Ocean voyage: What being alone on the Atlantic triggers

One of the pleasures of travelling by sea is the enjoyment of natural things. There is more life on the surface of the sea than you would expect. From the tiniest plankton, which only becomes visible when it lights up in fright, to the large whales, life is omnipresent.

Life on the sea surface

The most common birds in the Mid-Atlantic are storm petrels and shearwaters. Petrels are adorable little birds, dark brown in colour with a white patch above the forked tail. They dart back and forth over the waves, constantly changing direction and scanning the surface for tiny food particles. Their feet hang down so that it looks as if the birds are dancing on the water.

In glassy seas, you can sometimes see the ripples as they touch the surface. Even in a howling gale, you can see them flying just centimetres above the water, rising over the crests and diving back into the troughs. Their joyful dance always lifted my spirits. The shearwater is a less graceful bird. Greenish-brown on top with a white underside, it curves and swoops from wave to wave in graceful sweeps. Like a seagull behind a plough, it scans the turbulent wake for scraps of food.

I spent a lot of time watching these birds and regretted that I didn't have a camera good enough to capture their beauty.

Being alone is not the same as being lonely

Although I had travelled less than a third of the distance, I picked up an American show on the shortwave radio. It was a kind of "In Town Tonight" for New York, in which visitors to the city were interviewed. It seemed like a world away from "Aziz", but I was sad when it ended and was replaced by irrelevant pop music.

I began to wonder if I had changed as a result of being alone for a week. I felt the same as always - no happier, no more scared, no lonelier. I did want to talk to someone and tell them what had happened since I left Dale, but I felt no pain at not being able to. The radio was a great help because it kept me in touch with reality.

I mainly listened to spoken word programmes as there wasn't much music on the shortwave bands, and when there was music on, the reception was usually not good enough to make listening worthwhile. But I enjoyed current affairs programmes, news, discussions and radio plays, not to mention the commentary on cricket, rugby and tennis matches.

It was encouraging to hear an American programme. It gave me the feeling that I was heading for a destination and not just sailing into the unknown. I imagined what the sailors on Columbus' ships must have felt. They must have been scared to death as they sailed further and further towards the edge of the world, wondering what would happen when they reached it. I bet the lookouts were wide awake.

But what if I never saw a ship or any sign of the outside world? Would I care? Would I miss human company? I thought of times in my life when I was far lonelier than I am now. Because back then I was lonely among people. Now I was alone with myself.

Lonely among people

My first memory of loneliness comes from my time at boarding school. When I went there at the age of eleven, I was very happy, full of self-confidence and looking forward to a new experience. After two weeks, I was transferred to a higher class where I was the youngest.

Some of the older girls were very unfriendly to me. No doubt they were annoyed by this new girl who was smarter than them. I was stunned. No one had ever treated me like this and I was completely unprepared for such a situation. So I withdrew into myself and became a very lonely person, grateful when I was accepted into a group, but lacking the courage to make the first move.

I gradually shed this attitude as I got older and socialised with people I knew, but it returned when I went to university. The difference was that I soon had a boyfriend and didn't have to make my own friends as we did everything together. But after a year, my confidence grew and I dared to express my own opinions.

Eventually we split up and I went through the worst period of loneliness I have ever experienced. I didn't know anyone except mutual friends, and to the people I did know, I was too proud to openly admit my loneliness and ask for company. I was still afraid of rejection.

But then it dawned on me that I had been looking inwards too much and hadn't considered that other people might feel the same way as me. I realised that if you're kind to people, they'll probably be kind to you too. But you can't expect them to make the first move and you have to respond clearly to every move that is made. That worked wonders. Since then, I've had far fewer difficulties with interpersonal relationships and no more long periods of loneliness and despair.

Nevertheless, I had acquired the habit of being alone and can't do without it. I get very nervous when I don't have time to myself. So the thought of being alone didn't put me off.

A future without certainty

I thought about the future.

"It's a strange thing to think about a future that might not even exist and, if it does, is completely undefined. For example, I don't know what tomorrow holds for me - will it be another grey day without sunshine and excitement, or will it be a glorious day or a terrifying day?"

It was a very strange feeling. This was the first time I really realised the non-existence of the future. Before an event happens, it doesn't exist. You can imagine that it will exist in the future, but that is just a thinking technique that is reflected in our language, just as imaginary numbers are just a calculating technique. It is of course possible to construct an image of tomorrow, store it in the mind and compare it with reality when tomorrow has become now.

Why did I think I could go six weeks without interacting with the human world? Because I had planned it."

Most people have a sufficiently ordered life to achieve a good match. But isn't it great when something unpredictable happens? Isn't that the real pleasure of life? If it weren't, you could exist entirely in your own mind without ever looking out into the world or taking in new ideas from others. Maybe some people can. I can't. I need the stimulation of other people.

This brings us back to loneliness. Why did I think I could go six weeks without interacting with the human world? Because I had planned it, because I expected it and because I expected it to end. I wouldn't be lonely because that's a state where you crave a relationship with a specific person. I had relationships that I knew would continue. I thought of my friends, and I knew they thought of me. However, if I had been thrust into isolation without preparation and without hope, I would be lonely and despairing. To be torn from life and thrown into prison with no hope of release would be horrific. But being in the middle of the Atlantic on my own boat with books, radio, food and drink, and of my own free will, is rather pleasant. As long as nothing goes wrong.

