I hope I didn’t sound too misanthropic in my blog a couple of days ago. I meant what I said yesterday – that I love human beings, at least as individuals, if not always en masse. I wouldn’t be trying so hard to save our skins if I didn’t care about our continued existence.

We really are amazing creatures. I think we often forget just how amazing we are. When you look at the best of human achievement – our artistic, scientific, physical, psychological, philosophical and spiritual achievements – no other species has, as far as we know, even come close. No matter whether you believe that human beings are just another animal, or whether you believe we were divinely gifted, there is no denying that we are pretty special.

Why were we made different? Was it just a quirk of evolution, or is there a reason, a destiny, a purpose for our big brains, opposing thumbs and unique sense of self-awareness?

And if we do have a destiny, if there is a purpose to human existence, what is it? And how come we don’t know? Or did we used to know, but have forgotten, like so much ancient wisdom?

In the film The Age of Stupid, Pete Postlethwaite delivers a killer question from his futuristic perspective, when he is the sole survivor of the species: Why didn’t humans do more to save themselves? Didn’t they believe they were worth saving?

On balance we are worth saving. At our worst, we’re greedy, arrogant, and small-minded. But at our best, we’re awesome. I do, of course, say this from rather a biased perspective, and our fellow inhabitants of Planet Earth may beg to differ, but so it goes.

Here’s my two cents (or two pennies) worth: If we collectively are going to believe we are worth saving, we have to start by believing it individually. And per Viktor Frankl, a key component is to find a sense of purpose. It gives meaning to human existence, and an incentive to ensure its continuation.

And, from personal experience, I would add that it feels good. It makes you happy. Happiness AND avoiding extinction – sounds like a winning combination to me.

Other Stuff:

I wrote this yesterday, when I had been on the sea anchor all day today. Can you tell?!

Today has been a much more productive day rowing-wise, although the wind isn’t quite doing what it is supposed to, according to the forecast. It evidently didn’t get the memo that says it is supposed to be coming from the southeast, not the south. For my purposes, it makes a surprisingly big difference.

I spoke to Mum today. She is managing okay with her broken leg, although frustrated at having to cancel her plans to go to the Lake District on Friday. People are looking after her well – when I called yesterday, Mum was with friends who had arrived bearing fish and chips and they were all tucking in. I can sense Mum’s impatience to get back to normal. So there’s something she and I have in common – both counting the days!

Vic and I recorded our podcast today, and it will probably be live by the time you read this. [Mum, please link]. He accused me of being a man-hater. Not true! I love men. And women. Oh dear, that probably didn’t come out right. I love humans, I mean. Does that sound better?!

Inky – great to hear from another Jamie Fraser devotee! Sounds like there would be quite a battle for him if he ever actually materialised in the 21st century. Ah, and you have a Maas Aero too – they loaned me one for training when I was living in the Columbia Gorge. Where is your friend’s houseboat (planeboat?)? It sounds really cool! I’m planning to be back in SF around October time, but I suppose you will be in Montana by then. Hope to catch up with you on a future Climate Ride!

Richard – a “Zero Packaging” grocery store? Sounds like a fantastic idea! Do people bring their own containers? But how do they sell wine and beer? A very important question!

Re comments on lower consumerism – of course it’s important to people’s mental health to have jobs. But maybe we need to rethink the way we structure our working lives. Fewer hours? Partly non-monetary compensation? More job-sharing? We created this whole economic structure, and if it’s not working so well any more, surely we’re smart enough to re-create it in a better format?

Martha – I’m sure our present-day kids, the decision-makers of the future, will have a few ideas along these lines. Thank you for your insightful comment, and for pointing people in the direction of helpful resources. I’ve been working on my “sentence” too, but am too shy to share!

Pippa – I have an inkling what KFC chickens go through, and it’s making me feel a bit queasy just thinking about it… Surely if more people were aware about it, KFC would either cease to exist, or would have to demand that its suppliers improve their processes. Awareness and information are just so important.

Anna – “social democracy” – you’re touching on one of my pet topics there. I haven’t come up with any answers yet, but am intrigued by the question of how to organize government so that citizens really feel engaged, like they can make a difference. My friend Romy is in Egypt right now, finding out more about what is happening there. I can’t wait to hear what she discovers! Romy lives in Wales, but I’ll have to try and find a way to get you two together sometime. And me, of course!

Thanks to Jay Gosuico for sending in today’s quote, one of my favourites: “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
(Lawrence of Arabia)

Photo: I love humans. And mice. (At the premier of Morning Light in LA)

Sponsored Miles: Grateful to Curtis Zingg. Other miles not yet sponsored.

Late this afternoon I was pulling in the sea anchor, and got quite a surprise. Last year on the Pacific the sea anchor drew in a very exciting visit from a baby whale shark, evidently fascinated by the big red-and-yellow jellyfish-like thing. The whale shark then spent the next 20 minutes circling my boat.

Today’s haul wasn’t quite as exciting, but was definitely the second most interesting thing I’ve found accompanying my sea anchor. It was a big bunch of eggs.

There is an orange mooring buoy, about a foot in diameter, that attaches to the apex of the sea anchor a) to help keep the sea anchor at the right depth below the surface, and b) to mark where the sea anchor lies. And in the 24 hours or so since I had put out the anchor, the buoy had acquired a necklace of pale pink fish eggs.

Admittedly, my first reaction was “yuck”, scientific curiosity temporarily overcome by the unappealing prospect of having to scrape them all off. I tied off the buoy, leaving it bobbing in the water while I pulled in the rest of the sea anchor and its lines, which gave me a good half hour to think what to do about the eggs.

I felt really guilty about removing them from the buoy. Fish populations are threatened enough, without me destroying potential new fishy lives. There again, I couldn’t just leave the buoy trailing over the side of the boat until the eggs hatched, whenever that might be. And it wasn’t like the eggs were being tenderly nurtured by their parents like those of an Emperor Penguin. They had just been laid (in a very inconvenient place) and then left to fend for themselves. There really wasn’t any alternative but to dispose of them. I gritted my teeth and set about my
task.

I was quite surprised by the texture of the egg cluster. I had imagined the eggs would be quite separate from each other. Like caviar. But in fact it was a tough mass, held together by connective fibres, a bit like the white connective tissue on a chicken breast. It took a sharp knife to cut through the mass, and it then fell away cleanly, leaving only a very few stray eggs on the rope.

It dropped into the ocean and drifted away. I watched it go, sending a silent apology and a promise to make up for this sad sacrifice by doing what I can to protect many future generations of fishy offspring.

Other Stuff:

I hope my previous blog didn’t sound too misanthropic. I love human beings, really, I do. I am one, after all, and so are most of my friends. I’ve written more on that subject and was going to publish it as today’s blog, but then the eggs happened. I will post it tomorrow instead.

My poor dear mother has broken her leg – allegedly by slipping while getting on a bus, but I think she needs to come up with a better story. Like “practicing the pole vault for next year’s Olympics”, or “leading the Pamplona bull run”. Terribly inconvenient for her. Please join me in wishing her the speediest of all recoveries.

American Samoa has banned the use of plastic bags. Thanks to John Wasko of Pago Pago for letting me know. He says: “Our island is much cleaner and the turtles are happier.” Another outbreak of common sense. Hurrah Natalie – I loved that quote, so will reproduce it here in case anybody didn’t see it: from the film Kung Fu Panda. ‘Your mind is like this water, my friend. When it is agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear’ – Master Oogway.

Vince Perez- happy memories! Wonderful to hear from you, and to enjoy a moment’s nostalgia for the peace and serenity of El Nido Eco Resort in the Philippines. My very best wishes to Leigh, and all at El Nido and Alternergy.

Gregory – you asked if there are any creatures that scare me. Not so far, although sadly I have seen very few creatures at all on the Indian Ocean. As you correctly surmise, nothing can compare with the sheer terror of electrical failure!

Quote for today: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Photos: 1. eggs on the buoy 2. cutting the eggs away

Sponsored Miles: Thank you today to: Laurey Masterton, Cecille Gannon, Michael Jorg, Bruno Detillieux, Richard Butcher, Gail Brownell, Stanley Miller, Tom Grimmett.

