Will to Live: Dispatches from the Edge of Survival Read online

  Suddenly, the skies open up and dump a torrent of rain and hail on us, but it’s welcomed with hoots and cheers on this otherwise scorching day. Then the trouble starts. I’m carrying the map, but I don’t know the protocol of navigating during a race. As far as I can tell, Derek and Tanya are happy and Doug is keeping pace at the back, so we continue to follow Team Endurance Junkies as they make a number of turns at forks in the trail. Nobody has thought to check the map.

  Eventually, they distance us, but we continue following in their footsteps. But something is wrong: it’s getting late and we’ve been traveling far too long not to be at a large lake just outside Checkpoint #1. Then we round a corner, and the trail crosses a big river—a very big river. The only problem is there’s not a river like this anywhere on our route.

  Frustration and arguments ensue. Where are we? Finally, Tanya notices the only possible feature like this on our map—we’re way off course. So I learn adventure race rule #1: Never blindly follow another team; they could be wrong. We eventually make our way back to where we have to go, but not until we have traveled four hours and ten kilometers out of our way.

  There are mandatory items that all adventure race participants must carry: compass, first aid kit, satellite phone, GPS, sleeping bag, emergency tarp, and tent, along with the necessary food and water. Lightweight energy drinks and food are a staple, but Derek’s idea of packing some cold slices of pizza is an incredible morale booster.

  As delicious as the pizza may be, it barely masks the frustration I feel from wearing cross-training running shoes instead of hiking boots. Hiking boots offer much more protection, but are simply too heavy to be hauled around for three hundred miles when speed is of the essence. Running shoes may drain well and don’t weigh on your feet, but they are constantly wet from trudging through swamps and creeks and offer your toes no protection from the constant banging against branches and rocks. Swollen, blistered feet are common at the end of every race. Clearly, someone needs to invent an adventure-racing shoe!

  Hour thirteen. After our unfortunate detour, we are finally climbing a three-kilometer trail that rises two thousand feet to Checkpoint #1,

  Ishpatina Ridge, the highest point in Ontario. En route, Tanya’s right shoulder barely grazes a leaning tree, but it’s enough to dislodge a log ten inches in diameter, which drops five feet down, directly onto Doug’s head. A serious injury out here would not only be devastating, but extremely dangerous as well. It would also be nearly impossible for us to carry him out of here on our own. Doug’s okay, but he will be plagued by neck pain and headaches for the rest of the journey.

  We’re all exhausted, but there’s still a long way to go. Doug swallows some Tylenol. My head is clear—I’m no stranger to sleep deprivation thanks to my experience as Survivorman—but my knees are showing signs of strain. A sharp pain shoots through the inside of my knee with every grunting step forward. Derek is feeling better after his struggle with stomach pain, but his feet feel like they’re being sliced slowly with razors. For Tanya, the worst is yet to come.

  Each race is peppered with a series of checkpoints, some manned and some unmanned. Some serve as transition areas where, if it is a supported race, you can meet up with your support crew and transfer from foot to canoe or canoe to bike. Transition areas are great because they have tents already set up, medical teams, hot food, and a change of clothes to help keep you moving.

  For Team Survivorman, Checkpoint #2 is simply a campsite at the south end of a lake, where two volunteers watch over a fire and some tents. It is here that we learn, to our surprise, that we are not dead last! This means that somewhere out there, after twenty-two hours of nonstop racing, three other teams have not even made it as far as we have. I feel bad for them, but duty calls. We heat up some of our pizza over the fire, fill our water bags, and set off for sixteen more kilometers of bushwhacking, comfortable in the knowledge that, even with our four-hour blunder, we’re only a few hours behind the leaders. It’s great news, but it won’t last long.

  We’re forcing our way through even thicker bush when we realize the only way we’re not going to get lost is to hold our bearing. Derek proves an excellent navigator through the Canadian wilderness, always landing us right on the shore of the remote lake we are trying to find. Yet as confident as we are in Derek’s route-finding skills, we are nagged by the belief that “we must be there by now.” So we orient the map, comfortable in the knowledge that the lake must be just around the next corner, only to find that we’re just halfway there. All this, and darkness is falling yet again. We’ve been hoping for a trail. The map shows an old trail. There must be a trail soon. Where’s the trail?!