Food, cooking and everyday life on board

In the meantime, I had settled into an eating behaviour that rather amused me. I had always maintained that the human body was poorly designed in terms of energy requirements. It would be much better to eat only every other day, and then really well, to satisfy the aesthetic side without being satiated. Surely that would be much preferable to eating ordinary food every few hours just to fulfil energy needs. The strange thing was, now that I had complete freedom to eat as I wanted, I spent a lot of the day nibbling little bits of this and that here and there. I think it was because I had so little to do that food became an important source of experience.

In the morning, I had a bowl of muesli - a mixture of oat flakes, cereals, nuts, sultanas and apple flakes. You add milk and the mixture swells into a nutritious and filling meal. I used Ever-Ready milk, which is heat-treated so that it will keep for months if unopened. My cartons were dated up to 11 November 1971, so I didn't expect it to go sour. Its only drawback was that it tasted horrible in tea, otherwise it was fine.

During the morning, I usually ate some fruit - an apple while stocks lasted, or a carrot or an orange. Maybe some cheese or some of my mum's homemade biscuits. At lunchtime I'd have a tin of prawns, sardines or breakfast meat, or maybe an egg with mayonnaise, followed by cheese or fruit and a can of beer. At tea time I had a cup of Chinese tea with a slice of lemon, accompanied by a considerable number of biscuits or a few slices of cake.

In the evening we had a kind of hot meal. "Macaroni bolognese à la 'Aziz'" was a favourite. I prepared it by chopping and sautéing an onion, adding a tin of mince and stirring for a minute, then adding some water, a good portion of tomato puree, a bay leaf, salt, pepper and a handful of quick-cooking macaroni. Simmer for twenty minutes and you have a flavoursome dish. Since my onions were large and my tins of meat were standard size, I always ended up with huge quantities. Most of the time I had to give some to the fish, but sometimes I struggled through the whole portion and fell into a comatose sleep afterwards. I never got bored of the food as I had a good selection on board. I had such huge quantities that I only ate the things I really liked and didn't have to struggle with unappetising things like stewed steak.

Cooking was usually quite easy, even in rough weather, as the gas burner was gimballed so that it stayed level when the boat was rolling. There was a sink next to the burner, which I used as temporary storage for utensils that were in use but not needed at the time. I didn't use it for washing as it was easier to use a bucket in the cockpit. All dirty crockery and cutlery went into the bucket, and when I felt like it, I washed it with seawater and liquid washing-up liquid. I washed myself in the same way: with seawater. I didn't want to waste any of my forty gallons of fresh water; once you start washing with it, the precious liquid disappears far too quickly.

When the whales surface close to the "Aziz"

All the food was stowed in the forward cabin, except for the supplies for immediate use, which were behind the galley. On the evening of the ninth day, I was taking a can out of the recess in the floor when I noticed that there were puddles of a blue liquid in the side recesses. I smelled it and realised that it was petroleum that must have leaked from the yellow canisters. Nothing seemed to be damaged, apart from two books that had somehow got amongst the supplies. I fished out the petroleum canisters, put them in the cockpit and wiped up the mess with a sponge and a bucket.

When I examined the canisters, I realised that the leak was coming from the caps. The rubber seals were swollen. I decided to cut them to size and had just got the scissors out when I was startled by a noise.

A blow in the twilight

"Hsch-wuuuh!" Like a locomotive letting off steam.

"What the hell is that?" It sounded like the breathing of dolphins, only amplified enormously. It had to be a whale.

I jumped up and looked around. Despite the onset of dusk, I could see a smooth spot in the sea a hundred metres off the port bow, bubbling gently.

Then another "Hsch-wuuuh" sounded from the other side. I jerked my head round and saw a puff of vapour hanging over a shiny, dark back that was slowly sinking below the surface. Then I heard an even louder blow, and the first whale rolled out of the sea just fifteen metres from the "Aziz".

I imagined the impact, the terrible heeling, the bursting of the rigging, the water crashing over me ..."

My heart was pounding because it was just too close. "Watch out for my boat." I imagined the impact, the terrible heeling, the bursting of the rigging, the water crashing over me when one of these huge animals came up under me. "For heaven's sake, take care of me!"

The second whale appeared a little further away and blew, followed by the first, a few hundred metres to my left. And again, to my right and left, then in front of me, like giant dolphins. "Thank God, they know I'm here!" My excitement subsided and I watched the spectacle. First I heard the blowing, saw the bubble rise five metres or more into the air and gradually blow away with the wind. A long, muddy brown ridge rolled under the bubble until a fin finally broke the surface.

Then the creature sank gently into the depths, leaving behind a smooth, swirling patch of water. I couldn't see the head or tail, but the visible part must have been over nine metres long, so I estimated the total length at over fifteen metres. The weight would therefore be around seventy-five tonnes, compared to the light three and a half tonnes of the "Aziz".

I sailed right through the blow of a whale. This is the exhaled air, and I had read that it is supposed to smell particularly foul. This one hardly smelled at all, just like warm, moist air. I noticed reddish-orange coloured particles floating in the place of the blow, but I couldn't explain what they were.

I think it must have been sperm whales. That's the species they catch in the Azores by harpooning them by hand from open boats - a heroic but bloody business.

After the joy my whales had given me, I didn't want them to end up like this.

I shouted to them: "Stay away from the Azores. Good hunting!"

The book

In 1971, Nicolette Milnes Walker became the first woman to cross the Atlantic single-handed and non-stop. It took her forty-four days in her "Aziz", a nine-metre GRP production yacht. The journey was an act of emancipation, but as a psychologist, Walker also used it as a self-experiment and observed isolation, fear, fatigue and determination under extreme conditions. Walker then described her experiences along the way in this book, which has now been published in German translation. A humorous account written with British understatement. Honest, precise and surprisingly modern.