Pod Insights Real Survival Stories Indian Ocean Castaways: Epic Voyage (Part 1 of 2) About this episode In Sri Lanka, a chance meeting with an eccentric fisherman sees Gordon Brace and his wife Elisabeth join the trip of a lifetime: a crossing of the Indian Ocean aboard a single-engine motorboat. But the young sailors will get much more than they bargained for. Because what follows is a survival story for the ages - a three-month epic of grit, daring and peril on the high seas…
A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins.
Written by Joe Viner | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound Supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley.
For more on this story read Gordon's book, Survival in Paradise.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Ally here with cash when you need it. Like when your stylist just did the most. Fresh cut and zero cash. Don't be in awe. Ally has 75,000 fee-free ATMs nationwide, so you're never without cash. Ally Bank member FDIC.
0:20 John Hopkins? It is December 1980. In the middle of the Indian Ocean, where the northern and southern hemisphere trade winds meet, there lies a belt of low pressure called the Intertropical Convergence Zone, or the doldrums.
0:34 John Hopkins? Along this latitude, intense solar radiation warms the water's surface, causing the air to rise straight up instead of blowing horizontally. The result is a band of ocean notorious for its high humidity and calm, windless conditions.
0:53 John Hopkins? On most days, the sea here is mill pond flat, undisturbed by even the faintest ripple. But not today. Today, the ghostly stillness is broken by the sound of a suttering engine weakly powering a small 40-foot motorboat.
1:11 John Hopkins? The vessel's white paint is chipped and peeling. A strange wooden contraption protrudes from the stern, something rudimentary and makeshift, trailing in the foamy wake.
1:25 John Hopkins? The rickety ramshackle boat appears lost, almost comically out of place, far too dinky and fragile for the vast ocean it's moving through.
1:36 John Hopkins? Standing at the helm, Gordon Brace lethargically scans the horizon.
1:42 John Hopkins? For almost a week now, he and his four fellow crew members have been struggling through the doldrums in search of a chain of islands that should, according to their charts, lie just south of here.
1:54 John Hopkins? But after days without luck, doubts are setting in.
1:59 Speaker 02 We were out there for some days and we couldn't find these damn islands. And Dave was getting a little bit upset with Ken because he figured Ken's navigation skills are not as good as he claimed them to be because we were not finding this island.
2:14 John Hopkins? It isn't just their navigation letting them down. Something is wrong with their boat. For some reason, it isn't moving in a straight line. Instead, it meanders, the wooden device at the stern flapping uselessly as the vessel veers off to port, then back to starboard in a slow, listless zigzag.
2:36 John Hopkins? It's frustrating and time-consuming. But time isn't the only resource to be worried about.
2:43 Speaker 02 And so we zigzagged our way. But there was a problem with this. We were burning the fuel we had, and the fuel was a major factor for us, obviously.
2:54 John Hopkins? Gordon glances at the fuel gauge. The needle is dropping fast. It's highly unlikely they'll encounter another ship in the doldrums.
3:04 John Hopkins? If they run out of fuel, they'll likely drift for months before anyone finds them. Can they last that long?
3:12 John Hopkins? Gordon lifts his head and scans the boundless seascape, willing something to materialize from nothing. But all around is just a flat, impassive, edgeless ocean.
3:25 Speaker 02 I figured we were just going nowhere, and the fuel was getting pretty low. We're now in trouble.
3:42 John Hopkins? Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, people suddenly forced to fight for their lives.
4:02 John Hopkins? In this episode, we meet 28-year-old Gordon Brace and his wife Elizabeth. A young couple, freewheeling their way through life. In 1980, the Braces are living in Sri Lanka when they meet an eccentric fisherman who invites them on the trip of a lifetime: a crossing of the Indian Ocean aboard a single-engine motorboat. Recognizing an adventure when they see one, Gordon and Elizabeth sign up and soon find themselves part of a ragtag crew of amateur sailors, attempting an ocean voyage nobody has ever completed before.
4:35 Speaker 02 I did look back at Sri Lanka as it disappeared into the distance, and then I did feel pretty vulnerable. Am I doing the right thing yet? This is a bit scary.
4:47 John Hopkins? Gordon and Elizabeth were looking for adventure, but they will soon get more than they bargained for, because what follows is a survival story for the ages: a three-month epic of grit, daring, and peril on the high seas. They will face fierce tempests.
5:04 Speaker 02 There was just this big, black mass coming at us on the horizon, and we knew we were in for it.
5:10 John Hopkins? Endure the sanity-testing stillness of the doldrums.
5:13 Speaker 02 We were right in the middle now of the Indian Ocean, with no ships in sight.
5:18 John Hopkins? And ultimately, find themselves real-life castaways in one of the remotest places on the planet.
5:24 Speaker 02 It's amazing how tuned your eyes come to the horizon. And Dave said, "Hey, Gordon, I think that's an island."
