The Way of a Seabird

By Malcolm McCulloch

The Way of a Seabird is the story of a real life adventure.

Malcolm McCulloch at age forty-two was an airline captain at the top of his game. He had eighteen years left to serve in his career with Air Canada.

He also had dreams and aspirations for his life, which could only be realized by resigning from his lucrative occupation and allowing himself to interact with events randomly and spontaneously. 

The author invites his readers to share the entirety of this thirty-year, inspirational journey as it unfolds throughout the book.

The narrative, teeming with anecdotes and sprinkled with the author’s unique philosophy is a study of the determination never to lose track of life’s short but noble experiment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480873148

Malcolm McCulloch

Malcolm McCulloch was enjoying a successful career as a pilot with Air Canada when he chose to tender his resignation to embark on a life of adventure. This is his story. He currently lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

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Copyright © 2019 Malcolm McCulloch.

Cover design: Jack Ouellette, Turnstone Pottery, Sydney, Nova Scotia.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-7313-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-7314-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018968467

Archway Publishing rev. date:12/31/2018

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

George Bernard Shaw

To "

love at first sight," and to my wife, Lisa, who proved it can happen.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   The Enchanter Beckons

Chapter 2   The Ideal Boat

Chapter 3   Let The Adventure Begin

Chapter 4   Winter In The Caribbean

Chapter 5   Three Hurricanes

Chapter 6   India And Nepal

Chapter 7   Solo Voyage And Shipwreck

Chapter 8   Karakoram Expedition

Chapter 9   Second Marriage

Chapter 10   Near-Miss In Mid-Atlantic

Chapter 11   A Mistral And The French Canals

Chapter 12   Tonga Kilamanjaro And Obergurgl

Chapter 13   Panama Canal And Ecuador

Chapter 14   Corsica

Chapter 15   India, James Bay And Greece

Chapter 16   Thirteen Years As A Vagabond

Afterthoughts

CHAPTER ONE

THE ENCHANTER BECKONS

T here is a violent snowstorm raging in the Laurentian hills of Québec, where I am now living in this beautifully appointed country house, near the picturesque ski village of Saint Sauveur. I am nestled in a high wingback chair in front of a roaring log fire burning in the fieldstone fireplace. It’s snowing so hard I can barely see the lake, which is only a few metres in front of my window. There is something intrinsically comforting about being so warm and protected from the elements while outside nature is storming so inhospitably. It puts me in a contemplative mood.

I have rented this house for the winter and it is perfectly suited to my present circumstances. I feel like a Turkish pasha indulged by all this comfort, all these bedrooms with connecting bathrooms, this delightful wood-paneled study with built-in bookshelves and a wall of windows facing the lake. The dining room, also paneled, has an indoor barbeque grill, and the kitchen would make Julia Child feel right at home. There is a sauna for après ski use, but I’m not much of a sauna person. I make myself an espresso with my Italian coffee maker, one of the few possessions I brought with me when I moved here from the farm, and sit down at my desk. Today, I will put the finishing touches to a very important letter, which will completely change the direction of my life.

I am a forty-two-year-old airline captain at the top of my game. I came to Montréal seventeen years ago to join Air Canada and, if I continue with this job and stay healthy, I can look forward to another eighteen years before compulsory retirement at age sixty. It’s a balanced equation, and although my high-salaried years are mostly ahead of me, I am smack in the middle of my chosen career. I came to Air Canada from the Royal Canadian Navy, where I had been flying anti-submarine aircraft off the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Bonaventure. Former naval pilots will tell you that once you have flown off the deck of an aircraft carrier at night, in bad weather with rough seas, nothing else in life can seriously challenge you. I came to my airline job thinking I knew everything there was to know about flying: then really began to learn the skills of the profession from the highly competent captains with whom I flew as their first officer. Most of these captains had been bomber pilots in World War Two and could have flown the box the aircraft came in. Flying is not only about hand/eye coordination. All airline pilots can fly the aircraft well. Rather, it’s about experience and judgment: what to do when unusual circumstances are encountered for the first time, how to make the right command decisions which will lead to the most satisfactory outcome. After several years of such tutelage, I was ready to become a captain myself.

