There are 2,900 miles of open ocean between the starting point of the Woodvale Challenge in the Canary Islands and the finish line in Antigua, West Indies. On Jan. 15, we were halfway but going nowhere.

Photo provided

Still clinging to their overturned boat after 16 hours adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, Sarah Kessans and Emily Kohl wait for the rescue raft from the Stavros Niarchos.

Emotionally, it was the lowest point of the entire race for Emily and me. Conditions had become unrowable because of the wind and the waves. We had been sitting on sea anchor for about 18 hours.

The sea anchor is like a small parachute on a long tether attached to the bow of a boat. It opens underwater to keep the boat pointed into oncoming waves. The pull from the westerly current keeps us from losing too much ground against the strong easterly winds.

It was incredibly frustrating to just sit there, completely helpless.

It was cramped, sweaty and uncomfortable for both of us to be locked in the cabin for hours at a time. Although we were great teammates, the few fights that we had out on the water revolved around situations we could not control, like being at sea anchor.

Emily’s sister had sent a quote to us.

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. — Marcus Aurelius.” We wrote it on the wall of the cabin to help us through tough times.

We had come to the realization that our goal of breaking the women’s trans-Atlantic rowing record of 60 days was gone with the winds. But that wasn’t the only problem. Our rudder line had become detached and useless until we could reattach it (in calmer conditions).

So, we waited inside the cabin through the night and into the next day. Being at sea anchor was a cross between being cramped in a steam room the size of your refrigerator and riding inside a bucking bull’s stomach. We rode out the wind and waves in a steady, restless bounce.

Lying shoulder-to-shoulder in the tiny cabin, we listened to music, ate sunflower seeds, and checked to see if the wind had changed directions.

We wanted to know what the rest of the fleet was doing, so we called Aurora (the main support yacht) at 2:30 p.m. Instead of the usual chipper voice, a rushed, edgy voice told us they were busy.

“Call back in a few hours,” they told us.

We later found out they were rescuing a New Zealand team from their life raft about 300 miles away from us. This was a very serious storm.

It had become a little stuffy in the cabin. So in order to replenish our oxygen supply (for obvious reasons, the cabin is air- and watertight), we decided to take two of the three vent covers off to let some air circulate.

Even if waves hit the boat, the vents are designed to keep water out. Besides, in 46 days at sea, we had not yet been hit by a rogue wave.

That’s when one hit us. A 12-foot-high rogue wave smacked the port side of the American Fire like a train plowing into a car. In a matter of seconds, we were upside down in our cabin.

The boat is designed to right itself. But there was a problem. Water flowed through the vents as if they were a pair of wide-open bathtub faucets.

Our tidy cabin was now in total disarray. Our equipment, food and clothing started to float.

Emily shoved a pair of shorts into one of the open vents. But the electricity of the VHF radio shocked me whenever I touched the metal opening of the other vent.

Emily quickly turned off all of the electronics on the boat, but the water continued to flow in. It didn’t seem that the American Fire was going to right itself.

Our life raft, the same standard issue the Kiwis had used to be rescued, was floating away. There wasn’t much we could do. Until the water reached the top of the upside-down hatch and the pressure equalized, we would not be able to open the door and escape.

While we were in the cabin, Emily slipped on our only life jacket and found the digital camera (in a waterproof case) and stuck it in her pocket. I grabbed the handheld VHF radio and EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon). We searched for the waterproof bag that had our passports and credit cards, but it, too, was gone.

As Emily exited the cabin, she grabbed a sleeping bag, but everything became very tangled once she cleared the hatch.

The watery ordeal inside the cabin only lasted three minutes. But that was enough time to realize we were in an extreme emergency situation. I grabbed the EPIRB that was now floating in the mess and activated the distress signal.

Our only option was to climb on top of the inverted hull and take inventory. Emily looked for the life raft, but it was gone.

Getting to the starting line had been our dream for more than two years. Now, just 46 days into the race, that all seemed so long ago.

Nothing on earth could match the feeling of anticipation we had back on Dec. 1, 2005.

We were finally out there, just a couple of Purdue graduates, on the threshold of a dream. We couldn’t have been happier. Emily and I rowed together for five hours, just singing and laughing as we rowed the American Fire past the cliffs and the competition.

Seven hours into the race, the sun began to slide below the western horizon. But we still had the glow of this incredible endeavor on our faces.

