Seaborne Time Travel by Clive Tully

"Got to watch the depth a bit here," announces Nick Anderson. For a moment, I envisage us grating across a coral reef, or running aground on a sandbank. Then, he adds with a smile, "it's only 3,000 metres."

I'm sitting astride one of the two rear seats of a bright yellow and green Camel Trophy RIB (rigid inflatable boat), and I've just set out on a unique crossing of the Pacific between Tonga and Samoa.

Joking aside, 29-year-old Nick Anderson and 34-year-old Rick Freeman have already had enough excitement to last most people a lifetime, and there's plenty more in store. They’ve seen off 5,000 contenders to represent the UK in Camel Trophy 2000, better known for Land Rovers forging their way through steamy jungles, this year on water instead.

On the second day of the event, they were unlucky enough to roll their boat. Five or six teams had recklessly decided to negotiate a small gap in a reef in order to save time. Even in calm seas, the waves breaking over a reef are dangerous. Our lads decided to give it a go, too, but a powerful wave broke against their instrument console, breaking it loose from the deck and shoving it backwards. That caused their electrical systems to fail, and the engine cut out.

"We were sitting ducks at that point," explains Rick. "The boat drifted round sideways, and the next wave which hit us turned us over." In fact, they turned over three times, rolled from one side of the reef to the other. Rick jumped out, bashing his head in the process, while Nick remained on board, using the frame of the boat to protect him.

"We'd been told during our training to trust the frame, so I stayed with it. As the boat rolled, I walked inside it like a hamster." It was a dramatic escape, and while Rick's cut head was stitched up afterwards fairly quickly, the repairs to the boat took a day, losing them valuable time and points in the competition. Amazingly, despite its dunking, the Honda outboard engine started first time.

Camel Trophy 2000 was in the planning for 18 months, the original intention to start in Tonga in Vava’u, heading south to the islands of Tongatapu, with an open sea crossing to the beautiful Lau Islands in Fiji. Then came the political unrest following the hostage-taking in the Fijian parliament. "We were under pressure to stick with Fiji," I was told. "The trouble was in Suva, not the outlying islands where we were due to be." Nevertheless the Camel Trophy organisers decided to play safe and switch to plan "B", going to Samoa instead. But resiting the competition locations and moving all the boats to their new starting point in the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa 10 days before the event proved to be a logistical nightmare.

I'm here for the big crossing, now a two stage journey to Samoa, the first leg from Tonga’s jewel in the crown island group of Vava'u to Niuatoputapu, a name sufficiently unpronounceable to be replaced with the more user-friendly "New Potato". The second will take us 24 hours back in time over the International Date Line to Salelologa in Samoa. Apart from the team boats, there are support and camera boats as well, so the total fleet of RIBs will be over 40 - a unique crossing by so many small boats of the same type.

It's still dark when we leave the wharf of the Paradise Hotel in Neiafu, the outlines of the surrounding islands of Vava’u barely visible against the night sky. We've been split into eight groups, each one designated a different colour marked by a large flag flying from the back of their boats. Ours is black. We're the last group to leave, driving around in a circle with our lights blazing for the benefit of the TV cameras before stringing out into a line heading north.

They've allowed 10 hours to complete the 175 nautical miles, and that gives us two hours before nightfall, so we have plenty of leeway if the going is slower than expected.

By 0845, we've watched the sun rise, and we're out of sight of land. Suddenly our engine starts to splutter. "Time to change tanks," announces Rick. In the normal run of things, each of the Ribtec boat's three fuel tanks has a gauge to give you an idea of when it needs changing over. After the roll, none of them works properly, so the only way they can tell when a tank is running low is to listen to the engine note.

We get under way again, The wind is up to around Force 3, and the sea moderate, so whilst it isn't hellishly uncomfortable, it's bumpy enough to make for an exciting ride, with enough spray to remind me that the sea can be awfully wet. Waves which go right over the heads of Nick and Rick in front land on me - the force varying from a light shower to complete drenching.

"It must be time for breakfast!"

I'm joking, of course, but before I know it, Nick has produced a plastic bag containing a selection of Danish pastries and croissants, pillaged from the Paradise Hotel buffet. Our UK team is a fascinating pairing of characters. Rick, a PE teacher, is focussed and decisive; Nick, a disabilities nurse, calm and laid back. It's a classic chalk and cheese mix, but they work well together, and clearly get on well with each other.

