The End of the Ocean

Chapter 11 SIGNE

I wake up suddenly, the cold yanks me awake, my teeth are chattering and the sun has disappeared. The sky is clouding over and the wind has changed, become stronger, the boat is heeling more. I sit up; this must have blown up quickly. Or perhaps I’ve slept longer than I should have—me, the one who never needs an alarm clock at sea. I have always relied on my built-in timepiece.

All around me there is only the ocean, the only thing in sight is an oil platform, all lit up against a darkening sky. Every day they bring up two million barrels of oil, two million barrels. One barrel is 159 liters; I don’t have the energy to work out the total number of liters that comes to, every single day. There they are, all those who are constructing Norway, the nation, while simultaneously they are destroying the world. What if they said no, all of them, refused to work, went on strike? One single week would have helped, just one day would have helped, two million barrels fewer pulled up out of the ground and released into the environment.

The lights on the platform grow sharper all the time… no, it’s the surrounding world that’s growing darker, it must be late. The night is surprisingly dark for the bright month of April. I sail into the night, a strong wind from the east drives me away from land.

I take out the wind meter, hold it up, and measure the wind speed, fourteen meters per second.

Fourteen. Such strong winds already.

The wind is blowing harder and harder. I must reef the sail, rolling back an edge of the canvas to reduce the width. I should have done so a long time ago, but first I have to pee, so I do it quickly on the floor of the cockpit—it will be washed away immediately anyway. Then I adjust the wind vane and slowly release the headsail sheet. The sail flaps as if possessed; I grasp the line of the roller-furling system—it’s thin, chafes at my hands, I tug and haul at it but it’s too heavy, far too heavy, I’m not as strong as I used to be.

I place the line around the winch, my fingers are frozen, every movement hurts, but slowly the wind force in the headsail is diminished and I can heave to. Then I yank the mainsheet out of the quick-release cleat; now it’s the mainsail that’s billowing wildly, I have to move forward to the mast to reef.

The wind is a wall as I crawl towards the bow. I should have put on the harness, but I climb up on top of the cabin nonetheless and free up the halyard on the mast winch. At the same time, a wave hits the ship, it’s like being hit by a train, I hold on to the mast with both hands, the end of the halyard slips and blows out horizontally from the mast, I reach for it, but know I have no chance of snagging it, the wind blows it back and forth, in the end wrapping it around one of the shrouds just beneath the crosstree, dammit, dammit.

I loosen a boat hook I have attached to the deck, hold it out towards the crosstree, but it’s no use, of course it’s no use. Should I climb up? No, not now, it will just have to hang there, the mainsail is almost down on the boom. I open the shackle on the line; my fingers are numb with cold as I fasten it to the mast and furl the sail. Then I crawl back to the cockpit. It’s only then that I’m able to breathe.

A quick trip inside to pull on my sweater, rain overalls and raincoat on top of the windbreaker and trousers I am wearing. I am already soaking wet, it’s pouring off me, but there’s nothing I can do about it, there’s no time to change.

I should secure the containers of ice, they are stacked in the saloon, their weight is still holding them in place, but a big wave now is all it will take to send them sliding off the benches, careening onto the floor and creating chaos.

I find some rope and a few old elastic straps, look around for something to lash them to, and finally stretch the straps and ropes several times back and forth between the pole the table is attached to and some hooks on the wall.

At that moment, the coffee pot crashes onto the floor. I’d left it on the cooker. Water runs out of the spout, I snatch it up, pour the water out, toss it into a cupboard, close the lid on the sink, and shut the valve on the gas cylinder.

How bad is it, really? Do I have to batten down the hatches and lock myself inside, stay down here with the ice until the wind drops?

No, I’m not going to do that, I can do this—I can put on the safety harness, fasten it securely. I’ve done this before, survived hard weather conditions, winds up to twenty-three meters a second, a squall, Blue needs me, I can’t let her drift on her own.

I straighten up, and at that moment a huge wave crashes into the boat, water pours down into the saloon, spraying over the blue containers. I rush to tread the boards into place over the entrance, throw the maps on the table, turn on the map-reading lamp above the instruments, the brightness of the light making me jump—now I am ruining my night vision, but there’s no way around it. I must find a safe harbor, seek shelter behind some islands. I can’t continue like this.