  There’s a real art to map reading. In a race like this, a good navigator can make the difference between winning and not even finishing. Transferring compass bearings, noting ridgelines and lakes, taking into account magnetic declination, the age of the map. The map is old—is the trail still there? It may not be, but it may have been made into a big, beautiful road, and hitting it may save hours of bushwhacking.

  Each member has a chance to shine during the race. Derek, a supremely fit cyclist, will push me up the hills on our bikes during the 100-kilometer (sixty-mile) biking section, pedaling with one hand on his handlebars and one hand on my back. My time to shine comes around the thirty-sixth hour of the first section of hiking, as we lie down on the ground for some rest. Doug is quiet, Tanya suffering silently, and Derek near hysterical trying to figure out where the trail is. After a thirty-minute nap in the middle of the night, Derek is adamant that we head off in the direction of his choosing. I know it’s wrong, though, and insist we stick to the compass. I am, in the end, correct, and happy that I can make an important contribution to the team. My strength comes from my ability to handle sleep deprivation, something I have had so much experience with from my survival excursions.

  Forty-five hours into the race, we’ve rested for a total of less than two hours. Tanya’s physical condition takes a turn for the worse. For the last twelve hours or so, she’s been suffering from horrible chafing and infection all through her inner thighs and pelvic area. That hasn’t stopped her from stoically pushing forward, at times literally crawling through the bush, her skin red and raw, the infection threatening to become internal. We know we are close—we have to be. But how much farther? The blackflies are ferocious. Tanya can’t keep going, though she claims otherwise.

  But nothing looks right at this point on the map. There shouldn’t be a lake here. The creek looks wrong. What if we’re wrong and we’re way off course? It’s 7:30 a.m., and for a brief moment Doug and I think it’s 7:30 p.m. It starts to rain.

  Race organizers keep search and rescue teams on standby twenty-four hours a day in case of emergencies. Adventure racing is a fantastic sport, but it’s serious business and comes with a major set of inherent risks. No one wants to see an injury occur, let alone see a team get truly lost. I pull out our emergency satellite phone and make the call to race headquarters. They check our GPS coordinates: we’re two hundred yards from the trail that leads to the next transition area. Head northeast and we’re there.

  Upon our arrival, Tanya is led into a waiting ambulance, doubled over in agony. Derek, Doug, and I collapse into our support tent, strip down, and dig into the food that’s been provided to us. We’re finished. If we want to continue as a three-person team, we have twenty-five minutes to make the cut-off time and jump into the canoes. But we don’t have the energy to go on.

  It’s then that we learn that three other teams pulled out about sixteen kilometers back, at Checkpoint #2. Like us, three other teams are pulling out here at the transition area. Two men have been taken to hospital. One woman lost her bug net halfway through the race and is covered in blackfly bites from the top of her forehead to the base of her neck; her face is covered in blood.

  The race leaders breezed through here twenty-two hours ago. They’ve likely already finished the canoeing section (the next part of the race) and are on t
o the biking leg. But they are not human, they are machines. Later, all of the best teams will describe this as the toughest trekking section they have ever endured in an adventure race.

  I’m sure Derek would have liked to see us do better. Tanya is content with the lessons we have learned. Doug and I are supremely proud that we made it this far. Later, I will lose six of my toenails. “Ah yes, every race,” Benoit Letourneau, captain of the eventual winners of the race, Team Simon River Sports, will laugh with me days later.

  Chapter 5 - Survival at Sea

  FOR SOME OF US, THE NOTION OF LIVING AS FARMERS IN THE ENGLISH COUNTRYSIDE WITH NO PHONE OR ELECTRICITY IS ADVENTURE ENOUGH. IT WASN ’T FOR THE ROBERTSON FAMILY. AFTER THEIR YOUNG SON NEIL SUGGESTED ONE MORNING THAT THEY BUY A BOAT AND SAIL AROUND THE WORLD, THE FAMILY SPONTANEOUSLY AGREED. TWO YEARS LATER, HAVING SOLD ALL THEIR EARTHLY BELONGINGS, THEY HAD ENOUGH MONEY TO MAKE THE DREAM A REALITY. THEY NEVER ANTICIPATED THE NIGHTMARE THEIR VOYAGE WOULD BECOME.