Being a captain for a major air carrier like Air Canada is a dream job. Most pilots have to be dragged from their cockpits when they reach mandatory retirement age. Another thing about airline pilots: they love their job so much (don’t tell airline management) that they would probably continue without pay if that were the only way to fly. Also, contrary to popular belief, captains work in a totally stress-free environment, as they are given full discretion to match their full responsibility. This means that if they don’t like any situation for any reason, they have absolute authority to correct it. All airline pilots will take the safest and surest path away from a potential problem and will never be asked to justify their decision. Any captain who feels stressed is in the wrong job and does not understand the concept of unchallenged discretion. I am often asked how pilots handle the huge responsibility for the lives of so many passengers. The answer is that pilots operate their aircraft in exactly the same professionally competent manner whether the flight is full or empty. It makes absolutely no difference how many people are sitting behind you.

The snowstorm seems to be easing a little at the moment, and the wind is abating. If you’re an opera fan like me, the weather has changed from the stormy opening act of Otello to the cotton-wool snowflakes in the third act of La Bohème. I can just make out the silhouette of the boathouse down by the lake. I throw another log on the fire and stoke the coals. It’s almost time for afternoon tea. Tomorrow, I am going with friends to the mountain resort of Mont Tremblant for a day’s skiing. My next flight is not for three days, when I’m scheduled to fly from Montréal to New York and back; then return to New York for an overnight stay in Manhattan at the Roosevelt Hotel. I will try to get tickets for the musical, Cats, which has recently opened on Broadway.

Above my writing desk hangs a framed quotation, which I also brought with me from the farm when I moved to this house a few weeks ago. I have forgotten where or when I first came across it, but the text has haunted me ever since that fateful day and has become my mantra. It reads:

What if the spell of a place falls upon a youthful heart, and the bright horizon calls? Many a thing will keep until the world’s work is done, and youth is only a memory. When the old enchanter came to my door, laden with dreams, I reached out with both hands for I knew that he would not be lured with the gold that I might later offer, when age had come upon me.

I scan this gem of wisdom one more time, knowing the reasoning is absolutely irrefutable, and remain convinced that the time has come for me to follow the call of the bright horizon and realize those dreams before it really is too late.

I finish my letter of resignation to Air Canada with absolute confidence and conviction. I will quit this job in eight months, on the first of September 1984, and seek my fortune wherever destiny leads me. One thing is certain: if I don’t leave now and grasp the dreams the old enchanter is promising, I will never forgive myself later in life.

I feel as if I’m riding in the first class section of a very fast, luxurious express train, a hybrid of the Orient Express and the Japanese bullet train. I am surrounded by all the comforts anyone could wish for and can see for miles ahead because the track is dead straight. The train is heading at full speed, non-stop, to my retirement age of sixty. I know that I must somehow find a way to jump off before it’s too late, and before my short allotted time on this earth has expired. If I happen to meet my fellow passengers - my airline pilot colleagues - in eighteen years when we are all in our sixties, and their train has reached its destination without me, I have no idea what I’ll be able to recount about my life. But if I stay on this train, my life story will be the same as theirs, and a pretty predictable one.

I don’t remember when the dream to take off on a sailing adventure began to take form in my consciousness, but the seed was probably sown when I was a small boy growing up on the Cornish coast of southwest England. My parents had rented a house on the beach in the pretty seaside village of Harlyn Bay, near Padstow. The house was furnished and included a huge library stocked with a treasure trove of interesting children’s books. I remember reading all of Arthur Ransome’s adventure books and also Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows, which forged an indelible impression. In the first chapter, Ratty, the sage boatman, tells his new friend, the timid mole, as they row down the river together:

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats.

The water rat, daydreaming as he spoke, inadvertently rammed his boat into the riverbank. Undaunted, he continued his monologue about boats:

In or out of ‘em it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems to really matter that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get there at all, you’re always busy, and you’ve never done anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do.

Quite a metaphor for an adventurous life, and a very compelling road map for a nine year old who was trying to grasp the meaning of his existence. Now, at the age of forty-two, I am ready to adopt the water rat’s philosophy. Part of my new life will certainly be spent messing around in boats.

It has finally stopped snowing, and it’s time to put the kettle on for afternoon tea. I admit that I don’t follow the English tea rituals too rigidly. Warming up the teapot beforehand and putting milk in the cup before pouring the tea don’t seem to matter, but I do like my cuppa in the afternoon accompanied by something sweet. The day would be incomplete without it. I always use three tea bags, make sure the kettle is on a rolling boil before pouring the water into the teapot, and let the tea steep for a minimum of five minutes before serving it with milk. My dear father goes crazy if the teapot is not pre-warmed and he goes ballistic if the milk is not put into the cup first. I have often threatened to conduct a blind taste test with him to see if he really can tell the difference, but have always demurred as a dutiful son should.

