A canoe, powered by humans, braves dark clouds and rough seas to cross the Gulf Stream.
By TERRY TOMALIN
Published June 29, 2003
THE GULF STREAM - The seas kicked up without warning. The gentle breeze that had lapped at our backs all morning disappeared with the sun.
Storm clouds on the horizon would only bring more wind and much-dreaded lightning. Now, halfway through our 76-mile ocean crossing from Florida to Bimini, I was beginning to think we finally had run out of luck.
"Keep together," Courtland Reilly yelled from the stern of our 45-foot outrigger canoe. "Cadence!"
Reilly, our steersman, struggled to keep the canoe on course while 4-foot rollers battered the fragile craft as if it were a toy boat in a bathtub.
"Keep paddling," he said as waves broke across our deck. "Keep up the speed!"
The canvas spray skirt that covered our canoe did little to keep the warm Florida Current from pouring into our boat. And with each breaking wave, I could feel the canoe moving slower and slower.
"Lean left!" Reilly screamed as a rogue wave lifted the ama out of the water. The crew complied and kept the craft from rolling. "Whew!" he said. "That was a close one."
A half mile away, our 65-foot support boat, the R.V. Tiburon, motored on, oblivious of our plight. Reilly tried to calm everybody's nerves, but we had taken a beating and there was no relief in sight.
"Heads in the boat," he said, knowing that one glance to the right was all it would take to turn the canoe over. Then it happened . . .
Nobody saw the wave that hit us. We each had just enough time to take a deep breath, then over we went.
Hanging upside down in almost 3,000 feet of water, I looked down into the void below and searched for signs of life. I never realized the ocean could be so blue, I thought to myself. After fighting the waves for nearly an hour, the sea seemed calm and reassuring.
Then I felt the urge to breathe.
Air, like food and water, is something you take for granted until it is gone. I had only been underwater for seconds but it seemed like minutes as my lungs began to burn with spent carbon dioxide. Then, as I tried to slip out of the overturned canoe, my beer belly snagged on the spray skirt. I fumbled for the zipper, but couldn't find it. I started to panic, but then years of scuba training kicked in and I stopped, assessed the situation, then reacted.
"One, two, three, four, five," Reilly counted heads on the opposite side of the canoe. "Who are we missing?"
"Nobody," I said. "I'm over here."
Reilly swam under the boat and then together we leaned on the wooden akus as our teammates lifted up on the ama. The canoe rolled back over and one by one we climbed in.
It took about five minutes to bail the water out of the boat and re-zip the spray skirt. By then the support boat had doubled back to see if we needed any help.
"Want to switch crews?" John Edwards yelled over the drone of the diesel engines.
"No," Reilly answered. "We need to keep moving."
The best thing to do when you get thrown off a horse is to climb back in the saddle. Bimini was still 25 miles away. The only way we were going to get there was one stroke at a time.
"Okay, gang," Reilly said. "Now who came to paddle?"
Sharks and seaweed
Edwards, the leader of our expedition, never doubted that a human-powered canoe could overcome the swift current of the Gulf Stream and reach Bimini, the most western island in the Bahama chain.
Historians have long debated whether the original inhabitants of the Florida Peninsula had any contact with their island neighbors to the east. Many believe the Florida Current was a natural barrier to trade.
If the pre-Columbian Indians did paddle back and forth between the islands and the mainland, they undoubtedly used canoes that were much longer, wider and heavier than the modern outrigger and employed teams of up to 50 paddlers.
The Hawaiian-style outrigger canoe Edwards chose for the trip was designed for racing. Like most of the canoes in its class, it has a fiberglass hull, weighs 400 pounds, measures 18 inches at its widest point and carries six paddlers.
"You cannot compare the modern outrigger canoe to what the Indians might have used," he said. "It is like comparing apples and oranges."
While the Lucayans, the original inhabitants of the Bahamas, did not have sails, they did navigate across large expanses of open ocean using the sun, clouds and stars to guide their way.