  The Robertsons’ home for the next seventeen months would be the Lucette, a forty-three-foot schooner purchased in Malta and sailed back to England by Dougal, the family patriarch, who ruled his house with an iron fist. After two months of acclimatizing to the boat in the English port town of Falmouth, the Robertsons set off on their circumnavigation of the world. It was January 27, 1971.

  The voyage took them first to Spain, then Portugal, after which they spent some time in the Canary Islands, where they took on two young Americans hitching a lift across the Atlantic. From there, the journey continued to the Windward Islands of the West Indies, up through the Bahamas, and on into Miami, where they stayed for a while so the kids could catch up on schoolwork. During their time in Florida, Dougal and his wife, Linda (Lyn for short), bought a fiberglass dinghy in Fort Lauderdale. Lyn remarked on how the dinghy—named Ednamair after her two sisters, Edna and Mary—might save their lives one day. She couldn’t have known just how prophetic her musings were.

  They sailed to the island of Nassau, where the Robertsons’ eldest daughter, Anne, decided to stay and pursue her own fate. Saddened, the family continued on to Jamaica, where eldest son Douglas celebrated his eighteenth birthday.

  Next stop was the archipelago of the San Blas Islands, then Panama, where they picked up a new crew member: a twenty-two-year-old graduate student in economics and statistics. Robin Williams was cheerful and adventurous, and Dougal and Lyn hoped that his mathematical prowess would rub off on the children, especially the twelve-year-old twin boys, Neil and Sandy. Robin’s plan was to stay with the family for the seven-thousand-mile voyage across the Pacific to New Zealand. He got more than he bargained for—much more.

  The first stop in the Pacific was the Galapagos Islands. After an idyllic time spent island-hopping and reveling in what may still be the purest wildlife refuge on earth, the Robertsons set sail for the Marquesas Islands, a group of volcanic islands that forms part of French Polynesia, more than four thousand miles away. Two days out of the Galapagos, on June 15, 1972, disaster struck. Early that morning, while most of the family was in bed, sleeping or reading, the Lucette was struck by a blow of unthinkable proportions. Instantly, the sound of rushing water filled the cabin, as the cry of “Whales!” hurtled from the cockpit. Dougal rushed to the hole to find the blue Pacific pouring into the now-fragile craft. The desperate efforts he and Lyn made to stop the onslaught of water were futile. The Lucette was sinking—fast. It had been their home for the previous year and a half, but it wouldn’t take long before the schooner was at the bottom of the Pacific.

  There was little time to think. Dougal called, “Abandon ship!” and the others sprung to life. Life jackets were tied on, and a few odd tools were grabbed during the mayhem. The ropes holding the dinghy to the mainmast and foremast were cut and an inflatable life raft was sent into the water. With the Lucette rapidly disappearing into the shark-inhabited waters of the Pacific, the Robertsons had no choice but to make for their two small boats. The dinghy was half full of water, so they began to swim to the life raft, now fully inflated. The last thing Dougal did before abandoning the Lucette was toss a bag of onions, a bag of oranges, and a bag of lemons into the water. He also grabbed a vegetable knife and threw it into the dinghy.

  With everyone safe in the raft, Dougal swam for the dinghy, where he gathered up as many oranges and lemons as he could reach and tossed them back to the life raft. The Lucette’s water containers had either floated away or sunk, as had a box of flares. He swam back to the life raft, grabbing a floating tin of gasoline on the way. As he swam toward the rubber craft that now held everything precious to him in the world, he caught one last glimpse of the Lucette as the tops of her sails disappeared into the ocean.