I looked down into the water and was mesmerized by what I saw. The dark water was swirling with little sparkling diamonds, agitated and illuminated by each oar stroke.

As I lifted the blades, phosphorus matter in the water — tiny, living diamonds — dripped from the tips of the oars. It was magical. I yelled at Emily to look at it, and it was a shared moment that we will remember for the rest of our lives, however short that may now seem as we clung to the hull of our overturned boat.

The water and air temperature were both around 60 degrees. The air felt much colder, due to the 20- or 30-knot winds.

Waves crashed steadily over the boat, and Emily was partially submerged most of the time due to her position on the hull. The water felt warm … that is until whatever limb had gotten soaked was exposed to the wind. Emily was wearing the life jacket. I draped the sleeping bag over my back to keep the wind off. After the first few hours, we figured out how to lie down across the keel to conserve energy and warmth.

Our world, once as big as our dream, had been reduced to a surface the size of a surfboard. All we could do was wait … and hope.

We sang any and every song that popped into our minds. We had been making up songs the whole way, so we sang those.We sang Alanis Morissette’s Ironic. We also sang a song by New Found Glory, with the lyrics of ... “It feels like I’m at an all-time low, Slightly bruised and broken, from this head-on collision ...” It seemed to fit the mood.

The power of music is incredible. It is what fueled our souls during those nights when it seemed we were being watched only by the billions of stars we used to chart our course.

To pass time, we picked barnacles off the hull and joked that there was “no free ride for you anymore” as we flicked them back into the ocean.

Neither of us mentioned anything negative during our ordeal. Although thoughts of never seeing our families or dry land again ran through our minds, we kept those dark thoughts to ourselves. We are excellent teammates. Whenever one of us saw the other getting down, we knew exactly how to bring them back up again.

Maintaining a positive attitude was about the only thing we could control in our situation. It did more than take our minds off our situation; it helped us survive.

After 16 waterlogged hours, we saw the lights of a ship. When we realized that it was really a ship and not just a rising star, we were overjoyed.

As we watched the lights come closer, we were ecstatic ... but still cold, so we lay down for a few minutes to keep warm. When Emily got up again to check its progress, the lights had vanished. So did our newfound morale.

We scanned the horizon for the boat. Emily noticed lights on the opposite horizon, which turned out to be a U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue plane.

After a few circles, the plane came overhead and dropped an orange flare. At that point, we knew we were going to be rescued, and again our morale shot up. The plane radioed our location to the ship we had spotted earlier, the Stavros Niarchos.

The Stavros responded by turning on all of its lights. It was lit up like a Christmas tree. And to us, it certainly felt like Christmas.

From our angle and in the twilight, the ship appeared to be a Coast Guard cutter or a carrier. Actually, the Stavros is a tall ship owned by a British charity that promotes the personal development of young people through crewing sailing vessels.

It took about 30 minutes for the ship to come into view. With only one contact lens, Emily couldn’t make out what was behind the two huge swaying masts. It looked like we were going to be rescued by a giant pirate ship.

Although we were a bit wary of who our rescuers were, we couldn’t wait for them to get to us. Our spirits shot through the roof, and we joked around.

Sixteen hours after we capsized in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, we were safe, warm and dry aboard the Stavros. We spent just under two weeks crossing the second half of the ocean and learning about sailing a tall ship.

We made landfall on Jan. 22 in Bequia, a little island in the Grenadines. We played on the beaches and in the pubs in Mayreau, Tobago Cays and St. Lucia before heading to Barbados and then Antigua. It has been a hectic lifestyle ever since. Fulfilling media demands has kept us busy. Everyone, it seems, wanted to hear about our adventure.

When we arrived in Antigua, Inside Edition was there to meet us. Although it’s sad that we had to flip to get the attention, we hope that we can have the same attention for actually finishing the next race (and breaking the women’s record) across the Indian Ocean in 2009.

That’s right. This year’s race only whetted (literally) our appetite for ocean racing, and we expect to be back at it in American Fire, which was recovered in early April off the coast of Guadeloupe and towed by a local fisherman to the island of Desirade, which is just a few miles south of Antigua (she knew where she was going!).

We have seen pictures of her, and she looks great! The chief of police down there is taking excellent care of her until we are able to make arrangements to get her back to the U.S. To say we are excited is an understatement.

Contact Kessans at americanfire12@gmail.com