Guard received a scrambled, unintelligible radio call. McAu- ley’s family suspected the radio message was a hoax, or per- haps an attempt by Andrew to make his nightly check-in by radio now that his sat phone batteries were dead. A small search was launched, but nobody really believed McAuley could be in trouble. By Saturday morning, analysis of the radio message deci-


phered some chilling words. Among them: “help” and “sink- ing.” A full-scale search began. Planes combed 25,000 square kilometres of wind-tossed ocean. On Saturday night, Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand found McAuley’s upturned kayak in near-perfect condition just 54 kilometres (34 miles) offshore of Milford Sound. It was missing only the cockpit canopy. The paddle, satellite phone, GPS, and emergency position-indicating ra- dio beacon (EPIRB)—not activated—were all in working order inside the kayak.


almost reached safety—nearly all mountaineering tragedies occur on the return from the peak, when muscles burn and concentration is narrowly focused on the goal. After the capsize, McAuley may have unscrewed the rear


hatch to access his VHF radio and drysuit. Perhaps while struggling into the drysuit, he got separated from his kayak and, with it, the EPIRB. Some have wondered why he didn’t trigger the EPIRB right away. “Andrew thinks the same as I do on this subject,” writes


Tasmanian kayaker Laurie Ford on his website. “[The EPIRB] is a last resort. It is far better (if possible) to make contact by phone or radio and let people know the exact situation—rath- er than the huge panic and search that an EPIRB generates. Having said that, I’m quite sure that he would have intended to set it off (as I would) once he was in the dry suit. It was the separation from the kayak that brought him undone.” Unfortunately, McAuley had overlooked the critical detail


DISASTER HAS A PROVEN HABIT OF STRIKING THOSE WHO HAVE ALMOST REACHED SAFETY


On Monday, February 12, after three days of waiting and hoping to find McAuley alive, the search was called off. Paul Hewitson of Mirage Kayaks, the boat’s designer and


builder, inspected the kayak and some of the retrieved video footage. His best guess about what happened: McAuley cap- sized while the cockpit cover was not in place and was un- able to get back in his kayak. Then, somehow, paddler and kayak became separated. McAuley had reported capsizing twice before and de-


scribed the re-entry procedure as “gnarly,” complicated by the cockpit cover, video camera and other gear mounted on the deck. He hoped not to capsize again. An oversized cockpit and lack of a standard seat made it


impossible to roll. Removing the seat was a necessary modi- fication for sleeping and for accessing gear. Andrew sat on a beanbag, which doubled as a pillow, and retrieved gear in the rear compartment by lying down and rolling onto his stomach, using strings to pull his gear forward through a hatch in the bulkhead. Hewitson guessed that McAuley was probably getting


tired and, with the mountains in sight, would be eager to reach land. He may have pushed too hard. When a small cold front came through, he possibly didn’t think it necessary to put on his drysuit—which he’d planned to put on anytime there was rough weather—and would have been reluctant to trade making the miles for holing up beneath the canopy. Sadly, disaster has a proven habit of striking those who have


of attaching the EPIRB to himself, not the boat. Ford also speculates that if McAuley had carried a strobe light, he might have been spotted by rescuers on the first night of the search. In his final days, McAuley conceded he may have miscalcu-


lated and pushed the boundaries too far. A self-portrait taken near the end of his journey bears scant resemblance to the confident, athletic face that appears in other photographs. His eyes are wild, cheeks drawn under a ghostly sheen of zinc oxide. At a memorial service held under grey skies at Sydney’s Macquarie Lighthouse, on a high cliff overlooking the Tasman, 400 friends, family and members of the kayak- ing and mountaineering communities listened to a haunting message recovered from McAuley’s kayak where he admitted “I may have bitten off more than I can chew.” “This really is extreme,” he said. “It’s full on. I really could


die.” But if McAuley had his doubts, his family does not. In the


face of the inevitable public criticism about the perceived self- ishness or stupidity of extreme adventuring, Vicki McAuley stresses that it was Andrew’s drive to explore his limits that made him who he was. On his website she posted a quote from André Gide that sums up the spirit of adventure so integral to Andrew’s life and the sport he loved: “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”


VIRGINIA MARSHALL is a sea kayaking instructor and guide who works and plays on the north shore of Lake Superior.


A support fund has been set up to help Vicki McAuley and family at www.nswseakayaker.asn.au. ADVENTURE KAYAK | | 43


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