I get requests to do various interviews-by-email while I am at sea. It’s
not that easy finding time to do them, the daily blog pretty much using
up the time I can bear to sit in the cabin working at a laptop, but I do
my best to get around to them eventually. After all, that’s what I’m out
here for, isn’t it – to broadcast messages about the environment.

There was a question the other day that stopped me in my tracks – or
rather, it was my immediate answer to it that stopped me. The question
was: What do you think is the biggest environmental challenge facing the
planet at the moment?

And my answer? Humanity. It just popped out. And then I thought about
it. And I couldn’t disagree with myself.

If I was Planet Earth, feeling a bit under the weather (so to speak) and
trying to figure out what was bugging me, I would have to put “Humanity”
at the top of my list. Those pesky humans, always digging into me and
polluting me and making me feel hot and bothered.

And there are so many of them these days. Seems like just yesterday
there were only a billion of them or so. Now there are nearly seven
billion, and they are everywhere, chopping down my forests and building
new houses and factories all over the place. All that construction makes
me itch.

Never mind. They’ll be gone soon. Like the dinosaurs. I liked dinosaurs.
Didn’t do much apart from eat, but they were pretty harmless. They were
around for a long time. These humans reckon that they (humans) are an
intelligent life form, but if they carry on as they are, they will be
extinct in very short order. Not even close to the dinosaurs’ record.
And it will all be their own fault.

What’s so intelligent about that?

Other Stuff:

The sea anchor is out. True to the forecast, the wind rose from the west
during the afternoon.

But apart from the fact I am going backwards, today has not been a bad
day. There are definitely more fish in this part of the ocean. This
morning when the sea was calm, almost every time I looked over the side
of the boat I could see a little troupe of fishies (mahi mahi?) down
below. A few times a fish jumped clear of the water – up to about six
feet in the air.

I could also see some strange oily globules on the surface of the water.
About the size of a penny, generally round in shape. I took some photos
but they’re not clear enough to survive rendering at low res. When back
ashore I will show them to the experts.

This afternoon I did a few bits of maintenance, including changing the
filter on the watermaker, and made a mindmap of philosophical musings in
the back of my logbook. And ate an entire bag of almonds (8oz) and a bar
of chocolate. All that thinking about the meaning of life gives me a
heck of an appetite.

Our latest Roz Roams podcast is live. Episode 37: News from the Frøzen
Nørth. Thanks to Vic Phillipson.

Congrats to Oceanswatch and Chris Bone on their acquisition of a Wharram
Catamaran for their ocean monitoring and education projects. If you’d
like to get out on the big blue and do something to help, check out
oceanswatch.org.

Marks-the-Spot – what latitude is the space station orbiting? I hope
they can’t actually see me – I’d have to put some clothes on when they
fly over!

Thanks, Aimee, for the update on ocean rowers on the Pacific, and to
Janice for the info on poles of inaccessibility. Interesting that Ikuo
Tateo is going from California to Japan – although I can understand why
he wants to go that way (assuming that he is Japanese, and in fact, also
assuming that he is a he) it’s more usual to go the other way. So he
will have his work cut out. Good luck to him!

John H – thanks for the info on rainbows. Most of the bows I have seen
have been at sunrise, so I had got used to the higher arc. Your circular
rainbow as seen from a plane sounds amazing. Trippy!

Thought for the day:
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom.
One helps you make a living.
The other helps you make a life.
(Anon)

Photo: I was rather fond of this picture of my fishy friends, with
sunbeams. Joan, what do you reckon?!

Sponsored miles: Thomas Huddle, Scott McCarter, Nick Perdiew, Alexandra Stevens, Nancy Bowman, Doug Grandt (in memory of Larry), Courtney Elwood, Karen Morss, Jennifer Bester, Kamas Industries – grateful thanks for sponsoring.

After I finished reading Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy (by Martin Lindstrom) it really got me thinking about how we are being manipulated by advertisers and corporations, and in combination with Don’t Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America (by Morgan Spurlock, he of Supersize Me fame) it has given me a double whammy of food for thought – pun intended. It’s not just the consumerism that bugs me – it’s the impact it has on the planet and on our mental and physical health.

This is a huge topic, and far too much to go into here. I feel the need to rant, but I’ll try and confine myself to a mini-rant and leave it to you to take it and run with it if you feel the urge.

Martin Lindstrom describes how, as you walk past a fast food joint, that fantastic aroma of frying bacon or burgers or fries that tickles your nostrils isn’t what they’re cooking – it’s a synthetic aroma dispensed specifically with the goal of luring you in. No wonder the food never tastes as good as it smells (not that I would know – I have many weaknesses, but fast food is not among them, my last visit to a McDonalds being circa 1983). How blatantly phoney.

Then there’s the food itself. So much “food” is barely worthy of the name, being highly processed, denatured, and almost nutrient-free. And I’m not just talking about fast food here. A lot of food in supermarkets, even some food in health food stores, is just not good for you, containing nasties like trans fats and high fructose corn syrup that can lead to diabetes, heart disease, ADHD etc. A lot of it isn’t good for the environment either. Want to do some research to find out how healthy your food is? Be careful – check who sponsored those scientists. They may not be as impartial as you think.

Moving on from food to consumer goods, there are adverts specifically designed to engender fear – fear of being left out, left behind, left on the shelf, fear of being unattractive, uncool, or – heaven forbid – old. Or fear of germs, fear of not being a good parent, fear of what the neighbours might think. But buy their product, and banish the fear! Except, of course, that it is a very temporary fix at best. The thing I am really fearful of is that Martin Lindstrom sees fear-based advertising as the way of the future. As if we don’t have enough real issues to worry ourselves about.

Advertisers have enormous budgets and cutting-edge neuroscience behind them, but even so, surely we are smart enough to see through their attempts to manipulate us – or are we? So many of us get suckered into buying stuff we don’t need, and it is the planet that pays the real price. I sometimes picture “consumers” as little Pacman munchy monsters, munching away at the Earth until there is nothing left beneath our feet.

Films like Food Inc, and the book Fast Food Nation are a good start, but I suspect they largely preach to the converted. How can we spread the message that happiness is more likely to come from good relationships and a meaningful life than from a new washing powder or an extra-large portion of fries? How can we get more people to wise up, before “consumers” (horrible word) end up consuming us all to death in a misguided search for happiness in the shopping malls and online stores of the world?

Other Stuff:

Today was a pleasant day out on the big blue, with a useful forty nauties (nautical miles) under my hull by bedtime. I am listening to Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon, and indulging my infatuation with the fictional but irresistibly attractive Jamie Fraser. I just wish they would stop sipping at single malt whisky all the time. I wouldn’t want any here, but I wouldn’t mind teleporting myself to a Scottish fireside and having a wee dram of the good stuff.

The wheel on my main iPod has stopped working. I can still fast forward through books by pressing the “forward” button, but I can’t scroll through lists or adjust the volume by running my finger around the wheel. Bummer.

For some reason I kept looking out for a sailboat today. I don’t know why. In all my time at sea, the only sailboats I have ever seen were Aurora, the support yacht for the Atlantic Rowing Race, and the JUNK Raft on the Pacific. I have never, in over 400 days, accidentally happened across a sailboat. I think it is just my mind playing tricks on me. It is bored of seeing nothing but sea, sky, and storm petrels so has decided to start making stuff up.

Quote for today: Only when the last tree has died and the last river been polluted and the last fish been caught will we realise we can’t eat money. Cree Indian saying

Photo: that unlikely encounter with the JUNK Raft and Dr Marcus Eriksen (now of the 5Gyres Institute – see: http://5gyres.org/)

Sponsored Miles: Today’s thanks go to: Curtis Zingg, Shannon Fogg, James Borleis and Doug Grandt.

Roz and Ellen

I had a little starstruck moment today, which boosted crew morale considerably. I had called Mum, as she’d texted to say that my transponder hadn’t updated my position for a few hours, and I wanted to reassure her that I was okay and to find out if it had started working again.