5:32 John Hopkins? I'm John Hopkins. From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is Real Survival Stories.
6:01 John Hopkins? It's November 1980 in Sri Lanka. A warm breeze skips off the Indian Ocean.
6:08 John Hopkins? It jostles the tall palms that line the harbor of Trinkamale, a fishing town on the east coast of the island.
6:15 John Hopkins? Sunshine burns through a residue of hazy cloud as Gordon and Elizabeth Brace, a young married couple, stroll along the jetty. Brightly coloured fishing boats bob gently in the tide, the water beneath their hulls so crystal clear, the vessels appear to float in thin air.
6:35 John Hopkins? They've been living in Sri Lanka for five months and have fallen in love with this beautiful country. For Gordon, it's the island's wildness that attracts him most, its verdant jungles, white sand beaches and pristine coastal waters. His connection to the natural world runs deep.
6:55 John Hopkins? It stretches back to his childhood in south-eastern Africa, where the forest and savannah were his classroom.
7:02 Speaker 02 I was raised in the bush in Zambia by an old Afrikaner guy. And he took me into the bush when I was a youngster, when I don't even think I was eight years old. And I remember him saying to me, "Take those shoes off." And he taught me to walk bare feet in the bush and how to stalk properly, how to track, and what to eat and not to eat and how to survive and so on. So I guess you could say Africa, the wild places are in my blood. I grew up in the wild. I grew up in the bush.
7:31 John Hopkins? Gordon's love of the wild places extended to the ocean. When he was still a young boy, his grandparents took him to the coast of East Africa, where he caught his first glimpse of a coral reef.
7:43 Speaker 02 I did my first dive off the coast of Kenya when I was six and I was hooked. I'm still astounded by marine life and the diving, but it's married to the wild places. It's married to the bush. I love both. I love the wild places. I love bush. And I love diving too and I love the open sea.
8:02 John Hopkins? After finishing school, Gordon decided not to continue with the traditional education. Instead, he left home with nothing but a suitcase, a passport and a hunger for new experiences.
8:13 John Hopkins? He headed first to Europe, and it was while travelling through Denmark that he met a like-minded young woman named Elizabeth.
8:21 Speaker 02 She was about eighteen, I was nineteen, and we hit it off very well. She is stunningly beautiful as well. She was very good-looking, but she didn't know it, if you know what I mean. If you meet her within five minutes, you can't help but love her. She's fantastic.
8:38 John Hopkins? Within days of meeting, the pair were inseparable. Soon they were married. With nothing tying them down, Gordon and Elizabeth, both hungry for more adventure, set off to see the world. Their travels took them everywhere. From Europe, they headed to the Caribbean, then Africa and Australia. They worked odd jobs, selling shells they found on the seafloor or driving tractors in the Australian outback.
9:04 John Hopkins? Whenever they grew bored of a place, they'd move on, blowing in and out with the seasons.
9:10 John Hopkins? Living life in the fast lane was thrilling, but it could also be dangerous.
9:15 John Hopkins? There was the time they were caught in a tropical storm while canoeing in the Caribbean, or the time they nearly capsized while rafting on the Zambezi. On these occasions, fortune seemed to be smiling on them.
9:27 Speaker 02 I've had so many incredible things happen to me, and I've survived them, that after a while you kind of think, you know, this is more than coincidence. I'm getting away with stuff that I shouldn't be getting away with. For some odd reason, I seem to have this little guardian angel watching over me.
9:46 John Hopkins? Five months ago, Gordon and Elizabeth decided to come to Sri Lanka on the recommendation of some friends. They've rented a bungalow on the beach, and Gordon has found work as a lifeguard at a nearby hotel. It's an idyllic spot, and for now the couple are quite content to while away the days here.
10:05 John Hopkins? About a week back, they got chatting to a guy at the hotel bar. After Gordon mentioned that he hailed from East Africa, a man brought up a friend of his, a fisherman originally from Kenya, who now lives here in Sri Lanka. The fisherman's name instantly struck a chord. Ken Alton. It was a name Gordon had heard before.
10:28 Speaker 02 Ken Alton, in my part of the world, is very well-known. Six foot seven of him. He was an East African rally driver, he was a polo player, but he was very well-known as a big game fisherman. I think he's had about five world records in his time. I think he still holds a world record for the Mecca, if I'm not mistaken. But he's quite a character. Infamous character.
10:51 John Hopkins? The notorious Ken Alton, right here in Sri Lanka. This they had to see with their own eyes. After driving to the other side of the island, Gordon and Elizabeth now walk along the jetty at Trinkamale, scanning the faces of the fishermen. At the far end of the dock, a weather-beaten motorboat strains gently against her moorings. And on deck, sun-tanned and sinewy, is the man whose name is legend in Gordon's part of the world. The infamous Ken Alton. Rally driver, polo player, shark wrangler.
11:28 John Hopkins? But as they approached the boat, their confidence falters.