As the morning progresses, not only are we eating into the breakfast goodies, we're eating into the schedule as well. We have a list of positions on our GPS chart plotter which need to be passed at certain times, and as we steam along at over 25 knots we're already over an hour ahead - we're even starting to pass other groups which set off before us.

With Niuatoputapu in sight, our group receives a call on the radio to fan out and start searching for a drifting unmanned RIB. Under tow from a tug, a workshop boat - complete with tools and generator - managed to break loose during the night. It would have been pure luck to locate it anyway with our limited horizon and choppy seas, and at the time of writing, it still hasn't been found. It's probably had a respray by now...

After a moderately taxing journey, it's decided we should take it easy the next day, leaving the second leg to Samoa till the following day. It's during this rest day that I manage to injure myself - potentially seriously - doing nothing more than walking ashore from one of the team RIBs onto the jetty. I step onto a coral boulder and turn my ankle, grabbing Nick just in front of me to prevent myself falling. It's only when I'm on the jetty, my foot dripping blood, that I realise it's more than just a slight sprain. I've punctured the edge of my foot on the coral, and it's gone in deep.

I'm patched up by one of the Camel Trophy medics (an orthopaedic surgeon, no less) and it rapidly becomes apparent that doing the second leg (whoops!) of the journey with the UK team RIB is out of the question - I can barely walk. "It looks as though you've been shot in the foot with a 9mm automatic," comments another Camel Trophy doctor when eventually I arrive at the event headquarters in the Samoan capital Apia. The wound is going septic, so he whisks me off to hospital, where I spend 24 hours hooked up to a drip, being administered intravenous antibiotics.

I wouldn't call it a blessing in disguise, but the RIBs crossing to Samoa encounter horrendous conditions. The wind has swung round, and the boats have a hard time of it in relentless pounding seas. They arrive at Salelologa, the teams in states varying from shock to relief, not really caring about the fact that they’ve crossed that magic line in the ocean. Some are unable to string together words in a coherent fashion, others curse the never-ending punishment. "After six hours," declares one, "I just wanted to throw myself into the sea."

Clearly it's a salutary lesson for any of these 20 and 30-somethings who considered themselves tough and invulnerable. "Today," comments medical team boss Mike Irani, "I've seen supermen reduced to mere mortals!"

It's not just the people either. The RIBs have taken a pasting. Numerous frames have broken, and several boats have consoles which have managed to unbolt themselves. All will need repairing before the final phase of the competition. Nevertheless, we've all crossed the dateline, and our passports show two fascinating stamps side by side - departing Tonga on the 16th July, arriving Samoa the day before.

======================= THE COMPETITION

Sixteen international teams have to collect points by visiting different competition locations. Some are accessible by boat, some by mountain bike, others require climbing and even scuba diving to get to. The number of points awarded is split between the first five teams that visit, the highest number for the team that arrived first, with the share scaled down for subsequent teams, and none at all for any after that. As such, it’s as much down to strategy and maybe even a spot of mind-reading to decide which locations to visit, and in which order, bearing in mind other factors such as fuel and weather conditions.

At the end of phase one, the UK team were last following their disastrous mishap on the coral reef. By the end of the competition, they manage to pull themselves up to 13th position, ahead of Japan, Italy and Germany. First place goes to South Africa.



When a small group of West German adventurers got together in 1980 and drove through the rugged jungle terrain of the Amazon rain forest, little could they have imagined how it would develop into a legend synonymous with true grit, determination and team effort. Over the years, those distinctive sand-coloured Camel Trophy Land Rovers, festooned with roof racks and spotlights, have visited some of the most rugged parts of the planet, including Borneo, Sulawesi, Mongolia and Australia. It's taken on a life of its own, too, the event spawning a huge range of adventure travel clothing, footwear, and luggage. There’s even a range of watches, the cases made from smelted down household appliances, tyre rims and drinks cans.

Camel Trophy 2000, on water for the first time ever, was also sadly the last. A change in marketing strategy dictated that the product emphasis will be on fashion rather than performance, and that they no longer need to run the multi-million dollar event. Some legends, it would seem, do die after all…