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Canary Islands
Steven Callahan goes aboard Napoleon Solo, a 4 man sailboat. This prize possession of his has been with him since 1961 and has been through everything from little dents, to holes that needed immediate attention. He leaves the Canary Islands by himself to embark on a two week journey across the Atlantic on track to the bahamas. -
Where it all begins
Laying in his cabin, the weather is cloudy with very little wind. He is relaxed and excited for his journey that has yet to come.Out of nowhere a wake smashes into the side of his boat and the nose starts to dip down into the water. Luckily, nothing seriously happened except the bottom of Solo is soaked in an inch of water. -
Rubber Ducky III
Day 1- After the wreck, Steven sets up base in his blow up raft. He uses a tarp as the roof which is held up by arching tubes that supports the canopy. He pulls out the Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) and puts an effort to turn it on even though it only has a 250 kilometer range. -
Stranded
Day 1 being adrift- After being knocked out, he wakes up neck deep in salty sea water. Slowly he dredges up the half sunken boat to realize it is barely afloat. The life raft then gets pumped up and is tied to Solo. At this point he realised he was 450 miles from civilization. Shipping lanes and Cape Verde islands are out of reach especially with the direction of blowing winds. -
The anchor
Day 2- Callahan creates a jellyfish like anchor to control out of square cloth that is woven together to prevent tangling. His main goal for the anchor was to prevent the boat from catching air from waves and flipping. Although the anchor protects the raft from flipping it prevents any drastic forward motion. -
The dorados
Day 6- He is slowly starving and becoming thirsty, but hope strikes him. The first sign of life has come upon him, it is a dorado. Roughly 12 inches long and very fast. Sadly he has many attempts but cannot capitalize with getting food. -
Water supply
Day 11- Overall he has three pints of water, each morning he has a routine. He wakes up and looks for fish, and portions out his water so he does not run out of his water supply. -
The ship
Day 17- Struggling to have hope and a clear mind Callahan prays for anything good to happen to him. Moments later about four miles out he sees a glimmer. It is a ship, he can tell by the shape of the bow and the bright lights. He shoots off his flare gun but somehow is not seen. Luckily from this point on he knows that is where the shipping lane is and can try to stay as close as possible. Days after he sees another 5 ships, but sadly none saw his flares. -
First meal
Day 26- He hunted for the first using the spear gun and caught a trigger fish. As said earlier in the book trigger fish can be poisonous from the coral but Steven did not think they would be a problem due to the depth of the coral. He ends up getting poisoned for a small amount of time but at least there was food in his stomach. -
Final goodbyes
Day 43- The 43 days of staying afloat after the crash were hard and dreadful for Steven. Napoleon Solo, being the only thing left in his life that was constantly coming and going has just left him. Before it sunk he gathered every last resource he could off of the boat and said his goodbyes. After Solo sunk all he could think about was his life back home and how he wishes he could be there. -
A mistake
Day 46- While Steven is hunting due to him being exhausted and willing to kill for thirst he does something that would have never happened if he was feeling okay. During his hunt for dorados he gets weak and falls, but still fires a shot with his spear gun piercing a hole through the raft. Resulting in days of repairing and countless hours of wasted energy. But ended up successfully patching it. -
Some more friends
Day 54- A few days after finishing the patch in his boat, a couple more animals came to say hello. Sharks, as if he wanted another struggle to go through. For hours the sharks circled his raft, he stressed so much because sharks skin is like sandpaper and could rip apart the raft if they continued to rub against it. -
Struggle
Day 61- His raft is slowly deflating causes many problems. Already being dehydrated and hungry it does not help he has to blow up the raft using only his mouth. He has to blow 300 plus times just to stay afloat. Not to mention water is still seeping in through the broken raft making his survival 10 times worse. -
The last day
Day 76- He was laying on his back, eyes up in the sky just listening and thinking on how his last day will be. When he hears the crash of waves against rocks, like a beach. He jumps up in excitement and sees land, with a lighthouse and a few small houses. At that moment he heard what sounded like a boat, he turns around and sees it in the distance. Using all of his power he screams and waves his hands. The boat arrives with 3 men on board, then they take Steven back to mainland saving his life.