What is the latitude of my current position? I check the GPS, already at a latitude level with Stavanger, but the wind is blowing directly from the east, towards me, and I can’t sail against the wind.

But I can tack; I’ll have to tack even if the storm keeps up all night.

Up again, wearing the harness. I let out a few rotations of the roller-furling system, immediately grateful that I invested in it—imagine if I had to move fore to the bow to change the sail now, take the storm jib out of the space under the bed in the forepeak and raise the sail. I would have had to make it all the way to the bow to rig it. Now instead I can just pull on a line and soon I have the sail that I need.

I set my course north. It’s heavy going—according to the speedometer between two and three knots. The oncoming sea slows me down, the waves break hard against the bow, again and again, sometimes stopping me altogether, but I have to maintain my course for a few nautical miles and then go about to the south, and continue in that direction before tacking to the north again.

I am glad I slept earlier in the day, there’s no time to rest now. I cling to the helm, my eyes firmly focused on the compass and my hearing attuned to the wind, the waves, the sound of them—they break, surging, tearing at the hull, shaking the boat, shaking me, the fiberglass, which suddenly feels so fragile.

The minutes pass, maybe hours. I don’t look at the clock, feel only the wind, how it intensifies, beating against the headsail, driving me forward. I have tacked three times, but still can’t stay on course—the long, shallow keel is producing leeway. I am moving too far south, drifting southwards along the coast, but not any closer to land.

The mainsail halyard is whipping against the mast, has wrapped itself around it several times, the sound of steel cables against aluminum is like nothing else on earth, damn that it slipped, dammit.

I could have been indoors, in front of a fireplace—warm, yellow light, not a sound except for the crackling of firewood burning, a room filled with the silence of evening, a book, a lap rug, something hot to drink, could have been submerged in a steaming bubble bath, the scent of soap, the mirror misted over. But I’m here, the wind pounding against my face, the water pouring off me, nature clawing at me, battering me.

I grab the wind meter, want to know how bad it is, probably not as bad as I think. I hold out my arm, the needle rises, sixteen meters per second, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.

High winds, heavy gales and increasing in intensity.

Bloody hell.

I have to reef, the headsail has to be furled all the way, the wind is going to get even stronger, I can’t continue.

I tug at the reefing line, but it gets stuck on the roller. I tug and tug, but am unable to budge it, the jib flaps violently. I have to make my way forward to the bow. On deck the wind feels even stronger, just one gust and I’ll be blown overboard. I take pains to tether the stays on the safety harness at all times, not moving an inch without securing it. I don’t want to think about lying out there, don’t think about it, lying there, in the waves, how long would I stay alive, how long would I manage to keep my head above water, for how long would I survive?

The entire world is rolling, there is nothing that isn’t moving, nothing stationary, I have to roll with it, can’t fight against it. I crawl, my knees on deck, but they’re too old for this, they’re like a separate part of me, older than the rest of my body, creaking knees; the knees are the first things to go on human beings, it’s almost impossible to make them last an entire lifetime and nothing helps, they’ve already withstood too much, too many steps, all the strain settles into them, they grumble. I try crawling differently but nothing helps, can’t think about it, just keep moving forward, meter by meter.

The jib is flapping savagely, like an enormous, out-of-control white bird. I tug at the line—loosen now, come on, help me, work with me, damn line—then it gives way and I can reef.

A powerful wave washes over me on the way back. There is water everywhere, rain in the air, salt water pours off me, the taste of it on my tongue.

All the sails are down, the boat is hurled forward, backwards, I curl up on the floor of the cockpit, the urine has long since been washed away. I can see the helm above me, also being thrown back and forth, back and forth. I curl into a ball, but can’t just lie here like this, give up—I can’t give up.