We didn’t have a very good connection on the satphone, so I was sure I must have misheard when Mum said that Anna Nicole Smith had posted a comment on my blog. This would have been very surprising, as a) I couldn’t imagine why a curvaceous starlet with a penchant for very rich, very old men, would be reading my blog, and b) she’s dead.

[Or at least, I think she is, although after prematurely lamenting the demise of Terry Pratchett last week, I should be careful.]

So it made a lot more sense, although almost equally surprising, when Mum repeated the name: Alexander McCall Smith, author of Corduroy Mansions, the book that proved so wonderfully enjoyable and therapeutic after my trauma with the boat’s defective electrical system a few days ago. It is one of those books that is as comforting as a pair of old slippers, or, indeed, Belgian shoes (you’d have to read the book to understand that reference). The characters bore strong resemblances to people I know in real life, and the book mentioned one of my favourite London restaurants, La Poule Au Pot. It was all reassuringly familiar.

He had written to say: “I’m glad that you are enjoying Corduroy Mansions, Roz. I very much enjoyed writing it and I think that all the characters – Freddie de la Hay and the rest – would wish you all the best in your venture. With warmest wishes, Alexander McCall Smith”

I was chuffed to bits that he had picked up my mention of his book, and had taken the time to post a comment. Thank you kindly, Mr Smith!

After Corduroy Mansions, I started listening to Decision Points, by George W Bush. At the time of writing, the former president has not yet posted a comment on my blog. Re Decision Points, in the interests of full and frank disclosure, I should tell you that I went into it with as open a mind as I could muster, but have to confess that I could not get through to the end. I abandoned the attempt shortly after reading about 9/11.

Conditions today were windy (20-25 knots) and rough, and I was rowing across the waves, so it was generally a splashy and bashy kind of a day. A few ill-timed gusts made meal preparation a rather trying experience, including a very messy incident with some freeze-dried raspberries. But I survived and ended the day a nice number of miles to the good.

Other Stuff:

UncaDoug – on being outrageous in the Marshall Saunders sense of amplifying influence… that reminds me of a book by Margot Katz called something like “Tarzan and Jane: How Women Survive In The Corporate Jungle” (in which I was mentioned). She described it as “turning up the volume”. In other words, once you find your voice, TURN IT UP. Be yourself, but more so. Today I was listening to “Don’t Eat This Book” by Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame. He has done a fantastic job of bringing attention to the health risks of fast food and the insidious influence of Big Money by doing exactly this. It works. So let’s supersize our messages – it’s time!

Pippa – good delegation strategy. In “normal” life I find Twitter is a fantastic source of tech support. Out here, I have been most impressed by the response to my “damsel in techno distress” plight – many emails and comments offering advice. Much appreciated!

Currin – lucky you, getting to hear from Jane Goodall. I keep getting so close to meeting her, but we haven’t quite managed to be in the same place at the same time. One day, I hope! Also enjoyed your suggestion as to what the fish might have thought when they saw me, compared with what I thought when I saw them. Very amusing!

Karen – if I hear of such a book I will let you know. But it is just possible that there is a book that has yet to be written. I must read JBT’s book. I have been thinking a lot on that subject of oneness/enlightenment, and wondering “so if I did manage to experience that, then what?” It sounds as if her book may offer an answer – hopefully not involving having a stroke!

Marks the Spot – your friend Dave Morss? Karen’s husband? Ah!

Quote for today: The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. (Ralph Waldo Emerson) (I fear this may be true)

Photo: the last time I was at La Poule Au Pot (with Ellen, a friend from San Francisco)

Sponsored Miles: Thanks today to : Bill Spinks, George Cathcart, Laura Prouty, Ian Hamby, Steve Leahy, Richard Miller, Brad McDonnell.

I’m so excited. I finally managed to not only see some fish, but get a photo to show you. This picture was taken this morning, when the water was beautifully calm and as I glanced over the side of my boat I saw some fishy shapes moving beneath Sedna. It wasn’t possible for me to get any idea of distance, so I don’t know how big these fish were. But here they are, anyway, for your delectation.

It is rare that the water is calm enough for me to be able to see so clearly. This brought to mind a rather cliched metaphor, but like most cliches, it has some truth in it.

A lot of the people are like a choppy ocean, all froth and noise and ripples and waves. You can’t see past the surface because it’s going ten different ways at once, reflecting what is around them, just as the ocean reflects the colours of the sky and the clouds.

But when the surface is calm, you catch a glimpse of the hidden depths, and what moves there, the life beneath the surface, and the ocean’s true nature is revealed. When you meet those rare people who are calm enough, and brave enough, to let you glimpse their true nature, it is unforgettable.

Today’s quote: The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.
(Emily Dickinson)

Other Stuff:

Funny day today, with the wind wheeling around the clock and going from non-existent to twenty knots. So the day was a mixture of rowing and chores. There was a locker that smelled as if something had crawled inside and died. I traced the problem to a bag of coconut milk powder that had leaked and absorbed seawater, turning the powder into a smelly white paste with green bits where it had gone mouldy. With apologies to the fish, the contents had to be dumped overboard.

Electrical system behaved itself today. Still keeping everything crossed….

Thanks for all the top tips on staying warm. I do have some very nice Smartwool merino items on board, but had held back on using them a) because they are too nice to trash, and b) because I couldn’t quite believe that they would be effective when wet. But inspired by the vision of Currin pedalling around Dunedin in sandals and socks, I will give them a try!

Tommy – for the North Atlantic, I will get hold of some GoreTex waterproof socks as you suggest to go with the merino. And Natalie, thanks for the sensible advice on keeping ankles and wrists warm. Makes sense, as when overheated it is so nice to run cool water over wrists. Janice – I do indeed have Deep Heat on board. Could be a bit messy, but will give it a try – and I love that smell!

Rico – interested to hear about your visit to Biosphere 2. Have you read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson? If you’re interested in long-term space colonization, I think you would find it interesting. Let’s just hope we figure out how to take better care of a planet before we start screwing up another one.

Gregory – very good question about ventilation in the cabin. It’s not easy letting in air, but not water. I have two mini-hatches below the main entrance hatch, which have protective covers on the outside shaped like inverted scoops, and screw-in lids on the inside. So if it’s not too rough I can have them open, and it’s quite hard for water to get in. But if it’s really rough they have to be closed up, and it does get rather stuffy in here.

Currin – interesting to hear about the adventurous Emperor Penguin. A penguin after my own heart! They are such gorgeous creatures – I was delighted to see a beauty in Antarctica earlier this year. But somehow there is something just wrong about penguins turning up in Wellington….

Susie – thanks for the limerick. Loved it! Hope you like the “fish that glow” in today’s photo!

Sponsored Miles: Bill Spinks, Tom Grimmett, Richard Miller, George Cathcart and Newport Harbor Nautical Museum/ExplorOcean supporting Roz with a generous number of miles.

(Mentioned by Roz yesterday – and the author added a comment to the blog.)

Tonight I was out on the deck of my boat a couple of hours after nightfall, brushing my teeth. As I looked up at the Milky Way and around me at the dark ocean, the thought occurred to me that I could quite possibly be the most geographically remote human being on Earth – as in, the furthest distance from the next human being.

I am over a thousand miles from Perth (which, incidentally, is the most remote city on Earth), and it has been five or six weeks since I last saw a ship, or since the Sea-Me radar enhancer last blinked red to indicate the presence of radar.

There might be other solo ocean rowers out at the moment on other oceans, although it’s not Atlantic rowing season right now (that happens in the Northern Hemisphere winter, when the trade winds are at their most consistent) and I’m not aware of any solo rowers out on the Pacific. (Feel free to check out http://oceanrowing.com and let me know if I am wrong.)

There may, of course, be solo sailors at large on the oceans at the moment, but even so there are few areas of ocean as uninterrupted by islands as the southern Indian Ocean.

(Of course, this is hard for you to comment on, because you don’t know exactly where I am. Here’s a clue: if I dug from here straight through the Earth until I popped out the other side, I could be enjoying a cocktail and cigar in Cuba. Ah, if only!)