Our expedition also differed from those of early explorers in that we enjoyed the benefit of modern navigational equipment, specifically a GPS (global positioning satellite) system, and the knowledge that somewhere off to the northeast, lay islands, 9 miles square.
And for safety, we brought along an EPRB (emergency positioning radio beacon) and a diesel-powered support boat that carried a second crew of paddlers.
At first, shortly after we left the luxury of Key Largo's Ocean Reef Club, it seemed as if we had gone hunting for rabbit, armed for bear. Calm seas and warm summer breezes allowed us to make record time across the swiftest currents of the Gulf Stream.
Our biggest concern was the in-water change-out of crews, which occurred first at 90 minutes, then on the hour. And although it was never discussed, we all knew the ever-present threat of sharks.
The Gulf Stream carries its share of big game, specifically blue and white marlin. And where there is prey, predators are not far behind.
Floating for 10 minutes in open water, waiting to be picked up by the support boat, the mind begins to wander.
I recalled hearing about a record great white shark that had been caught in the Florida Straits and scanned the horizon for a telltale fin. Then I remembered that great whites usually attack their prey from below and I stopped worrying.
In the end, the only marine life we encountered in the 10-hour crossing was seaweed and flying fish.
As Edwards had predicted, our greatest challenge would be to overcome our own limitations. As a marathon canoe paddler, Edwards is used to paddling 60 strokes a minute for two hours at a time.
Most canoe races are held on the flat water of rivers, lakes and bays. There are a few events, including the Hinano Molakai Hoe 41-mile outrigger race from Molokai to Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, held on open water.
But the crossing from Key Largo to Bimini is nearly 70 miles. And as the trip wore on, the weather got worse. It didn't take long before the crews began to break down.
Islands in the Stream
For an outrigger to hit top speed and "glide" across the water, all six paddles must enter the water at the exact same time so the force is equally distributed throughout the length of the 45-foot canoe.
An experienced crew can maintain a speed of 6 knots for hours at a time on flat water, but introduce waves into the equation and all bets are off.
That's because as the bow rises on a wave, the No. 1 paddler, the crew member responsible for setting the pace, must "reach" for the water.
When it is really rough, it is not uncommon to stroke hard and miss the water altogether. This leads to an increase in injuries, fatigue and a decrease in speed.
The steersman, the paddler in the No. 6 spot at the rear of the canoe, has the most difficult job, especially in a quartering sea. Steersmen snap paddles trying to keep a canoe on course in rough water, and it can take a toll on arms, shoulders and back, regardless of their level of fitness.
"Where's that change-out?" Reilly yelled in frustration toward the support boat a quarter mile away. "Let's go."
We had been in the canoe for 40 minutes, 10 minutes past our agreed time to switch. Paddling at a rate of a stroke a second, a few extra minutes seems like an eternity. It takes everything you have to stay focused and keep moving when all your mind wants to do is stop.
But the sight of land in the distance, Ernest Hemingway's fabled Islands in the Stream, buoyed our spirits. I pictured myself sipping an ice cold Kalik on the beach at the Bimini Big Game Club, and before I knew it, it was time for the final change-out.
It was fitting that Edwards, along with Rea Sieber, the team's only woman, and Bob Terbush, who at 72 was our oldest expedition member, powered the canoe in through the Bimini Cut to the beach near the Big Game Club.
They made landfall approximately 10 hours after the first crew had left the beach at the Ocean Reef Club some 66 nautical miles to the southwest, proving to those who cared that a human-powered canoe could make it across the Gulf Stream.
Walking down an alley just minutes after landing, the rest of our team met Edwards and doused him with a bottle of champagne.
"Congratulations," said Lia Head, our Bahamian host. "So what's next?"
Edwards took a sip of champagne, then looked over his shoulder back to his canoe.
"I guess we will just have to paddle back," he said.