11:32 Speaker 02 He is intimidating. He's a huge man, very powerful. And not an ounce of fat on him. He was fifty-two back then, but he'd give most twenty-year-olds a run for their money.
11:44 John Hopkins? Gordon summons his courage, clears his throat, and calls out to Ken.
11:51 John Hopkins? The grizzled old fisherman turns around and straightens up to his full height, over two meters tall.
11:59 John Hopkins? After confirming with a growl that he is indeed Ken Alton, the big man listens as Gordon introduces himself.
12:07 John Hopkins? There is a brief tense pause as Ken tries to place the name.
12:13 John Hopkins? Then a grin cracks across his leathery, salt-crusted face.
12:19 John Hopkins? Ken says he remembers Gordon's family, and even recalls one or two stories about him as a child. Having established this remarkable and unlikely connection, Ken invites the couple to come aboard.
12:31 John Hopkins? Sitting on deck, he begins telling them all about his time in Sri Lanka, and how he's thinking about packing in his fishing operation and returning to Africa.
12:40 Speaker 02 He wanted to go back to Kenya, and he decided he's gonna take his boat with him, because that's all he had, was his boat.
12:49 Speaker 02 I kinda looked at him and was like, "Oh, you know, that seems a bit crazy." And then we started talking, and he said, "No, he's going to do it." And he said, "As far as he knows, nobody has ever crossed the Indian Ocean in a single-engine motorboat."
13:05 John Hopkins? Gordon looks around at Ken's boat. It's about forty feet from bow to stern, maybe twelve across the beam, with a raised flybridge perched above the main deck. It's the kind of vessel you'd cruise around the bay for a leisurely fishing trip, not one you'd try to sail across an ocean.
13:25 Speaker 02 It's like 4,000 sea miles. And 4,000 sea miles in a single-engine motorboat with a four-foot draft is a little bit tilting towards more than a calculated risk.
13:35 John Hopkins? But as Ken describes his daring plan, there is something exciting about it too. It's a madcap scheme, no question, but the sheer audacity of it does carry an undeniable allure. Perhaps sensing Gordon's interest, Ken leans forward. If they fancy it, he could always use a couple of extra deckhands.
13:58 John Hopkins? Gordon smiles. It's a tantalizing offer, but before even entertaining the idea of joining Ken's crew, he's got some questions.
14:09 John Hopkins? For starters, there's the issue of fuel. On a boat this small, how does he intend on carrying enough spare diesel to get himself all the way to Kenya? Ken nods and begins to explain. A while back, he got talking to a family here in Sri Lanka who were sailing their yacht around the world. As they were crossing the Indian Ocean, navigating through the Chagos Archipelago, the family came across a deserted island. They disembarked and ventured into the palm trees where they made a curious discovery: a huge stash of diesel drums, full to the brim.
14:46 John Hopkins? The family left the drums where they found them and continued on their voyage.
14:52 Speaker 02 That was the main reason that Ken thought he could do this. Without that, this trip would have been a no-go at all. So, when he told us all of this, and he said, "If we can get there, then we've got that diesel, we can get to the Seychelles, and then from the Seychelles, we can get to Kenya."
15:13 John Hopkins? Gordon digests this information. It still sounds like a crazy gamble, risking their lives on the basis of hearsay, a story told to Ken by a family of sailors.
15:25 John Hopkins? But before he can voice his concerns, Ken cuts in.
15:29 Speaker 02 He didn't pull the wool over his eyes, you know, he said, "Look, I'm gonna tell you up straight, what we're trying to do, this is dangerous, this is very, very risky. So don't give me an answer now." He said, "You know, go and sort out your affairs, and then think about it, and then come back and give me an answer."
15:50 John Hopkins? Gordon and Elizabeth drive across the island in contemplative silence.
15:56 John Hopkins? Before they arrive back at their bungalow, they pull over to sit on the beach and watch the sun sink in the Indian Ocean.
16:03 John Hopkins? Elizabeth turns to her husband.
16:07 Speaker 02 And she looked at me and she says, you want to do this, right? And I said, yeah, you know, I do. She always said this about how I think I'm invincible. And she mentioned that then. And I said, yeah, you know, but it's not just me. It's also you, you know? So she said, no, man. I know you'll never forgive me if I say no. And so it wasn't an hour or two later, we didn't even go home. We just came back to him and said, hey, we gotta go and sort things out and we'll be back. We coming?
16:43 Speaker 00 Ally here with cash when you need it, like when your stylist just did the most. Fresh cut and zero cash. Don't be in a hurry. Ally has 75,000 fee free ATMs nationwide, so you're never without cash. Ally Bank Member FDIC.
16:58 John Hopkins? This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators Returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea and a man is struck blind all alone at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four.
17:41 John Hopkins? Get all of these shows and more early and ad free on Noiser Plus.
17:54 John Hopkins? It's a few weeks later. On the east coast of Sri Lanka, a crew of sailors is putting the final touches to their boat ahead of departure.