How does this extreme isolation make me feel?

First, best not to think about it too much, or it can get a bit freaky. Second, I’d rather be extremely isolated than around the wrong sort of people, for example. AK-47 toting pirates. Third, maybe just a little bit sad. Today I was listening to Corduroy Mansions: A Corduroy Mansions Novel (1) by Alexander McCall Smith, a sweet little story about the inhabitants of three London flats and their relationships with friends, families, and lovers. It describes conversations, touches, hugs, exchanges of glances – all those ways that humans communicate with each other and express empathy, friendship, love. Sure, I have my emails out here, but it’s not quite the same.

I don’t mean to make you worry, or feel sorry for me. I’m fine. I just mention this in the hope that it will make you appreciate and cherish those moments when you feel a connection to another human being, for at least a few hours after you read this blog. We are all connected, whether we are near or far, but there is something special about feeling that connection in person.

Other Stuff:

The electrical system survived the day. I still feel a flutter of trepidation every time I turn on the battery monitor to check whether the sunshine is getting to my batteries, but for now it is okay.

The weather is relatively calm after a blowy few days. Sunshine and fluffy clouds, and calm blue seas with only a few whitecaps. Not bad at all. According to the forecast, I have a few more days before the winds turn against me again, so I’m making the most of it while I can.

Martin Reader – thanks so much for letting me know about the Mike McCarthy article about the state of the oceans – and for emailing him about me. Aimee (who sends me a selection of the blog comments) gave me a summary of the IPSO report. Although I’m sad to hear that the oceans are in a worse state than previously thought, I am not surprised, having had so much exposure to presentations given by scientists intimately involved in ocean studies. I am glad to hear that the science is filtering through to the mainstream, and hope that it will lead to immediate action by all governments worldwide. There really is no time to lose.

Michael O’Hara – welcome to my blog. Thank you very much for your kind comment, and words of encouragement. It is nice to be appreciated! I can’t browse the internet from here, but have made a note to check out knoxshircore.wordpress.com on my return. As for Monty Python…. when in danger of getting too bogged down in thoughts of spirituality and religion, recollections of “Life of Brian” are a great antidote!

Pippa – please don’t be so sad about the pillow. It only has a few specks of mould – not bad at all. Many other things are faring much, much worse, so it is doing well, and is still much-beloved!

Philip Nixon – thanks for the great quote. What a good and healthy way of looking at things. You’re so right – duties can seem like privileges if only we look at them the right way!

The Raistricks – good to hear from you, Nicola! Would love to drop in the next time I am in Britain to compare salty sea stories. I stopped at the Azores when sailing from Portsmouth to the Canaries for the start of the Atlantic Rowing Race. As for the chickens, maybe you and Joan in Atlanta can trade tips, as she has also had a few teething problems with her brood. Can chickens have teething problems? Probably not, if things can be “as rare as hen’s teeth”! Anyway, you know what I mean….

And a lighthearted quote for the day, although be careful – it was when I figured this one out that I quit my job, and look how that ended…: “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in
it.” — Ellen DeGeneres

Photo: rainbow from a couple of days ago. Why do some rainbows arc low like this one, and others arc high?

Sponsored Miles: Special thanks to William Spinks and Rita Stenlund for sponsoring most of the miles that were reported two days ago as not being sponsored! Grateful thanks too to: Scott Bookman, Nicola Faith, Andrew Lueken, Nicola Tsang, Michelle Driskill-Smith, Brian Kirsch, Chris Ferreira, Wayne Batzer, Bruce Gervais, Brian Yates, Larry Grandt for recent miles covered.

Control Panel

Today was a great day for rowing – or would have been, if I’d been able to spend more time at the oars. As it was, I spent much of the early afternoon poking around behind the control panel with a screwdriver, trying to get my electrical system working again.

I checked the battery monitor around lunchtime, in preparation for running the watermaker, and my heart sank when I saw that there was no charge going from the solar panels to the batteries. I opened up the control panel (maybe I should call it the out-of-control panel, as that is what it does to my emotions whenever I have to open it up), and saw that the Sunsaver Duo LED was blinking its red evil eye at me, signifying an error.

You know in the film “Terminator” (or was it “Robocop”? Terminator, I think) how Arnie’s eye glows ominously red? That’s what this LED looks like, and to me it is about as terrifying. It means I have to do something with electrical stuff, and you will know by now that this is not my forte.

Long story short, after two rather stressful hours, I now have a functioning electrical system. But my level of confidence that it will remain functioning is low. It took quite a lot of chocolate and a satphone chat with my mother before my spirits were fully restored.

This is one of the problems with attempting to combine a spiritual retreat with a major expedition. It is difficult to focus on the meaning of life, the universe and everything, when I am challenged just to stay alive.

That last sentence was said more for dramatic effect than because it is literally true. Complete failure of the electrical system is, of course, one of the “what if” scenarios that we prepare for. I have a portable solar panel to recharge my gadgets, and a manual watermaker to produce drinking water, but life would be very inconvenient indeed. I would be in survival mode rather than expedition mode. Blogs would most likely cease. So let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Other Stuff:

UncaDoug – I have just read your comments about your father’s passing, and about your encounter with Tim Ray’s parents. Thank you so much for sharing both experiences with us. It is good to hear that Tim very much lives on in the memories of many, and that his passion and dedication are inspiring them to greater heights in working for the future of our world. He has most certainly not died in vain.

Quote for the day, in an attempt to console myself for my dodgy electrical system: “I learned that the richness of life is found in adventure. . . . It develops self-reliance and independence. Life then teems with excitement. There is stagnation only in security.” (William Orville Douglas)

Photo: The out-of-control panel. The panel is folded down – this is the cabling behind it. This is actually an old picture, from 2006, but it isn’t much better these days. Note to self to simplify, simplify…

Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to: Stephen Borchert, Monica Wilcox, Thomas Huddle, Cyndie Blake, Carol Page Potter, Shannon Fogg, James Borleis, Megan Lutz. Having passed the one thousand mile waypoint makes a difference!

Bow of Boat

Today I started seeing fish. I don’t know if it was like the Magic Eye pictures where you suddenly “get” how to look at them, with your eyes slightly unfocussed, and as if by magic 3D images emerge from the mass of coloured dots.

Maybe the fish had been there all along, and I just hadn’t “got” how to look for them. But you would have thought, after around 400 days at sea, that I would know how to look for a fish. Or maybe not. I’m always learning new things out here.

Either way, today fish became visible – not as I had seen them occasionally over the last few weeks, flying above the waves, or doing a backflip out of the water, or even lying dead on my deck – but actually in their own element, the water. I saw 5 or 6 fish, fair-sized ones, maybe 3 feet or so in length.

Here’s my theory. Normally I am so close to the water that all I can see is the water’s surface, reflecting the sky. But you can see a lot more when your line of sight is closer to perpendicular to the surface of the water. If you’ve been stand-up paddling, you’ll know how much more you can see from a SUP board than you can when you are swimming, because you can look down into the water, through the reflections and into the water itself.

Today I didn’t miraculously gain six feet of elevation, but the ocean tilted itself enough in the form of waves to bring the surface almost perpendicular to my line of sight, like a wine waiter tilting a bottle to the optimal angle for viewing the label. So I was able to see the fish inside the waves. For the duration of the wave I could see the fish swimming below its surface, but as soon as the wave collapsed it would disappear again.

So who knows? Maybe it was today that I finally made it into fish-inhabited waters. Or maybe they had been there all the time and today’s conditions happened to be perfect for revealing the secrets of the ocean. Or alternatively I just found a new way of looking at the same scene. We will never know.

Other Stuff:

UncaDoug: good to hear about your increasing interest in ecovillages, intentional communities and transition towns. Last year I was doing some research of my own into such communities, staying at an intentional community in New Zealand (at the home of Chris Bone, of Oceanswatch.org) and visiting several transition towns in Britain. I agree that this would be an attractive model for the future, and I think it will become a growing trend. Smaller communities seem better able to engender a sense of responsibility towards others and towards the earth, while at the same time empowering the individual to have a real say in the running of the community. My feeling is that this sense of “village” is one of the good things from the past that we have lost in our headlong dash for progress – but it’s not too late to bring it back.

