colonel Montgomery was there. He
1:59:39asks Tubman to sing to her people
1:59:44to calm them.
1:59:46And later in life in interviews, Tubman
1:59:48says, "You know,
1:59:51those were NOT MY PEOPLE."
1:59:53>> [laughter]
1:59:56>> SHE SAID THEY WEREN'T
1:59:57>> [music]
1:59:58>> any more my people than they were his
2:00:00people except we were all Negroes,
2:00:02right?
2:00:04So she's like, "Okay, whatever."
2:00:06>> [laughter]
2:00:06>> Yeah.
2:00:07>> But she sings.
2:00:09And [music] in the song
2:00:11she sings Hallelujah.
2:00:13>> Mhm.
2:00:14>> And
2:00:15the freedom seekers throw their hands
2:00:16up.
2:00:17>> [music]
2:00:17>> Oh, stop.
2:00:18>> taken their hands off the rowboats, so
2:00:20then the rowboat is able to push away.

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