18:03 John Hopkins? Gordon and Elizabeth are the only people Ken has managed to recruit for his grand voyage.
18:09 John Hopkins? Dave Faulkner is a 20-year-old surfer from New Zealand who responded to an advert Ken placed in a local pub.
18:16 Speaker 02 Dave's one of those guys, a bit like my wife. You can't help but like the guy as soon as you meet him. I don't know if Dave realised how serious that expedition was. He was young and full of gung-ho and, "Yeah, sure, let's do this." I'd say a little bit naive, maybe, but a wonderful guy. Curly hair, great smile, always good spirits, good humour.
18:41 John Hopkins? Then there's Nicole, an old flame of Ken's whom he's kept in touch with and has invited along for the ride. She's a charismatic, mid-30s Parisian with a short crop of wavy brown hair.
18:54 Speaker 02 Straight away, her and Elizabeth got on well. It was nice for Elizabeth, some female company. And she climbed in and helped out. Easygoing as well, very pleasant, very charming.
19:04 John Hopkins? But nobody has a bigger personality than the captain.
19:09 John Hopkins? In the six weeks they spent getting the boat ready for departure, Gordon witnesses Ken live up to his fearsome reputation. Erascible, volatile, occasionally downright frightening. With a mad glint in his eye and a cigar often clamped between his teeth, he's like an angry drill sergeant crossed with Blackbeard. You do not want to get on the wrong side of him.
19:34 John Hopkins? On one occasion, in order to raise some money for the voyage, Gordon and Ken take a group of German tourists out shark fishing.
19:42 John Hopkins? They head to an area Ken says is usually brimming with mako sharks. But on this particular day, their lines remain slack, no matter how much chum they splash into the water.
19:53 Speaker 02 We were having no luck. Nothing, no sharks at all. And we went to a different area, we chummed again. And then one of the German guys in English started effing and blinding and saying, "This is a ripoff, there's no shark here, it's a waste." Ken grabbed him by the seat of his pants and ran him off the boat into the chum. And made this guy tread water there. And the guy was screaming his head off, he said, "Relax, there's no sharks here, you said so yourself. You've got nothing to worry about, why are you screaming?" That's Ken.
20:29 John Hopkins? Still, when he isn't traumatizing tourists, Ken is a good captain. Open-minded and competent. His boat is called the Miken, a portmanteau of his own name and the name of his former business partner, Mike. There's a lot of work to be done to get the boat ready for the voyage. Anti-fouling the hull, loading her up with food and supplies, adding a mast and sail to the bow as backup for the 175 horsepower engine. But eventually, the day comes. On December the 14th, 1980, the Miken motors quietly across the harbor, journeying white foam in the dark sea. Gordon stands on the main deck with Elizabeth. They are bound for their next great adventure.
21:14 John Hopkins? But something about this one feels different. As the Miken passes the breakwater and enters the fathomless ocean, it's clear they are on the cusp of something momentous and irreversible.
21:28 Speaker 02 You've got to have some fear. Fear is healthy, there's nothing wrong with fear. But when we left that harbor, it was such a beautiful scenery as we went out into that open ocean, just cutting through that water. I did look back at the yachts and look back at Sri Lanka and as it disappeared into the distance. And then I did feel pretty vulnerable. I wouldn't say doubt, but this is like, "Am I doing the right thing yet?" This is a bit scary.
22:06 John Hopkins? It's December 1980, in the Indian Ocean.
22:11 John Hopkins? The Mykonos has been at sea for about a week, and so far has been plain sailing. They're on track to reach the Chagos Islands by Christmas. There, if all goes according to plan, they'll retrieve the diesel drums, refuel, and be well on their way to Kenya by the start of the new year.
22:28 John Hopkins? Sea conditions are calm, and the weather is fair. Indeed, Ken chose December for this voyage to avoid the Indian Ocean's cyclone season, which normally runs from May to November. So far, his forecasting has been accurate.
22:44 John Hopkins? The crew members spend their days relaxing, playing card games, or listening to music on the radio.
22:51 John Hopkins? They only leap into action when there's movement on one of the fishing rods, which they keep permanently cast off the side of the boat, trailing bait in the water.
23:00 John Hopkins? During the night, they take it in turns to keep watch from the flybridge, occasionally adjusting the tiller to maintain course.
23:12 John Hopkins? One evening, Gordon is leaning against the starboard railing when he hears Elizabeth's voice calling out from the front of the boat. She's staring straight ahead, her pink headscarf flapping in the wind. Way off in the distance, an ominous band of dark cloud has swallowed the horizon.
23:34 Speaker 02 Ken told us that the cyclone season for that part of the world should be over, so the big tropical storms in that part of the ocean should have been done. And that's one of the reasons he chose that time of the year. This was a late one. I have a picture of it coming, Elizabeth sitting on the bough. It was just this big, black mass coming at us on the horizon, and we knew we were in for it.