Jonathan – I love that Thoreau/Emerson quote too! Both very wise men, with much to say on the subject of simplicity.

Rosi Hey – thanks for your message. Glad you find the blog inspiring. Do you know of Greg Kolodziejzyk? See adventuresofgreg.com. He also lives in Calgary. I had a go in his pedalboat last year – very cool. And incidentally, he designed my Savage logo!

Stan, Bruce and Aimee – thank you for your input on the subjects of simplicity, life… and rocks. Aimee, your words reminded me of a random thought I had the other day: What if time isn’t linear? What if we humans only perceive it that way in order to make sense of things, because our brains are wired such that we can’t comprehend non-linear time?

What if time is like a sphere, or a Mobius strip, so it has no beginning, and no end?

Sound crazy? We used to think the Earth was flat, i.e. that it had a west, and an east, and beyond that you dropped off the edge. It would have sounded crazy to suggest that east and west meet up round the back, that I could set off west and reappear from the east. But maybe time is the same, if only we had the ability to comprehend it.

And I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that there may have been several “Big Bangs” – that the universe expands to a certain point, then contracts again into a single lump of matter, which then explodes again and the whole cycle starts over.

So maybe the universe always has been, and always will be. No beginning and no end, just endless cycles. What do you think? It would be pretty mind-blowing, but no more mind-blowing than anything else on the cosmic scale!

Bruce – your comments have been almost painfully thought-provoking, along the lines of “Ishmael”. You may be interested to know that your views have caused me some considerable time spent thinking, and some modifications to my philosophy-in-progress. I thank you.

Karen – thank you! I’ve been trying to remember Jill Bolte Taylor’s last name for a couple of weeks now, and you have finally put me out of my misery. I absolutely love her TED talk , and its description of the oneness of everything. I didn’t realise she has written a book – I have made a note of it and will seek it out when I am back on dry land.

Martha K – I think I have Daniel Pink’s book Drive on one of my iPods. I will look for it. One sentence by which to navigate my life? Wow, there’s a challenge? Have you figured out yours?

Quote for today: Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. (T S Eliot)

Photo: bow of Sedna, showing my logo as designed by Greg K of Calgary

Sponsored Miles: No names to thank today. Quite a number of miles not sponsored.

Gyre by Chris Jordan

Today was another gorgeous day on the ocean. You know the Japanese painting of the wave, with the perfect curling white crest? Waves like that were all around me today, and a large swell would come along once in a while and lift Sedna right up, so I could see for miles, across a huge vista of whitecaps.

Of course, the waves that look so pretty sometimes choose precisely the wrong moment to peak and curl, and several times today the deck copped a boatfiller. And so it goes.

It was a good day to look around and appreciate the beauty of the Earth. I had a lot going on in my head, prompted by recent reading matter on religion, morality, spirituality, etc. Some of the ideas had really struck a chord, and I was trying to figure out how to assimilate them into my scheme of things. Mostly my thoughts seemed to raise more questions than answers, as I kept finding myself trying to hold two opposing views at the same time.

But I’m happy with that for the moment. There is a lot going into the melting pot at the moment, and I’m sure that at some stage that wonderful alchemy will start to happen and I’ll see things more clearly.

Until then, I simply enjoy the process of thinking about these things. I’m in no rush to reach conclusions. You may not know exactly where I am, but take it from me, I have plenty of thinking time left before I reach my destination.

Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy the journey – and the views. Every time I reached the top of a big swell today, I would look around for those whales that are due to show up and tow me the rest of the way, but no sign of them as yet. I’ll keep on looking!

Other Stuff:

A huge thank you to the Rohrs family in Chatsworth, CA. I haven’t been able to see the pictures yet, but Mum described them for me: “Cyrus has a good representation of the purple boat, with a bright yellow sun just coming over the horizon behind it (therefore you are rowing due north!), fish, jellyfish and a turtle escorting you. Gwynne has you sitting there with a big grin on your face, the sun is a bit higher in the sky, and the sea creatures are all going your way. Woody the pirate is behind you. Both have a turtle motif on the boat.” And thank you, Dory, for the message and the blessings. I’ll let you know just as soon as I see any of the sea creatures.

Sharon Levin – great to hear from you! Thank you so much for the plug on “Talk of the Nation”!! You’re a star! I know it was only a brief mention, but you never know who might be listening…. BTW, Squishy the Dolphin is still on board as my faithful crewmate. He must be the best-travelled stuffed dolphin in the world! At least in terms of time spent travelling, if not necessarily miles travelled…

Rachel – I liked your mantra. Thanks for that. I have some similar ones, which (when I remember to use them!) really help.

Jim Bell – hope you’re having a wonderful time in Thailand. So if I understand you correctly, the Thai Buddhist teachings include taking responsibility, not waiting for someone else to look after us?

Janice – thanks for the suggestions. Cold toes still very much an issue, and my Neoprene socks don’t seem to help much. I do have some heat pads that can be reused if you boil them for 10 mins, but I don’t have enough fuel allowance to do that too often. For the next row, I’ll investigate drysocks (if such a thing exists) and waterproof gaiters. For the video camera, I finally found the spare recharger. But now the “on” button doesn’t work. Sigh!

Angela – yes, I remember meeting the other Angela. The display of sea creatures made from plastic debris sounds interesting – let’s hope it wins over a few more converts to the cause.

(Picture: “Gyre” by Chris Jordan: based on the famous Japanese painting, “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Hokusai. Instead of paint, the colors are composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic – the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour!)

Sponsored Miles: Thanks go to: Bleddyn Williams, Chris Lynch, Linda Leinen and Nils Mannerstedt.

Tonight, if you will excuse me, I am going to keep this blog very short. Last night was rough and rowdy out here on the big blue, and not much sleep was had in the Purple Palace.

It has been bouncy all day today as well, with meal preparation being a triumph of the desire for a good nosh-up over the adversity of a rocking and rolling boat. I sometimes amaze myself the lengths I am willing to go to in order to have a proper hot meal when a wiser (or less food-conscious) woman might settle for nuts and snack bars. But I feel it is important to eat well – (insert L’Oreal–style flick of the hair) – because I’m worth it.

Other Stuff:

I am completely into my latest Jodi Picoult book, Change of Heart . I’ve listened to several of her books on this row, but I’d say this is my favourite one yet, touching on my current lines of inquiry around faith, spirituality, religion, and what we choose to believe – none of which are quite synonymous.

Okay, off to bed now. I wish it were a kingsize fourposter with crisp white sheets and a stack of pillows, and that it didn’t constantly move, but there isn’t one of those around for a thousand miles or so, so for now I suppose I’ll make do with an Ocean Sleepwear sleeping bag, a purple sleeping bag liner that has a rapidly-expanding tear, and a pillow that, although still comfortable, is starting to go mouldy. Ah well. Could be so much worse. The early ocean rowers didn’t even have enclosed cabins – they just slept in the bottom of the boat, which must have been unimaginably miserable.

Worse things happen at sea. (Oh…)

Photo: random pic from the archives – with Margo Pellegrino, uber-paddler and eco-campaigner, at the Ocean Champions reception in 2008. (Photo by Doug de Mark)

Sponsored Miles: A good number of people to thank today – a combination of good mileage rowed by Roz and popular numbers selected: Susie Slanina, Thomas Heavey, Hans Verwey, Nancy Bowman, Nick Perdiew, Simon and Eve Ringsmuth, Bruce Gervais, Darrell and Sylvia Vice, Clarence Jones III, Gillian Colledge, Lynn Robb, Brian Smith, Tamara Fogg, Julian Gall, Karen Morss, Jennifer Bester, Kamas Industries, Jeffrey Blatt, Margaret Taylor.

Blue Skies

Today was a beautiful day to be on the ocean. Apart from the squally patches (of which there were several) it was a day of waves and whitecaps and sunshine.

