Steven Callahan’s survival story Adrift had me fully engrossed within the first ten minutes. I
finished the entire book in two days because I could not put it down.
Callahan shares the story of his disastrous attempt at a
solo crossing of the Atlantic. He sailed from the Canaries in January, 1982 on
his ship Napoleon Solo. Seven days
out, he was asleep in his cabin when the side of his ship suddenly burst open,
spilling the sea into his little world. In a few desperate moments, he grabbed
what he could and jumped into the life raft that would be his home for the next
76 days. Unable to move his small vessel against the current, Callahan drifted
over 1,800 miles across the ocean. Battling storms, sharks, blistering thirst,
debilitating hunger, and the constant strain of never being able to rest for
more than a few hours at a time, it is miraculous that he was able to pull
through.
One of the most captivating elements of Callahan’s narrative
is his relationship with the school of fish that accompanied him on his
journey. They arrived almost the very first day and nudged him through the
floor of his raft nearly every hour of his crossing. They provided him with life sustaining food,
and more importantly, with companionship. They even left the sea on the same
day as him, being captured by the very fishermen who rescued Callahan from his
raft. He marveled frequently at how accommodating the fish were. As he grew
weaker, they seemed to do their best to help him.
“Why, when I had
trouble hunting, did the dorado come closer? Why did they make it increasingly
easier for me as I and my weapon became more broken and weak, until in the end
they lay on their sides right under my point? Why have they provided me just enough
food to hang on for eighteen hundred nautical miles? 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.”
There is no doubt that miraculous circumstances combined to
bring Callahan home. He spent over two months literally straddling the line
between life and death. Just when he seemed to have enough water, his spear
would break and he would have no way of catching fish. Once his spear was
repaired and he had food, his still would break and he would not be able to get
water. Just after a rainstorm allowed him to collected 6 ounces of drinking
water, his raft would blow a hole. After patching the hole, he would lie down
and try to rest, only to be awoken by a shark pounding his body through the
bottom of the raft and he would have to get up and defend himself. He seemed to
have the entire ocean against him, yet through perseverance and ingenuity, he
always managed to keep his head above water.
“For now, I can say
that I am grateful for this experience and for the stream down which it
continues to float me. I would not volunteer to go through it again, but the
sea that tested me also proved forgiving enough to let me live, to show me how
to live. For the first time in my life I felt truly humbled. It is just another
irony with which my tale is filled—the heartfelt realization of one’s
insignificance yields a calming sense of being completely connected to the
greater whole. As a tiny part of the world and humanity, I now feel more at peace
and much larger than I ever felt as a man alone.”
My rating: 9 out of 10