23:59 John Hopkins? As darkness approaches, the Mykonos and the five souls on board plunge headlong into the gathering storm.
24:07 John Hopkins? It's Elizabeth's shift, but Gordon volunteers to take her place at the wheel.
24:12 Speaker 02 I said to her, "Look, you stay below, I'll take it through this thought." And Ken's... This was strange with Ken. As fearless as he was and powerful as he was, I think this scared him. Because he jumped in his bunking. Elizabeth said that he rolled over in the fetal position and faced the wall and just went to sleep. The rest of them just battened themselves down.
24:37 John Hopkins? While the others hunker down below deck, Gordon gets into position on the flybridge.
24:43 John Hopkins? With what remains of the daylight, he is able to look ahead at the vast, interminable ocean, churned by the storm into a mountain range of foam-crested ridges and deep, black valleys. Gordon grips the wheel, fighting to keep the Micant at ninety degrees to the oncoming waves.
25:01 Speaker 02 You've got to keep the nose in the wind all the time. You cannot think about direction, you think about where the wind is. And what you want to do is when these waves come, and they were monstrous waves, so when you go up them, you want to throttle her down so that you come down the other side of the wave into the valley. And you cannot judge it correctly each time, it's impossible. And then it falls, and the sound when it falls, it sounds like the boat has shattered to pieces.
25:28 John Hopkins? Blinded by darkness and spray, Gordon does what he can. Again and again, the Micant tilts almost vertically as she surges up the face of each oncoming wave, then shoots off the lip and crashes down into the trough with a sickening, hull-splintering crunch. Gordon gasps for breath in the fleeting intervals between the waves.
25:50 Speaker 02 I mean, that wind, it stung me. It was so fierce. I mean, trying to keep it out of my eyes and trying to keep her in direction. And I was on a swivel chair and trying to turn away from it, but you've got to keep facing that all the time. I didn't know if that boat was going to survive.
26:10 John Hopkins? Gordon's exhausted, but he mustn't lose concentration. If he misjudges the wind direction and turns at the wrong moment, the force of the air will cause the mikan to broach, heel over, and capsize.
26:23 John Hopkins? In the dark, he hears the waves before he sees them, rolling peels of thunder materializing into giant walls of water webbed with foam.
26:33 John Hopkins? And they just keep coming. Several hours in, the monotony of the onslaught is broken by a new sound, a deep, tremulous rumble of pure kinetic energy howling in the blackness. A monster is approaching.
26:53 Speaker 02 They talk about the seventh of the seventh waves, the big ones that come in sets. I went off a wave so high that when I hit, I didn't hit down into the valley. I hit into the wave. So as I came off the top of this wave, I plowed into the next one coming on, and it was a monstrous wave.
27:15 John Hopkins? As the mikan smashes into the side of the swell, it's like a bomb has detonated around the boat.
27:21 John Hopkins? Gordon is spun violently around in his chair, and as he turns, he sees a face. Dave's, ghostly pale in the glow of the navigation light, before he's knocked off his feet by the force of the wave and sucked backwards into the seething darkness. Gordon stares, horrified.
27:40 Speaker 02 I don't know what to do. I couldn't turn around. I had this Sophie's Choice thing. What do I do? If I turn, I'm gonna broach. There's no question. If I turn this boat now, and I've got those waves side on, we will broach. No question.
27:58 Speaker 02 But Dave's in the water.
28:01 John Hopkins? Battling to be heard above the roar of the elements, Gordon screams, "Man overboard!" He stamps his feet on the deck to alert the others below. Then, a split second later...
28:13 Speaker 02 When I screamed "Man overboard!", I heard somebody screaming, and it was Dave.
28:20 John Hopkins? To Gordon's astonishment, Dave is pulling himself up the ladder onto the flybridge, a little shaken, but otherwise alive and well. He didn't fall into the ocean, but onto the area of deck just below the flybridge, where the wooden transom stopped him from tumbling into the water.
28:38 John Hopkins? The crew breathes a huge sigh of relief.
28:43 John Hopkins? All night Gordon guides the Mykon through the storm. During the final hour of his shift, the wind subsides, the waves lose some of their ferocity. Ken appears by his side and offers to take over.
28:59 John Hopkins? Gordon, bone weary, his skin flayed raw by the wind, heads below deck, curls up in his bunk, and promptly falls into a deep sleep.
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29:30 John Hopkins? This October, on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History Of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world.
30:01 John Hopkins? In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four. Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
30:25 John Hopkins? When Gordon wakes, it's like the storm never happened. The becalmed sea is like glass, the air still and heavy. It should be a relief, but in reality, they have merely swapped one kind of maritime punishment for another.
30:42 John Hopkins? They've reached the doldrums, a stretch of ocean where sailboats can become stranded for weeks on windless seas.
30:51 Speaker 02 When I woke up towards evening, we were in the doldrums, we were in ice-rink seas, I mean, flat, calm seas.