I saw a school of flying fish for the first time since I set out on the Indian Ocean. First I noticed a storm petrel flapping its wings – an unusual sight, as they prefer to glide effortlessly, or to skim low over the waves, riding the cushion of air in front of a swell. Then I noticed a second petrel, and they were both flapping, and diving at the water. Suddenly about twenty flying fish took flight, their silver bodies gleaming. Three or four times they broke from the waves, covering twenty or thirty feet at a leap. Against the deep blue of the water they looked especially gorgeous.

Then they disappeared from sight, and the petrels were left to wheel around, which they did spectacularly, like two test pilots daring each other to ever greater feats of aerobatics. And I felt genuinely lucky to be here to witness their show.

My enjoyment of the day was enhanced by the book I finished and the book I started, which by accident rather than design complemented each other well. The book I finished was The Call of the Weird: Encounters with Survivalists, Porn Stars, Alien Killers, and Ike Turner by Louis Theroux, a British writer and documentary film maker. In it he revisits various American characters that had been the subjects of some documentaries about ten years previously – pimps, prostitutes, gangsta rappers, white supremacists, dodgy self help gurus and cultists. The second book was a novel by Jodi Picoult, called Change of Heart, about a convicted murderer on death row who appears to be the source of a number of miracles. The common thread between the two books? Beliefs, and why we choose the beliefs that we do. According to Theroux, humans are not so much interested in truth, as in choosing beliefs that make us feel good about ourselves. Very interesting….

I had another odd dream last night. I often have a dream in which I am about to take some important exams, and I am completely unprepared. This probably originates from a not dissimilar experience I had in real life as I was coming up to my law finals at Oxford, having spent far too much time on the river and in the beer cellar, and nowhere near enough in the law library (especially if we exclude the time spent falling asleep over case studies). But in last night’s variation, when I went panic-stricken to look for my files of notes to do some last-minute swotting, the files had “350″ written on the front. Meaning? Is my subconscious panicking over climate change and 350ppm? (350.org) Am I feeling guilty that I haven’t done enough and now it is too late? Luckily it was followed up with a happier dream about chocolate cake.

Other Stuff:

Angela Hey – I liked your husband’s advice: Don’t borrow worry from the future. My Auntie Mary used to have a little cream jug that had a similar motto on it: Never cloud today’s blue skies with tomorrow’s worries. Wise words indeed!

Claire in LA – we used “The Majestic Plastic Bag” video as part of our campaign for a plastic bag free Olympics. I thought it was tremendously well done – and would be even funnier if it wasn’t so heartbreakingly true.

John Kay – thank you for the classic hints for boat maintenance – very funny! Must have taken you ages to perfect it. Well worth the effort – a good laugh in the Purple Palace!

Cynthia – I’ve made a note to read What We Leave Behind – I haven’t read it, and it sounds very worthwhile. It is very true that in the natural world nothing really goes “to waste” – it all gets used up somehow – while landfill is just going to sit there for centuries to come. At best it will do nothing, and at worst it will contaminate land and water while belching methane into the air. Woody Allen said, ” I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.” Unfortunately, plastic may succeed where Woody probably won’t.

Speaking of which… apologies to Terry Pratchett for implying that he had already shuffled off this mortal coil. I am pleased to hear that rumours of his death were much exaggerated – and interested to hear that just last week a documentary aired in which he considered just how he may choose to shuffle off this mortal coil. In the UK it is still illegal for a doctor (or anybody else) to assist someone who wants the freedom to choose the time and place of their own passing, so Terry P went to Europe to investigate the options. UncaDoug, I’d be interested in your views on this.

A quote on the subject of troubles, from the inimitable Dr Seuss:

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.
But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

But, although amusing, I don’t think that one is especially helpful, big bats being of dubious legality in addressing problems of most types. So I will also provide an alternative bit of advice, sent to me by Roger Finch.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.
It’s about learning to dance in the rain.
Thank you, Roger.

Sponsored Miles: Diane Freeman, Chris Lynch, Jeremy Stuart, Susie Slanina – thank you for sponsoring a number of miles.

Lemon Ladies Marmalade

Today has been a good day. I am feeling less anxious than I have done for quite a while. Almost, but not quite, relaxed.

I woke up feeling refreshed after an enjoyable dream that I was rowing at the Olympics. I treated myself to a new pair of rowing gloves. I finally started to feel like I am gaining ground on the list of breakages and technical problems. I made some decent miles. I saw some ocean life – twice I saw a sizeable silver fish leap clear of the waves. The sun shone.

And there was some faintly reassuring news from Lee, my weatherman, too. I’m not getting my hopes up, as weather can be capricious and there is no such thing as a “typical” year, but he tells me: “Off Australia, ESE to SSE wind is expected no more than 50% of the time, but those same wind directions occur 75% of the time on the second half of the route (and the wind tends to be lighter when it isn’t from ESE to SSE).” This is good news indeed. I may possibly yet reach my destination before I have to start rationing food.

It may sound strange, but in retrospect I am glad that my crossing of the Atlantic was so incredibly tough. Worst weather on record, multiple equipment failures and breakages, injuries, nothing to occupy my mind other than my own thoughts – not to mention that it was my first ever ocean so I had much less idea what I was doing.

But at least it set a benchmark, and proved to me just what I can endure when needs must. I doubt (hope!) that I will ever do anything quite so hard ever again. The Indian Ocean is proving to be a tough customer. Progress has been slow, and technical problems have been a frequent cause of anxiety. But I would still take this over my Atlantic experience any day of the week.

The biggest difference is that now I have greater faith in my ability to cope. I may not be happy about it, and I may whine and grumble, but the Atlantic taught me that (and I hope I’m not tempting fate here) I’m tough enough to get through it. So there you go, the worst experiences in life can actually be true gifts, because afterwards everything else seems so much less hard.

Other Stuff:

Jay – thanks for the beautiful story about the whale rescued off the Farallones. Some people think that whales are more intelligent than humans. Sometimes I think that wouldn’t be difficult!

Currin – there may have been “life stirring on all sides” in the oceans of Jules Verne’s time. Now, alas, not so much. The two fish I saw today were conspicuous by being very rare sightings on this voyage. We will probably never know just how much damage we have inflicted on fish populations, until they are all gone.

But my trusty feathered friends are around, as always. Thanks to Sarah Outen for the ID on storm petrels and pintado petrels. In a mostly lifeless seascape their surfing antics are a most welcome diversion.

Akiran – I’m glad you’re enjoying my blog. Welcome!

Happy Birthday to Karen Morss for Sunday. You continue to be an inspiration to me – proof that we don’t have to be big or tall or male to live out our dreams. I will raise a spoonful of lemon marmalade in your honour!

Photo: Karen Morss’s Lemon Ladies Marmalade – a taste of California in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

Quote for today, which I would wholeheartedly endorse: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
(William Hutchinson Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition)

Sponsored Miles: Thanks to Ann Bean, Michael Peck, Ted Britton, John Miller. Some miles with no sponsors.

Sunny Mood

Anna – I’ve been thinking more about your question since I wrote yesterday’s blog about how complicated or simple we make life for ourselves. It occurs to me that there are some lucky people who just “get” this simplicity thing. They don’t have to try to live simply. They just do, both practically and psychologically. My mother is a heck of a lot better at it than I am. She just gets on with things without over-complicating them, and is faintly mystified by all my navel-gazing.

Because there are those of us who tend to complicate even the simplest decisions. I don’t know why. Maybe just the way that we’re wired. I can tie myself in knots over the easiest questions, looking at them from every angle until I drive myself almost crazy.

Over the last few years I’ve got better. Not cured, but better. I started acting more intuitively, as a complement rather than a replacement for the more cerebral approach, and it has certainly helped. When I’m deciding on a course of action I check in first with my gut or heart or whatever you want to call it, to see if it has anything to say on the subject. If I feel a strong instinctual urge, I go with that. If not, then I resort to using my head – and that’s when things start getting complicated.

I don’t know if this is relevant to your original question, but I put it out there in case you or anybody else finds it helpful.