  The Robertsons and Robin were all on board, shaken but very much alive. And while they all made it, their folly was that they didn’t have a preset plan (an ultra-efficient way of jumping into action without thinking) of what to do if something went wrong. It is surprising that they didn’t have a survival kit at the ready that they could grab in emergency situations. Luckily, though, they had the raft, which was stocked with its own survival kit.

  As the shock of their new reality washed over them, the details of what had just happened started to become clear. Douglas, who had been on watch at the time of the accident, saw a pod of about twenty killer whales (orcas) approach the Lucette at top speed. Three of them rammed the ship’s six-thousand-pound lead keel, shattering the elm strakes of the keel on impact.

  I was once on a boat during a Survivorman shoot in the high Arctic, when we came across nineteen orcas as they chased a few hundred narwhal, which, in turn, were chasing arctic char. In similar fashion to the Robertsons’ experience, three orcas broke off from the pod and sped straight for the side of our twenty-foot steel boat. They came within inches of ramming our craft, but suddenly dove, made a sharp right turn, and resurfaced in front of the boat. It was terrifying, yet exhilarating, and fortunately, I didn’t meet the same fate the Robertsons did that day in 1971.

  In those early moments after the disaster, Dougal wrestled with an emotion that affects so many people in survival situations: guilt. He had sold all their belongings and brought the family on this voyage. He had failed to anticipate this type of disaster. He was ultimately responsible for their well-being.

  Yet like many who had come before him, Dougal channeled his guilt into motivation to survive. He began almost immediately, first by taking stock of their minimal supplies, beginning with the raft’s survival kit, which was encased in a three-foot-long plastic cylinder. The survival kit contained the following:

  vitamin-fortified bread and glucose for 10 people for 2 days

  water (18 pints)

  flares (8)

  bailer (1)

  fish hooks (2 large and 2 small)

  spinner and trace (1), along with 25-pound test fishing line

  patent knife

  signal mirror

  flashlight

  first aid kit

  sea anchors (2)

  instruction book

  bellows

  paddles (3)

  They also had the bag of onions, a one-pound tin of cookies, a jar containing about half a pound of candies, ten oranges, and six lemons. There were six people—four adults and the twins—in the middle of a rarely traveled section of the Pacific. Things were looking grim, indeed.

  I understand the fear they must have been experiencing. It’s one thing to go without food, but the prospect of dehydration must have risen to the front of their collective consciousness very quickly. That’s why it must have been very difficult to sit and watch one of the Lucette’s water containers float away on the sea. But these were shark-inhabited waters, and a pod of killer whales had just sunk their forty-three-foot boat. It would have taken a real act of heroism to jump into the water and retrieve the container. Nobody did.

  Lyn and Dougal immediately set to the task at hand: surviving. Whether they knew it or not, they jumped to activity with the most import
ant first step in any survival situation: assessment. Lyn wanted to know, brutally and exactly, what their chance of survival was and how they might get back to safety. But first, she provided all the motivation she and Dougal would need in the many weeks to come. She put her hand in Dougal’s and said quietly, “We must get these boys to land. If we do nothing else with our lives, we must get them to land.”

  * * *

  Sea Survival Kit

  According to Essentials of Sea Survival by Frank Golden and Michael Tipton, in addition to the standard kit that comes with a life raft, you should have

  buoyant smoke signals (2)

  extra anti-seasickness pills

  extra first aid kit

  heliograph (signaling mirror)

  parachute flares (2)

  radar reflector

  red handheld flares (3)

  second (spare) sea anchor

  sunscreen and lip salve

  thermal protective aids

  Also consider adding these items:

  antiseptic cream or petroleum

  jelly (small container)

  balaclava with waterproof outer

  shell

  batteries

  book on survival

  Cyalume sticks

  diary (logbook) and pencils

  flashlight, waterproof with

  attachment clip

  fracture straps (2)

  garden-pool repair kit (with

  adhesives that can be

  applied to wet surfaces)

  gloves, warm and waterproof

  GPS unit

  handheld VHF transceiver,

  waterproof

  hard candy (several packages)

  matches, waterproof

  multi-tool or Swiss Army–style

  knife

  nylon string

  personal location beacon