31:01 John Hopkins? Still, it's a chance to reset, to take a beat and assess.
31:07 John Hopkins? Aside from some of their food supplies getting waterlogged, the storm doesn't seem to have done any significant damage to the Mikan. The crew spends the evening tidying up the mess in the galley. Then, just before dusk, they prepare to resume their voyage.
31:23 Speaker 02 Later on, we fired up the engine and we started off again, and the boat started to shudder. And we didn't know what the hell this was. And we kept going and we we were driving through the whole of the night with this constant shuddering and then, late that night, the steering failed. And then Ken just swore. And he ran to the stern and he looked over and that stainless steel, huge stainless steel rudder we had was snapped.
31:50 John Hopkins? It turns out that the rudder, the underwater blade that steers the boat, has been severed in half by the pounding waves.
31:58 John Hopkins? The storm has left its mark after all.
32:03 John Hopkins? Gordon and Dave dive into the water to retrieve the mangled piece of steel, which dangles from the hull by a single metal thread. They haul the rudder on deck and analyze the damage. Clearly, it's not salvageable.
32:19 John Hopkins? Their boat is now rudderless.
32:21 Speaker 02 Without a rudder, you're going nowhere. You can have all the sails and all the motor and power you've got, you're going nowhere without a rudder. So, we were in big trouble. And we were right in the middle now of the Indian Ocean, with no ships in sight. We weren't in the shipping lanes. This was a serious problem.
32:44 John Hopkins? As the battered Macon sits slumped in the water, the crew amble around the deck, scratching their heads and sweating in the tropical sun. They decide to build a makeshift rudder and spend the morning drilling holes into a short wooden plank, which they fasten into position at the base of the stern.
33:03 John Hopkins? Incredibly, their jury-rigged setup works
33:08 John Hopkins? for about five minutes. Gordon stands at the helm, keeping an eye on their course as the plank rudder tries and fails to keep them moving in a straight line.
33:19 Speaker 02 She wouldn't push us in one direction. Kept pushing us in circles. And we're trying and trying and trying. And then they got it where it pushed us a little bit forward and then started to swing back again. So I throttled down. And she was going off to port. So as I throttled down, she swung to starboard. So I said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, leave it there. Watch this, watch this."
33:39 John Hopkins? Gordon pushes the throttle and again the Macon veers off to starboard. When he lets go, the boat drifts back to port.
33:48 John Hopkins? So then, this is how they're going to navigate across the ocean: by drifting and correcting their course over and over and over.
33:59 Speaker 02 And so we zigzagged our way and we could go in the direction that we needed to go, to some degree. But there was a problem with this. We were burning the fuel we had doing this.
34:13 John Hopkins? As well as being slow, this meandering motion is inefficient.
34:17 John Hopkins? That evening Gordon notices the fuel gauge ticking down at an alarming speed.
34:22 John Hopkins? The Chagos Islands, they estimate, are about 500 nautical miles away. At this rate, it'll be touch and go whether or not they make it. Plus, there's the growing psychological pressure as they venture deeper into the doldrums.
34:38 John Hopkins? Sailors describe being adrift here as a unique kind of torture. The air is so still, the water becomes a mirror, creating an eerie sense that sky and ocean have merged into one endless blue void. The sun dazzles overhead, glistening on the surface of the sea like a sheen of sweat.
34:58 John Hopkins? For the crew of the Macon, there's no escape from the heat or humidity, no breath of wind to salve their scorched skin, as one day ebbs into the next.
35:10 John Hopkins? But on they go, weaving weakly across the wide stagnant ocean.
35:17 John Hopkins? Over time, the fear of running out of fuel is surpassed by another, more immediate need.
35:24 Speaker 02 We were chasing squalls to fill up with rainwater, because that's our number one concern. If we don't get there, water is our big need. So if we saw a squall, we would chase it.
35:36 John Hopkins? Whenever a rain cloud darkens a spot on the ocean, they head for it. Sometimes the shower dries up before they can get there, wasting more precious fuel for nothing.
35:48 John Hopkins? Gordon and the others try to stay upbeat. They find things to take their minds of their situation: funny stories, games, booze.
35:56 Speaker 02 If you start dwelling on it, it becomes a monster in itself. So I always try to change the subject. We had Scrabble, we had board games, card games, we'd have a little bit of rum, we'd tell jokes and and I'd talk about what we had done in our past and and I'd just try and keep things as normal as possible.
36:18 John Hopkins? But reminders of their plight are always there, in the pangs of thirst that must be ignored, or in the grim glimpses of the dwindling fuel gauge.
36:29 John Hopkins? Constantly niggling away at them too is the fear that they could be on the wrong course, that the sextant, which calculates their location relative to the sun, moon, or stars, might be giving false readings.
36:43 John Hopkins? Staring at the horizon's unbroken waterline, it's difficult to imagine that anything lies beyond it, except more of the same. Things would feel less hopeless if they could just stick to one course. But Ken's navigation is becoming increasingly erratic.