Twenty-five years ago when he drove me to Union Station in Ottawa, my father imparted one last piece of advice, which I suspect is another reason I’m moving on from Air Canada. I was leaving home to become a naval officer and was on my way by train to the Royal Canadian Naval College, HMCS Venture, in Victoria. His parting words on the platform were: Malcolm, as you go through life, never refuse an invitation. I have always done my utmost to follow this wise counsel both with reference to social occasions and as it applies more generally to life’s serendipitous opportunities. It has never failed me. I suppose he was telling me: Whenever you have the chance to try something new or different, grab it. Now I have the opportunity of a lifetime, and there’s no way I’m going to let it slip through my fingers.

I have decided to submit my resignation when I go to the airport for my next flight, but I do feel as if I am committing treason. My fellow pilots love their way of life so much: they will never understand my motives for leaving. However, there is a big disconnect in the way most airline pilots view themselves and their work. They rarely admit that their flights can often be boring and repetitive. Sitting for long hours at thirty-five thousand feet, while waiting to land at the final destination, is not too exhilarating. I suspect most pilots have a blind spot on this issue, no doubt caused by the over-riding positive factors of high salaries, agreeable working conditions, lots of time off, and a genuine love of flying. Many pilots have other jobs and hobbies to keep themselves busy when they are not flying. As for me, I have been a full-time farmer for the past seven years, growing cereal crops, raising sheep and cattle, managing my forest, and making maple syrup.

For obvious reasons, it is not a great idea for airline pilots to be overly creative while at the controls. An engine failure during takeoff or any other emergency requires an instinctive, disciplined and highly professional reaction. It is not the time to experiment with a new-fangled procedure to see if it works. Pilots do exercise their creative talents in their spare time, but it can be very difficult to turn on the artistic tap for short periods and then resume the strict, highly-programmed mindset needed for the next flight. After eighteen years as an airline pilot, I am keen to develop my creative side and discover my true potential.

Finally and most crucially, I believe that the most important thing in life is how we manage the preciously small amount of time we are allotted. As soon as we are old enough to reason, we know that our time on earth is finite. Most of us suppress this unpleasant idea when we are growing up, but sooner or later the realization that we are not immortal slowly comes into focus. I am convinced that if I want to spend part of my life adventuring and exploring this magnificent planet, I can’t afford to wait until I’m sixty to begin. Either I take the time to do it in this life, or gamble that there will be another one.

As if to prove that point, after two days skiing at Mont Tremblant and a small dinner party here at my house last night, it’s already time to go back to work. The snow has been cleared from the country roads in my area, making it an easy drive to the Dorval airport. My flight to New York leaves at eleven in the morning, and I have to be in the briefing room one hour before the scheduled departure time. Airline pilots follow three sets of regulations: Federal Ministry of Transport rules, those imposed by the employer as a condition of employment, and those negotiated by the pilots’ union. Federal rules trump all others. Air Canada pays me to be in the briefing room one hour before the flight and expects me to be on board my aircraft thirty minutes before departure.

Today, I am at the airport earlier than usual to drop off my letter of resignation. It’s addressed to Captain Charles Simpson, Vice President of Flight Operations. Charlie is a good leader who is well-liked and respected by his pilots. He started his administrative career as President of the Canadian Airline Pilots Association, where he did such a good job that Air Canada management offered him his present executive position. I know him well, as I used to fly with him as his first officer years ago when he was a new DC9 captain. I remember him attending at least one of my infamous, annual rum punch and steel band masquerade parties, which I used to throw to celebrate the opening of the summer sailing season in Montréal. I don’t think he’ll be completely surprised by my letter, which I submit to his secretary.

In the briefing room, I meet my first officer, who will be with me for the entire two-day cycle. Each month, first officers select the flights they wish to operate after the captains have made their choices. In this way, personality conflicts are avoided and cockpit harmony is ensured. We will be flying the Douglas DC9, a medium range, twin-engine jet that is the sports car of the fleet and a very enjoyable aircraft to fly. For safety reasons, airline pilots are not permitted to fly different types of aircraft. They choose the type that they wish to fly according to their seniority. In fact everything is decided by seniority: the work schedule, type of aircraft, vacations, and also rank (captain or first officer). When pilots join an airline, they get a seniority number depending on their ranking in the initial training course. This number gets smaller as pilots retire off the top of the list, and gets padded from the bottom when new pilots are hired. It’s a great system, which, unlike the military model, allows pilots to get on with the job of flying without having to worry about promotion, career building or someone unfairly usurping their position.

