Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea

by Steven Callahan

This book is dedicated to people everywhere who know, have known, or will know suffering, desperation, or loneliness.

I know intellectually that the sea is indifferent, but her richness allowed me to survive. In giving up her dorados, she was giving up her own children, so to speak, in order that I might live. I truly hope that the remainder of my life will prove worthy of all the sacrifices made on my behalf.

Sailors may be struck down at any time, in calm or in storm, but the sea does not do it for hate or spite. She has no wrath to vent. Nor does she have a hand of kindness to extend. She is merely there, immense, powerful, and indifferent. I do not resent her indifference, or my comparative insignificance. Indeed, it is one of the main reasons I like to sail: the sea makes the insignificance of my own small self and of all humanity so poignant.

Solo has been transformed from a proper little ship to a submerged wreck in about one minute. I dive into the raft with the knife clenched in my teeth, buccaneer style, noticing that the movie camera mounted on the aft pulpit has been turned on. Its red eye winks at me. Who is directing this film? He isn’t much on lighting but his flair for the dramatic is impressive.

The raft swings and presents the wall of the tent to the waves. Ha! A good joke, the wall of a tent against the sea, the sea that beats granite to sand.

I rip open a tin of peanuts and eat them slowly, savoring each nut. It is February 6, my birthday. This is not quite the meal I had planned. I have lived a nice, round thirty years. What have I to show for it? I write my own epitaph. STEVEN CALLAHAN FEBRUARY 6, 1952 FEBRUARY 6, 1982 Dreamed Drew Pictures Built Boats Died

Desperation shakes me. I want to cry but I scold myself. Hold it back. Choke it down. You cannot afford the luxury of water wept away. I bite my lips, close my eyes, and weep within.

In my log I write: “The dorados remain, beautiful, alluring. I ask one to marry me. But her parents will not hear of it. I am not colorful enough. Imagine, bigotry even here! However, they also point out that I do not have a very bright future. It is a reasonable objection.”

It’s incredible that the dorados and triggers have not fled the shark at all! Instead, they collect closely around it. I think they have invited him for tea. “Come over to our place and have a taste of this big black crumpet.”

“After all the trouble I had in giving you life, you had better not give up that easily.” Her words haunt me. “You have to promise me to hang on as long as you can.” It was a promise never made, but it is being kept just the same.

I try to calm my frustrations by repeating, “You are doing the best you can. You can only do the best you can.” One thing is clear. I cannot rely on others to save me. I must save myself.

The freedom of the sea lures men, yet freedom does not come free. Its cost is the loss of the security of life on land. When a storm is brewing, the sailor cannot simply park his ship and walk away from it. He cannot hide within stone walls until the whole thing blows over. There is no freedom from nature, the power that binds even the dead together. Sailors are exposed to nature’s beauty and her ugliness more intensely than most men ashore. I have chosen the sailor’s life to escape society’s restrictions and I have sacrificed its protection. I have chosen freedom and have paid the price.

More often than not, all I can tell myself is, “You’re doing the best you can.”

For the first time, I clearly see a vast difference between human needs and human wants. Before this voyage, I always had what I needed—food, shelter, clothing, and companionship—yet I was often dissatisfied when I didn’t get everything I wanted, when people didn’t meet my expectations, when a goal was thwarted, or when I couldn’t acquire some material goody. My plight has given me a strange kind of wealth, the most important kind. I value each moment that is not spent in pain, desperation, hunger, thirst, or loneliness.

Cold and wet, I feel as if I’m lying in a hammock full of water, turned on its side. A heavy, rough lump brushes against me. Another shark. I grab my spear and try to maneuver for a shot. The squealing rubber floor sucks up my legs, twists, and tries to tear off my skin. I cannot see the shark, so try to pull my leggy lures out of the sea by sitting half up on the inflated tube with my head crammed against the canopy. Shivering, I await the dawn.

Somehow I sleep. I dream that all of my family, friends, and those I’ve loved are gathered for a picnic. I try to take a picture of them sitting on a stone wall. Can’t fit them all in. “You’ve got to get back,” they shout to me. “Back, back, farther, keep going farther.” I move back more and still more, bringing crowds into the frame. Thousands of speckles shout, “Back farther!” They shrink more, and still more sweep into view, until everyone turns to a blur and is gone.

I continually wonder how much more a body can take. I don’t consider suicide—not now, after all I have come through—but I can understand how others might see it as a reasonable option in these circumstances. For me it is always easier to struggle on. To give myself courage, I tell myself that my hell could be worse, that it might get worse and I must prepare for that.

My body weaves about like a stock of kelp swaying in the currents. I have not only sea legs but sea arms and a sea back, perhaps even a sea brain.

Thinking of what I will do when it is all over is a bad joke. It will never be over. It is worse than death. If I were to search the most heinous parts of my mind to create a vision of a real hell, this would be the scene, exactly.

“No, I’m O.K. I have plenty of water. I can wait. You fish. Fish!” I yell as if reaching a revelation. “Plenty of fish, big fish, best fish in the sea!”

Insane to get rescued from sea and not rush onto land lol

I know that they are only fish, and I am only a man. We do what we must and only what Nature allows us to do in this life. Yet sometimes the fabric of life is woven into such a fantastic pattern.

I needed a miracle and my fish gave it to me. That and more. They’ve shown me that miracles swim and fly and walk, rain down and roll away all around me. I look around at life’s magnificent arena. The dorados seem almost to be leaping into the fishermen’s arms. I have never felt so humble, nor so peaceful, free, and at ease.

The perfume of flowers and grass blows off the island and wafts into my nostrils. I feel as if I’m seeing colors, hearing sounds, and smelling land for the first time. I am emerging from the womb again. The horrible memories of my voyage may haunt me forever, but they are already eased by the ecstasy of a new life and the kindness of these men.

It has been so long since I had any reason to be happy that I don’t quite know how to handle it.

I wonder if out beyond the beach, in the clear blue water, two emerald fish are looking for a new school with whom they will swim, carrying the tale of how simple fish taught a man the intricate mystery that comes with each moment of life.