Pammie Tyson, the latest Antiguan to complete the World’s Toughest Row, recently recalled her encounter with ‘migrants’ while she and rowing partner Nia Bayliss of Wales, were busy navigating the Atlantic under a blanket of darkness.
During an appearance on the Good Morning Jojo sports show just two days after rowing into the historic Nelson’s Dockyard, Tyson recounted that their first night out on the ocean was ‘frightening’, as they were being “chased-down” by an unknown vessel.
“So, I was on shift and I am about to switch out and I saw a white light, but usually a white light on the water means that the boat is moving away from you so I wasn’t worried. She [Nia] is literally coming out of her cabin when I said white light on our port quarter. I am now undoing, starting to come off and go into my cabin and she’s coming out so she said ‘okay, no problem’.”
“We had a code between us so if there was any major issue and one was in the cabin that we would bang, bang-bang. I was just getting out of my waterproof gear and all of a sudden bang, bang-bang, so I opened my hatch door and she said get out here as fast as you can and row as fast as you can. That boat is coming straight for us,” she added.
The women swiftly sprung into action, putting their training to use as they successfully eluded what was later revealed to be a boat filled with migrants. Luckily, the duo had already radioed for assistance, a decision that ultimately saved many lives.
“I said turn off the nav light; they are following our nav light and hopefully we’ll hide in the swells and that’s exactly what happened. We found our safety officers which belonged to the campaign and they said, ‘give us your coordinates right away’, so we gave them our coordinates. They phoned the coastguard. The coastguard found them and saved all their lives.
“That was the first night; second night was 40 knots wind and four meter seas. When you’re two yacht moms in a boat, 54 and 47, and if they had gotten to us we would not have known what they wanted from us … We were scared and we were so happy … I wasn’t accusing them of going to do anything but we were just scared,” Tyson said.
Tyson and Bayliss covered 3000 miles in 53 days to complete the World’s Toughest Row (formerly the Talisker Whiskey Challenge) in an effort to raise funds for two charities in the Antigua and Barbuda – Ocean Trust and Elkhorn Marine Conservancy.
The Antiguan said the experience has given her a new perspective on life.
“The word that I can come up with is gratitude. What I’ve realized from being out there and doing everything that we’ve done over the last four years is that I have immense gratitude for the friends that I have and the family that I have rowed to, the country that I live in and the nation itself. I feel so fortunate for the embrace of love that has come my way and the encouragement and interest in our story. I had no clue it was going to reach so many so far. I’ve had people contact me that I’d never known that we have tried to achieve for ourselves that they want to set their own goals,” she said. The pair was greeted by their loved ones, friends and supporters when they arrival at the Nelson’s Dockyard.