Once a pilot has successfully bid to fly a different airplane type, he or she must take an intensive ground school course followed by simulator training, flight training, and then pass a Ministry of Transport flight test in order to have his or her Airline Transport License endorsed for that aircraft. This sequence is followed with inflight checking by supervisory staff before the pilot becomes fully qualified on type. Captains and first officers complete exactly the same training and are equally qualified as far as the license endorsement is concerned. Experience and seniority determine rank. When a first officer has enough seniority, he may elect to bid as a captain. If successful, he must complete a rigorous captain’s training program, followed by one hundred flying hours under supervision; then pass a final route check before commanding his own ship.

The ship analogy is quite appropriate, as the maritime lexicon was transferred intact from marine to aviation use when airplanes were invented. In fact, many of the original passenger aircraft were flying boats. Hence, airplanes have rudders, galleys, bulkheads and port and starboard sides with red and green navigation lights. Unlike most other professionals, all airline pilots are constantly retested to validate their competency. Every year, Air Canada pilots are tested four times in the simulator, at least once aboard the aircraft, and must pass two medical examinations - so their jobs are on the line seven times. A pity that this is not the case for doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, bureaucrats, judges and financial planners, who are rarely retested. Most airline pilots choose to protect themselves from health problems by purchasing expensive loss of license medical insurance policies.

In the flight planning room, the Air Canada flight dispatch team is ready to brief us. This group of highly-qualified, licensed professionals has already done the preparatory work for my flights to New York and back. The flight plans are computer-generated and contain data such as route to be taken, requested altitudes, estimated flight time, fuel required and alternate airports. They are extremely accurate and detailed. The captain is ultimately responsible for accepting, rejecting, or making any changes he wants to the flight plan. I can predict, given the weather forecast calls for fog, that we will probably be delayed in a holding pattern over New York, so I load on some extra fuel for this eventuality. Interestingly, airliners are not routinely filled up with maximum fuel before each flight, but carry just enough fuel for the intended trip, plus fuel to get to an alternate airport, plus an ample safety reserve. This is because the more an aircraft weighs, the more fuel it requires to reach destination, so it costs the airline money to carry unnecessary fuel. Of course, safety is never compromised, and sometimes, when the captain requires a full fuel load, cargo or even passengers might have to be off-loaded to meet the certified maximum takeoff weight of the aircraft. Today, I don’t like the dispatcher’s choice of Philadelphia as our planned alternate airport. If LaGuardia airport closes due to fog, most of the other aircraft heading there will also be diverted to Philadelphia, causing a huge backlog and chaos on the ground. I have changed the alternate airport to Montréal, so we can come back here with very little inconvenience to the passengers if LaGuardia closes. Another advantage of this strategy is that we can turn around at any time while en route if the weather goes below landing limits in New York before we arrive. An airport can only be legally designated as an alternate on the flight plan if the weather forecast there meets strict government minimums. In other words, the forecast must be, without any doubt, good enough to guarantee a safe landing. The flight dispatcher gives my first officer and me a comprehensive weather briefing and reviews the latest Notices to Airmen appropriate to our flight. These information bulletins cover everything from radio frequency changes, to airport construction details, to deficiencies of airport equipment. I sign the amended flight plan, which the dispatcher will transmit to Air Traffic Control (ATC) while we are walking to our departure gate. During the flight, we will monitor two radio frequencies simultaneously: one with Air Canada and the other with ATC. The flight dispatcher will follow our progress all the way to destination and will inform me immediately of any changes pertinent to my flight.

Uninitiated passengers can be overwhelmed when they look in the cockpit door and glimpse the vast array of switches, levers, instruments, and lights. However, it is not as complicated as it appears. If your car had two engines, you would need twice as many engine instruments and controls: starters, engine warning lights, oil pressure gauges, rpm indicators, water temperature gauges, alternator lights, etc. Now imagine how cluttered and complicated your dashboard would look with all those extras. Keep this in mind as I walk you through and demystify a typical aircraft cockpit.

To begin, the cluster of instruments, which pilots use to fly in cloud without external reference, is duplicated: one set in front of each pilot. These show, at a glance, the aircraft attitude in relation to the horizon, the airspeed, rates of climb or descent, altitude and compass heading. Incorporated in this grouping of instruments are navigational radio indicators, which allow pilots to navigate and to carry out instrument approaches. Fighter pilots telling tall tales around the bar have been known to boast: There I was, upside down at forty thousand feet with nothing on the clock but the maker’s name, when referring to their airspeed instrument.