Other Stuff:

I am slowly getting Sedna shipshape again, gradually ticking off the items in the “Issues Log”. The sun shone for a few hours this afternoon, so the repaired electrical system was able to power up the batteries sufficiently for me to run the watermaker again. That is a huge relief.

Then my Solaradata tracker unit stopped working. The battery had gone flat, and wouldn’t recharge. I found the spare recharger, but it still wouldn’t work. I have a spare Solaradata unit, but I didn’t fancy its chances as it got completely soaked in a “waterproof” bag that had flooded. But I tried it out anyway, and ta-da! It worked. So Mum and my weatherman can once again see where I am.

I finally found the spare recharger cable for the Xacti video camera, and charged it up only to find that the “on” switch doesn’t work. I’m not so impressed with this latest model of the waterproof Xacti. The previous ones were much better – I preferred being able to take the battery out to recharge it rather than having to leave the camera itself agape while recharging, you didn’t have to take the battery out in order to get to the the SD card, and the buttons were better. Change isn’t always progress.

Thank you to Baldwin Hopmans (and others) for the Sunsaver Duo manual. It’s too big for me to receive it onboard, but Vic Phillipson is going to look through it to see if there is a way to do a soft reset on the unit if it zonks out again. Good to know you’re still following my adventures, and much love to you and Aey.

I now have a significant pile of kit that I have trashed so far this voyage. Or rather, that seawater and salt have trashed. This is another dimension of spending so long at sea: the longer I am out here, the more likely stuff is to deteriorate. If it is metal, it rusts. If it is anything else, it goes mouldy. Such is ocean life. But it upsets my good green heart, as I know that most of these things probably can’t be repaired.

Oh, and another thing that broke: the bedpan. Today I accidentally dropped a water bottle overboard, and in the scramble to retrieve it (successful) I must have crushed the “disposable” bedpan that has lasted for 4 years. It now has a hole in it, which is not good. Luckily I have a spare. But really, when is this war of attrition of onboard objects going to cease?!

To those who let me know the details of the lunar eclipse – thank you so much for the information. I dutifully set my alarm for 3.30am, only to find that the sky was completely overcast. It cleared somewhat around 6am, but the eclipse was over by then. I hope you had better luck where you were!

Quote for today: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Calvin Coolidge (American 30th President of the United States, 1872-1933)

Photo: cheering up: sunshine boosts spirits as well as batteries!

Sponsored Miles: Stephen Borchert – thank you.

Arriving Antigua 2006

There was a sentence in the concluding chapter of “Buyology”, by Martin Lindstrom, that made me smile today. He commented that to avoid corporate branding, you would have to stock up on food, retreat to your hideaway, turn off your TV, disconnect your high speed internet connection, and not talk to anybody.

Yes, exactly. And here I am.

Speaking of branding, my friend Anna Farmery has a great podcast called “The Engaging Brand“, which originated in marketing but often leads into the question of what makes human beings tick. Anna has had some fascinating guests, and occasionally, in desperation, me, on the show. She asks great questions, and came up with a real corker in the comments on this blog the other day:

“As you know I am an avid reader as well – sometimes I wonder whether reading makes me think too deeply and complicate life or helps me distil life and make it simpler….when you are at sea you obviously have a huge amount of time to think, to listen to books etc…do you think that makes you make life more complicated or simpler when you are back on terra firma?”

Hmm. One of the attractions of coming out to sea in the first place was the hope that it would give me the time and space to think. On the Atlantic I didn’t have audiobooks, so all the thinking had to originate in my own head, or from comments on my blog. And I duly did do a lot of thinking – a lot of it rather self-absorbed, but I had to get my own house in order (or at least clear out some of the clutter) before I could start thinking about wider issues. By the time I reached Antigua after 103 days at sea, I reckoned I’d figured out a few things, partly from books that I’d read in the few months before I set out, and partly ideas that just came up from inside me.

After the Atlantic I was concerned that I might have taken my own thoughts about as far as I could without outside assistance, so that is where the audiobooks came in. Over the years I’ve gained so much from books, both in print and in audio. Truly the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants. People recently have mentioned “Conversations With God” and “Ishmael”, both of which were very formative for me, as was “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”. The bits that resonated with me have duly been incorporated into my worldview. (There is a list of my favourite books here).

I suppose that, paradoxically, I do all this mind-bending reading and thinking in the hope of arriving at an ultimate simplicity. What I’m really trying to do is to distill all this input into a crystal clear vision of a happy and sustainable future – both for me individually and for humans collectively – that I can then do my best make a reality.

So, Anna, to try and answer your question: the reading and thinking serves my overall life purpose, and having a strong life purpose makes everyday life very simple. If something will help further that purpose, I do it. If it doesn’t, I don’t. Priorities become very clear.

And, incidentally, simplicity is also at the heart of the happy and sustainable future that I envision, so the simplicity crops up on two different levels. First, the single-minded pursuit of anything makes life simpler, and second, simplicity also happens to be the thing that I am pursuing.

Errr, does that make sense?! Great question – certainly got me thinking! Looking forward to discussing further over a cold beverage next time I am in Yorkshire. In fact, it might take several bevvies to really get to the bottom of the question….!

Other Stuff:

Today was a good day at Purple Palisades. I covered over 50 nautical miles, more than making up for the devastating minus-twenty the other night. I also improved the repair on the electrical system, and now have much more confidence in its ability to continue functioning. The only bad news is that I can’t find the spare recharger for the Xacti waterproof camera, so from now on I will have to rely solely on the GoPro cameras, and they’re pretty basic. And in the search for the recharger, I found that my laptop bag, despite being inside a supposedly waterproof outer bag, is going mouldy. Something to deal with when conditions calm down.

Thanks for all the great suggestions on how to warm up my feet. Ummm, I suppose this brings home the point that it is important to ask the right question if you want to get the right answer! I really want to know how to keep my feet warm while I am rowing. Once I’m in my cabin I’m fine, and once I’m in my sleeping bag I’m even finer. The problem is while I’m still out on deck – and that goes tenfold for the North Atlantic next year. Mind you, it did make me smile to picture myself trying to lie on my back and cycle my legs while simultaneously rowing – that really would be a challenge of coordination!

Bruce – I loved what you wrote (in connection with the hereafter) about all living creatures sharing a common connection to each other. Everything is, indeed, connected. I somehow feel the need to include rocks in the web of connection too, even though they are not conventionally “alive”. What do you think?

Happy Birthday to UncaDoug for June 16th. We won’t ask how old!

Photo: Arriving Antigua March 2006, a changed Roz after 103 days at sea.

Sponsored Miles: Richard Miller, Eric Anderson, Larry Grandt – with grateful thanks for their support.

Do you find that your house, or your car, or your body, sometimes goes through a bad patch? No problems for ages, and then a multitude of niggles all at once? Sedna seems to have hit just such a patch.

Nothing serious – just a number of things that aren’t quite as they should be, and the accumulation of outstanding issues makes me feel a bit unsettled and anxious. I’ve made a list of them, and will gradually get them sorted out as time and circumstances allow. But until then the anxiety is hanging over me like a squall cloud.

Still, a little fishy soul had reason to be grateful for one of my problems. It was a rough, rough night last night and I knew the footwell would be full of water this morning. Normally I would just flick a switch from inside my cabin and the bilge pump would take care of it. But I’d fixed the Sunsaver Duo problem shortly before sunset last night, and the batteries hadn’t had time to recharge and were low, so I didn’t want to run the bilge pump.

As I was dealing with the footwell the old-fashioned way – with a bucket – I found a sizeable flying fish floating upside down way down in the bilges. I thought he was a goner, but then noticed a feeble wiggle of his tail. I plucked him out and threw him back into the ocean. He righted himself and swam off. I don’t know how long he will survive in his weakened state, but his chances out there are better than in Sedna’s bilges.

If I’d have run the bilge pump as usual, I would have left him high and dry (or damp-ish, anyway) and he would definitely have been an ex-fish by the time I found him. So it isn’t all bad.