37:00 John Hopkins? On several occasions, the captain lets out a roar of frustration and comes charging up to the flybridge, crimson-faced, sextant in hand. They need to alter course again.
37:11 Speaker 02 We couldn't find these damn islands. And Dave was getting a little bit upset with Ken because he figured Ken's navigation skills are not as good as he claimed them to be because we were not finding this island.
37:24 John Hopkins? Every time they take a new compass bearing and aim for a different spot on the horizon, optimism wanes.
37:32 John Hopkins? Gordon studies the flat's interminable blue ocean. Somewhere out there is the island containing the fuel they need to continue their journey. But finding it is starting to feel like a doomed game of chance.
37:44 Speaker 02 We had changed course eight times.
37:49 Speaker 02 And I figured we were just going nowhere. And the fuel was getting pretty low. We are now in trouble.
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38:20 John Hopkins? This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea. And a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in The Sign of Four.
39:02 John Hopkins? Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
39:15 John Hopkins? It's December the 25th, 1980, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
39:21 John Hopkins? For the past week or so, the Macon and her crew have been puttering through the stifling, windless heat of the doldrums.
39:29 John Hopkins? Their days are spent scanning the featureless horizon for land or ships as the fuel gauge edges towards zero.
39:36 John Hopkins? By their charts, the Chagos Islands ought to be nearby. But with every hour that passes and still no land in sight, a grim possibility takes hold. What if their navigation has led them astray?
39:51 John Hopkins? On Christmas morning, Gordon is sitting at the helm when he hears a sudden flapping and beating of wings.
39:59 Speaker 02 I was up on my own, and with the sunshag canvas, this seabird came and tried to land on the canvas. And I was kind of laughing at him because he kept failing and fumbling and then trying again. Then she landed and he waddled to the corner and sat there.
40:15 John Hopkins? Chuckling to himself at the seabird's antics, Gordon turns his focus back to the steering.
40:22 John Hopkins? An hour passes, when suddenly out of nowhere, the bird makes its presence known again, squawking wildly at Gordon.
40:32 Speaker 02 And I noticed I was off course, the course I was on, and I went back on the course and it was happy. So I went off the course on purpose, and it crapped me out again.
40:42 John Hopkins? Gordon frowns. Is he going mad, or is the seabird trying to tell him something?
40:48 Speaker 02 And I called Elizabeth to come and see this. And then she came up there, she said, "Watch this bird." I said, "No, watch, that's happy now, then watch when I go off course."
40:57 John Hopkins? It's like clockwork. Every time he veers off course, the bird erupts in a fit of angry cries.
41:04 John Hopkins? Gordon and Elizabeth exchange a glance. It's almost like the creature is guiding them.
41:12 John Hopkins? It seems far-fetched, but then these are desperate times, and what else have they got to go on?
41:21 John Hopkins? Later Gordon tells Ken and the others that they should stick on the course they're currently on, even if the compass tells them otherwise. He doesn't explain his theory about the seabird. He just asks them to trust him.
41:37 John Hopkins? It's a few hours later. Gordon is sitting with Dave in the flybridge, raking their eyes across the watery skyline, when suddenly, Dave sits up.
41:48 Speaker 02 It's amazing how attuned your eyes come to the horizon. If there's a tiny little lifeboat out there, you're gonna spot it. I don't know why. It's just if there's something different on the horizon, you pick it up. Dave said, "Hey Gordon, I think that's an island."
42:06 John Hopkins? Gordon looks to where Dave's pointing. Over the last few days, they've spotted a couple of ships, tiny grey dots that invariably faded back into the haze. He squints at this latest speck on the horizon.
42:21 Speaker 02 And I said to him, "Now, it's a ship." He says, "Now Gordon, I think it's an island." I said, "No, I don't know." He says, "Ship works, gonna sail away." He said, "What's your thinking?" Anyway, we had a binoculars down below. He ran and grabbed them and he comes trucking up and he focuses on it. "There's a palm tree! There's a palm tree!" He freaked out, jumping up and down. "There's a palm tree!"
42:45 John Hopkins? Sure enough, as they draw nearer, the island's features become more and more defined. A row of palm trees, a slender strip of sand, a ring of pale green water which soon laps against the hull of the Macon as she sails triumphantly into the island's shallow lagoon.
43:05 John Hopkins? The crew members cheer and slap each other on the back, as much in disbelief as anything else.
43:12 John Hopkins? In this vast haystack of an ocean, they have finally found their shining needle.
43:19 John Hopkins? But as they prepare to drop anchor, doubts creep in.
43:25 John Hopkins? Gordon looks at the island, then at what surrounds them, then at the map, then at Ken, who seems to be thinking the same thing.
43:34 John Hopkins? This isn't the island they were looking for. It isn't even the right atoll.
