Mumbai: Liquid-blue desert fading into a blue horizon. No human contact. A series of crises caused by equipment failure and damage. Three aborted attempts. Why would anyone want to row solo and unsupported, for 90 days, across the Atlantic in a 23ft wooden boat, from Spain to Antigua? Underlying the question, on the average person’s mind, is the thought that anyone who attempts this has got to be mad.
The day I speak to 29-year-old Bhavik Gandhi, via his satellite phone, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—on Day 42 of his fourth attempt to cross the Atlantic—he’s down, but nowhere near out. He admits that he’s started having mild hallucinations and what he misses most is: “To walk. I haven’t
walked more than three metres a day for 42 days now! And human contact, which a sat phone can’t make up for.”
The day is 11 April 2007 and the Stockholm-based venture capitalist has rowed 1,452 nautical miles from Spain. He has 1,505 nautical miles (2,784 km) left to go and has had a very bad night after discovering his boat is leaking. Besides a broken rudder, almost non-existent navigation lights and a near collision with a cargo ship, his desalinator, which generates potable water, is now on the blink.
On his 41st day at sea, when his sat phone refused to charge, Gandhi went into the hatch to locate the spare phone, and found his boat had a leak. “It’s really hard to be alone out here, and I’m trying not to panic,” he says of his situation. “Of course there is fear; fear is part of the motivation that keeps me going.” As do the amazing sunsets and the incredible closeness to marine wildlife. “The dolphins and pilot whales came by and I’ve seen things I’ll never ever see anywhere else, and it all makes up for the extreme hardship,” he says.
On Day 33, Gandhi wrote in his online expedition log: “Just as I was about to take a break, a pod of dolphins stopped by. Quite a sociable lot, they came right up to the boat, playing around the bow, chasing the fish underneath, making their whistling noises and just showing off. They were not scared away when I got into the water (even though I've not had a shower for a month!) and I felt privileged that they allowed me to swim with them in the wild, film them and just be a bystander… trusting me enough to come right up and play around with the fluorescent float on the video camera. Superstition says that they are a good omen. In any case, they definitely lifted my spirits. Every time people ask me WHY? Why cross the Atlantic in a rowing boat, just 2ft above water? How I wish I could point to days like this and say “That's why!”
They are the most magnificent and human-like creatures. This has been one of the most memorable moments of this trip. All of a sudden, all the hardships faced on land seem a small price to pay for an experience like today’s.”
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