A drogue, a drogue attached to the stern, trailing behind the boat, that would slow the boat down, stabilize it. I sit up, open the cockpit’s starboard stowage space, digging, rummaging through coils of rope, fenders, pails of old ship-bottom paint, it’s such a mess, good God, why haven’t I organized things better, I say to myself—although the boat is shipshape, here nothing is as it should be, when you get right down to it. But there it is, finally. I pull it out and find at the same time a long, thick rope, stiff with salt. I fasten it to the drogue, then I crawl astern, tie the rope to the railing and throw the drogue overboard into the ocean. It makes no sound when it hits the surface—it’s made of fabric, a huge bag of fabric, and it will take time for it to fill up with water—but then I notice the rope tightening and the boat is finally stabilized. My Blue, my home, Mommy’s present for my eighteenth birthday. She gave it to me to stabilize something, I think, she put this boat on my internal scales. She perhaps intended it to be beautiful, this attempt to meet me halfway, but actually it was just ugly, an attempt to buy redemption for all the times she’d disappointed me in my childhood.

“An Arietta 31. Brand new,” I remember she said, a little proud when she gave me the keys. “Built in Sweden. Olle Enderlein designed it. He’s the best there is these days.”

Only the best was good enough for me.

My boat, the sailboat Blue, Mommy’s present, Mommy’s olive branch, the gift I couldn’t bring myself to refuse, the only gift she ever gave me that I actually wanted. Unlike her, it has never let me down.

I go inside, to stay this time, secure the hatchway, sit down by the map table, and immediately I can feel how I’m trembling. Have I been like this the whole time or is it a delayed reaction? I don’t know, but I shake, tremble, as if the wind were taking hold of me, but it’s not cold and frost that’s tearing me apart—my back is sweating from the exertion—it’s anxiety. I’m afraid. This is the first time, I think, the first time I have been overpowered like this. I wasn’t prepared, didn’t check the weather forecast, idiot, I didn’t—you never sail out without checking the weather—I could have known it was coming, could have been somewhere else now, a port of refuge, docked, solid ground beneath my feet, heat, yellow light, a bathtub.

But I managed it, the sails are reefed, the boat and drogue are working together, I’m sitting here; I managed it, I don’t need a port of refuge, because I am my own and I have Blue. She gave it to me when I turned eighteen, it was her olive branch, and I accepted it, couldn’t bring myself to turn it down and she expected something in return, I knew that, she expected a lot in return, an entire life, but I never gave her that.

People like her, like Magnus, they think everything is simple, that if you just buy a big enough Band-Aid, the wound will heal, but if it hasn’t been cleaned it’s no use, as long as dirt, pebbles and dust are still stuck in the flesh.

The storm lashes at the boat, a horrific racket, the rigging shudders. I am so tired, lay my arms on the map table, lean my head on them, just for a moment, rest for a moment, but I can’t, because I can hear how the water is leaking in, surrounding the boat, not just under it, but washing over the deck, pouring down from the sky and it’s leaking inside, the sound of dripping water is everywhere.

I stand up again, listen, it’s coming from the forepeak; I move up there, the fore hatch is not closed properly, water’s trickling in. I try screwing the hatch even more tightly shut but it doesn’t help, the water keeps dripping, teeny-tiny drops forcing their way through, stealing their way in, finding their way through invisible cracks.

It’s also leaking from the windows in the forepeak. I’ve sealed them with silicone, but it’s not enough, I should have unscrewed them and reinforced them with a silicone rubber gasket, because now it’s dripping down onto the berth, cold water on the mattress and duvet.

But there’s nothing I can do about it, I won’t be sleeping anyway, soon I’ll have to go up again, I must check every fifteen minutes, look for other boats, drilling rigs, be on the lookout for other lone lanterns out there in the storm.

I sit down at the map table again. Time stands still, time rages by—no, it’s the storm that’s raging, the ocean, the wind, a racket like no other, the cable pounding against the mast, it’s no longer a rhythm, the sound is now so powerful and rapid that it has become a vibration. Should I call for help, mayday, mayday—if I have enough power on the battery to use the VHF radio I can still reach the drilling rig, maybe they can help?

No, I’m not asking for help, I’ll ride it out, the storm, I don’t need them, I don’t need help from any damn oil rig, from unwoke oil workers, at home half the time, million-dollar salaries, I don’t need their help, don’t need anyone’s help.

I have to check again. I pull back the hatch, peek out, a wave crashes over me, hell, my hood isn’t up, ice-cold seawater pours down my back, I can’t see a thing, all that’s out there is the ocean.

I slam the hatch shut.

Sit down.

Shake, tremble.

Keep going.