43:40 John Hopkins? It seems they have overshot their intended destination by about ninety miles.
43:48 John Hopkins? The search must go on.
43:51 John Hopkins? But after sharing the bad news with the others, a debate begins. Some voices in the crew want to stop here regardless, hardly caring if it's the wrong island or the right island. It's still solid ground.
44:04 Speaker 02 All of us, but especially Dave, more than anyone, wanted terra firma. He wanted to get on that island. He said, you know, we've got to get on that island.
44:15 John Hopkins? Dave stares at his crewmates imploringly. Surely they'd be safer on this island than back out at sea.
44:22 John Hopkins? But as he looks at the tiny tuft of palm trees sprouting from the lagoon, Gordon isn't so sure.
44:28 Speaker 02 And then Ken, he came to me and he said, Gordon, you're the survivalist. What do you think? You think we survive on that island? I said, no way. There's a couple of coconuts, that's it. I said, it's, it'll be a prison. I said, we'll die there.
44:43 John Hopkins? And so with heavy hearts, they fire up the engine, turn the boat around, and head back into the open ocean.
44:50 Speaker 02 Leaving that green water and heading out into the deep blue again was pretty scary. I could see Ken as well was pretty worried.
45:00 John Hopkins? Maybe Dave was right. Maybe being trapped on that island would have been better than being trapped on this boat.
45:07 John Hopkins? In the end, though, they don't have to search for long. Standing next to Ken's giant frame, Gordon spots something.
45:16 Speaker 02 We had been going for a few hours, and I looked behind him, and I could see this little white water. And then as the white water kind of cleared and we came, there was the islands. And I said to him, look.
45:29 John Hopkins? Perros Spanos is a ring of islands within the Chagos archipelago. The most southwesterly of these islands is the one they originally set out to find, the one the family told Ken about, where the diesel drums are supposedly stashed somewhere in the trees. It's called Il Du Quo. And as the mican chugs into the central lagoon, the more the island reveals itself. A bright green burst of jungle, separated from the sea by a ribbon of snow-white sand. Il Dukwa was once the site of a coconut plantation. And though it's now deserted, traces of human habitation remain.
46:06 Speaker 02 When we came into the atoll in the jungle, we could see the top of a roof, a rusty old roof, corrugated roof. And so we knew that had to be it.
46:15 John Hopkins? Before dropping anchor, Gordon checks the fuel gauge. It's lucky they found this atoll when they did. They've only got four hours' worth of diesel left in the tank.
46:26 John Hopkins? The crew clambers into the dinghy and rows the remaining distance to shore, marveling at the shoals of tropical fish darting below them like quicksilver.
46:36 John Hopkins? As Gordon and the others haul the dinghy onto the beach, relishing the feeling of land beneath their feet, the mood is jubilant. They've done it. Finding this island was always going to be the hardest part of the journey, and now it's behind them. They've survived the storm and the doldrums. They've pushed through doubt and disappointment and charted their way here, to this island where they'll rest up, locate the fuel, then continue their journey west.
47:03 John Hopkins? At least, that's the expectation, as they stroll along the beach, drinking in the beauty of this remote tropical idyll. But expectation and reality are different things.
47:16 John Hopkins? The truth is, this island, this tiny sliver of paradise in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is not the salvation they believe it to be. And for Gordon, Elizabeth, Dave, Nicole, and Ken, these last few tumultuous days at sea were not the beginning, middle, and end of their adventure. They were merely a prelude to the real survival story that's about to begin.
47:50 John Hopkins? And next time on Real Survival Stories, we find out what happens to the stranded crew of the Mikan.
47:56 John Hopkins? After locating the island, Gordon and the others must turn their focus to the reason they're here in the first place: finding the barrels of fuel. They begin combing through the jungle, but as the days pass without success, a terrible possibility starts to dawn: maybe there is no fuel here at all.
48:14 Speaker 02 We were stuck. We were stranded. There was no way we'd get off the island without that. We had no long-range radio, so we couldn't call anybody. So highly unlikely that we would be found.
48:29 John Hopkins? Without any means to power their boat, the castaways must turn their focus away from escape and onto a new challenge: surviving on their desert island. That's next time. Listen right now without waiting by joining Noiser Plus.
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48:59 John Hopkins? This October on the Noiser Podcast Network. Real Dictators returns. We're in the Dominican Republic for the story of Rafael Trujillo. On Short History of, we'll uncover the secrets of the Hoover Dam and follow Mary Shelley, the creator of Frankenstein and his monster. On Real Survival Stories, a modern Viking adventure as a replica Norse vessel embarks on a daring voyage across the North Sea, and a man is struck blind, all alone, at the very top of the world. In Jane Austen Stories, Emma Continues with Dame Julie Andrews. And in Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, Holmes and Watson unpick an epic mystery of hidden treasure and murder in the Sign of Four.
49:42 John Hopkins? Get all of these shows and more early and ad-free on Noiser Plus.
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