After 12 days on the open seas in his bid to become the first Canadian to row single handedly across the Atlantic Ocean, Fernie resident Paul Attalla is fielding his fair share of challenges. Over the past few days he has been meticulously trying to find the source of a slow leak which has so far eluded him, and today he finds himself face to face with a tanker bearing down on him from above.
From Paul's online blog:
December 14 2007
...I've been hearing a lot of teams are hallucinating- well at first I thought I was too and then this is what came into view. A medium sized ship passed to the south of me by about 3 nm I kept an eye on it as my "seame" warned me it was near. I turned off my alarm tone as it becomes annoying and once the vessel is spotted it has done it job - or so I thought. After the ship passed by I began to concentrate on progress, move ahead, persevere and those type of thoughts. An hour goes by and begin to feel the water shake. I look at my "seame" light and it is blinking fast which means something is very near. I turn around and see this ship bearing down on me fast. I freak out and spring into action. The ship is going to hit me 1 - 2 minutes - it is coming directly at me. I leap into my cabin grab the radio and attempt to make contact while getting a flare ready with the other hand. I drop the radio thinking that they would not be able to avoid me even if they tried put my life jacket around my neck , free my life raft and grab bag and shot the flare AT the ship. I then heard a Norwegian voice on the radio as the ship applied the breaks hard. I guess they thought I was refugees or something of the sort. I was too happy to be alive to be mad. They all came on deck and took photos of me and me of them. After 10 minutes of exchanging communication they departed.
I can not tell you how scared I was for 30 seconds. I cut my legs and head from moving around the boat so fast in damage control mode. Just imagine this naked guy with a life jacket around his neck and fireworks in his hand running around deck freeing a life raft. This would be one scene to rewind and watch if possible.
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Combine this with the rough weather conditions at the start of the race, and you have quite a lot of hurdles to overcome, and that's all without trying to row nearly 5000km unassisted in a one man boat!
Keep an eye on Paul's progress at www.solotheatlantic.com and send him your support via the guestbook link.