Next, there are the engine parameter instruments, usually located in the middle of the front panel between the pilots. These tell you everything about the engines: power settings and rpm, fuel flow, fuel used and remaining, temperatures and pressures, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic indications. These may look complicated, but there is much duplication, especially in four-engine aircraft where you need four separate instruments for every parameter. The DC9 has two main propulsion jet engines and one smaller one called the auxiliary power unit, located in the tail cone, which supplies the air conditioning and electric power when parked at the gate and provides air pressure to start the main engines. Adding to the cockpit kaleidoscope are lots of switches, lights, levers, and gauges that may not be needed at all during a given flight, but are required only for certain eventualities or emergencies. Examples would be engine fire extinguishers or the switches that activate the airframe de-icing system. Others are used only once during a flight (engine start switches) while many would be self-evident even to non pilots: autopilot, flight attendant call button, no smoking and fasten seatbelt light switches, outside air temperature gauge, clocks, intercom system, a myriad of different light switches and many rows of circuit breakers or fuses.

To manoeuver the aircraft in-flight, each pilot has a control column in front of him as well as two rudder pedals on the floor. Deflecting the top of the rudder pedals forward activates the main wheel brakes. Nose wheels do not have brakes. On a floor console between the pilots, there are engine throttle levers with attached reverse thrust levers, selectors for the landing gear, flaps, speed brakes, fuel shut-off levers to shut down the engines, and aircraft flight control surface trim wheels. Add some radios for communication and navigation, a transponder so air traffic control can identify the aircraft, weather radar for detecting thunderstorms and you have the total package. In the DC9 cockpit, there is a multi-message information panel covering all aircraft systems, which gives the pilots an instant snapshot of what’s happening to their aircraft: green lights for routine information, amber for caution and red for serious problems. That’s all there is to an aircraft cockpit, and with every technological advance, they are becoming less complicated. Pilots have to be good drivers and excellent multi-taskers. They need to have a thorough understanding of their aircraft’s systems, but they do not have to be rocket scientists, aviation mechanics, or intellectuals.

At the departure gate, the first officer and I meet our flight attendants and give them a briefing on the flight. I explain that we might be delayed due to fog in New York, but apart from that, the flight will be routine and smooth at cruise altitude for their cabin service. Passengers often ask me about turbulence and the effect it has on airplanes. It is one of the most disturbing concerns for anxious flyers. I explain that even though aircraft can sometimes get tossed around making things very uncomfortable in the cabin, there is no danger to the airframe or to passengers wearing seatbelts. Turbulence in clear air is usually associated with wind and is often encountered when flying close to the jet stream. Naturally, airline companies try to take advantage of this fast-moving, high-altitude wind to shorten flight times, but it’s usually difficult to get the wind advantage without encountering some turbulence caused by wind sheer. If your flight is forecast to be considerably under schedule, you can probably count on some bumpiness. Strong winds at lower altitudes close to the ground can create mechanical turbulence, especially over rough terrain. This will usually be encountered during the final approach just before landing and for a few minutes after takeoff. High winds, as well as updrafts and downdrafts associated with thunderstorm activity, can cause very severe turbulence. These storm clouds are easily detected on the aircraft’s weather radar, and pilots will always take measures to avoid them. The rule is: don’t land or takeoff during a thunderstorm and avoid them at all costs when en route. Finally, like boats, aircraft produce wake turbulence which, although it dissipates quickly, can be significant, especially if a small aircraft crosses the wake of a much bigger one. Let me spoil many people’s scary flying anecdotes by pointing out that there is no such thing as an air pocket. Air is a homogeneous compound made up mostly of nitrogen and oxygen atoms and, like water, cannot have pockets. Abrupt changes in altitude are caused by updrafts and downdrafts or by wind sheer.

Back to our New York flight, the fuel company has received our fuel requirements from flight dispatch and has started pumping the requested amount into a series of inter-connected tanks located in the wings. Jet engines burn a type of kerosene, not the more flammable gasoline. After inspecting the passenger cabin, we take our seats in the cockpit. The captain always sits on the left side of a conventional aircraft (on the right in helicopters), and this is reflected in the cockpit design. For instance, in the DC9, the nose-wheel steering and parking brake are only accessible from the captain’s side. I check the aircraft maintenance logbook and read the recent history of this airplane as documented by previous captains and maintenance chiefs.