A couple of hours later, I was boiling up water for my Coco-Compote (my raspberry and coconut and pumpkin seed breakfast-type thing) when I saw an exciting piece of plastic marine debris. I immediately jumped up, but unfortunately by the time I had found a safe place to put down the Jetboil the debris had already passed me by and disappeared from sight, to my immense disappointment. It looked like a yellow plastic pyramid, of the sort used to warn customers of a wet and slippery floor. Although obviously I would prefer that it wasn’t out here, I was really bummed not to have grabbed it as it floated by. It would have been a brilliant bit of evidence for plastic pollution in the oceans.

Today I was listening to “Buyology“, by Martin Lindstrom, a marketing specialist. I had chosen it because I suppose I am trying to “sell” something too – that something being a message about environmental responsibility. Here is what I have taken away from it so far: when we use our re-usable grocery bags, or coffee cups, or water bottles, in public, our actions most definitely have consequences beyond the immediate saving of some “disposable” plastic. “Mirror neurons” mean that other people have a tendency to imitate behaviour. The more prevalent that behaviour becomes, the more likely they are to imitate it. So our good green deeds become contagious!

Also, when using your non-disposable alternatives, please endeavour to look as cool, sexy, confident and attractive as possible. That helps too, and makes imitation more likely. It may also have other, unintended consequences, such as random strangers inviting you to dinner, but I leave that to you to deal with!

Martin Lindstrom presents a lot of information about what makes us buy things. He is mostly writing with a view to helping marketing professionals to sell more, but as a “consumer” (although a decreasingly active one) it just makes me feel like I’ve been suckered. And makes me happier than ever that I’ve (at least partly) opted out of the consumer society. Unfortunately it seems to be managing pretty well without me.

You remember the last book I read was “The Brief History of the Dead“, in which the last human left alive was busy dying in Antarctica while everybody else had been carried off by a plague? I rather enjoyed it that the original vector for the plague turned out to be Coca Cola. How the publishers managed to get that past Coke’s legal department, I have no idea! But having read what Martin Lindstrom has to say about Coke’s marketing tactics, it seemed somehow appropriate that they turn out to be the bad guys in a sci-fi book.

Other Stuff:

Jess – yes, I have read Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, (but not the others). I was very deeply affected by it. It had a huge influence on the way I see the relationship between humans and the world. I haven’t been quite the same since – nor have I wanted to be. I would absolutely recommend that EVERYBODY read it!

Fiona – huge congrats to the Bradford Grammar School rowers! I used to live near Durham (in Bishop Auckland) – what a lovely part of the country. I hope they had a great time at the regatta. Please pass on my best wishes for continued success this season. Are they going to Henley?

UncaDoug – thanks for the quote from Paul Gilding, about the need for a happiness-driven culture rather than a growth-driven one. I couldn’t agree more. Roll on, that happy day!

Apropos the Great Disruption, here is a quote for today: “Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible.” (Edward Teller)

Let’s try to use our intelligence, and head off the catastrophe before it happens. Start today! Say no to disposable plastics and SMILE!

Photo: my camera isn’t working today (one of the multitude of problems) so I’m using this as an excuse to dig out an excessively flattering picture from the archives – taken in Antigua the day after I arrived after rowing the Atlantic in 2006

Sponsored Miles: Thanks to you Carol Jones, Brian Kirsch, Bruno Detillieux.
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Today got off to a bad start. I thought my second GPS had broken when I fired it up and it showed me I had lost 20 miles overnight. Surely not! But, alas, it was true. My weather forecasts from Lee had been disrupted recently (I blame Iridium) so I hadn’t known the wind was going to swing around to the southwest. Not that there’s much I could have done about it anyway. At the same time I got caught in an eddy, also pushing from the southwest, so even my sea anchor wouldn’t have helped, as it would just have grabbed a big hold of the eddy.

So I’ve just had to ride it out. The good news is that the wind is backing further, so by tomorrow I should be on my way again. I was missing my wiggly line (extinct since the demise of the chartplotter) so I plotted today’s positions manually on chart paper, and could see that I am doing an anticlockwise circuit. Tomorrow I should slingshot out of the top. Hurrah!

It never rains but it pours… late this afternoon I noticed that my batteries weren’t charging. It was the same problem that had caused my pitstop in the Abrolhos Islands. I knew where to look this time. I opened up the control panel and sure enough, the LED light on the Sunsaver Duo unit was red instead of green. I knew it could be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting 4 wires on the unit. Easier said than done, though. Why are these things always in the most inaccessible place? Behind the control panel, in the far corner of my cabin, hiding behind a load of other wires. But after some keyhole surgery we were looking in good shape again.

If anybody has access to a manual for a Sunsaver Duo unit, could they please take a look and tell me if there is an easier way to get it up and running again when the LED turns red? There is a little window with 6 tiny switches in it. Maybe there is a way to use those to reset the unit?

Other Stuff:

StinsonBeach – happy memories! Bolinas is one of my favourite places in the whole world, so I have been through Stinson Beach many a time. You are lucky indeed to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

Zoltan – I always used to bring a sextant and the books of tables, but after lugging them across a couple of oceans and never using them I have left them behind this time. It would be very difficult indeed to get a good reading from the deck of a tippy rowboat, and the sun has been conspicuous by its absence the last few days, but I can completely understand the satisfaction from celestial navigation. I loved doing the courses.

Photo: for the benefit of those not familiar with celestial navigation, it isn’t as straightforward as it sounds! A photo taken during my navigation studies in 2005.

Aimee – I loved the quote from The Great Gatsby. I’d never heard that before. I also like your analogy with a greener future that lies in the past: “Striving for a future that lies in the past could be at the heart of the environmental message of living uncluttered, simpler and ultimately more fulfilling lives.” Thank you for that.

You might like to see this article that I wrote for MYOO, for Oceans Day.

Today’s quote, apropos of tolerance: “If we like a man’s dream, we call him a reformer; if we don’t like his dream, we call him a crank.” (William Dean Howells)

Sponsored Miles: Carl Jones, Gail Brownell.

Not a Drying Day

Last night I had a beautiful dream. I was in my rowboat, and it was being borne along by a multitude of whales. They were huge, gentle presences, all around me. I looked down into the water beside my boat, and could see the dark, slick skin of their backs skimming along just below the surface.

When I looked to the side, there were so many of them, it was as if the water was made up entirely of whales, forming the shapes of the waves with their bodies. I watched in wonder, enjoying their calm company.

So this morning when I woke up, I hopped up on deck hoping to see that my dream had come true. But, alas, no. Lots of rough water with whitecaps, but not a whale in sight. Not even a little one.

Looks like I’ll just have to row.

Other Stuff:

When I say I “hopped” up on deck, I lie. In these kind of conditions that would be most imprudent. I poke my nose out like a mouse from its hole, whiskers twitching for signs of danger. When the coast seems clear, I launch myself out of the hatch and slam it closed behind me, before a wave can crash inside and soak everything. Apart from condensation, my cabin is still relatively dry, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Having said that, the Purple Palace is starting to feel distinctly dank. I would love a nice sunny, calm day soon so I can do some laundry. Some domestic cleaning would be very good for morale.

Thank you to the people who have been offering advice on my recently-deceased GPS chartplotter. But please don’t worry. I would be hung, drawn and quartered and forced to resign my fellowship of the Explorers Club if I set out to sea with only one GPS – or any other piece of essential equipment. I have at least 4 other GPS devices on board. They don’t have charts included, but I have paper charts as backup. And there really aren’t any features out here that would appear on charts anyway – just lots of water!

Betsy Rosenberg – thanks for mentioning my work on your show, and keep steeping that Green Tea Party. We all know how good green tea is for us!

Quote for the day: “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” (Socrates)

Photo: Today’s weather – most definitely not a drying day.

Sponsored Miles: Thank you Nancy Bowman, Courtney Elwood, Deed Knerr, Mary Kadzielski, Carl Jones.

Today I bade farewell to the Richard Russo world of Thomaston, NY, and moved onto a new audiobook – The Brief History of the Dead“, by Kevin Brockmeier.

I almost gave up early on, because the main character is a woman who is left alone in Antarctica after she and her two male colleagues lose communications, and the two men set out for another research base in search of rescue, but fail to return. Today was a gloomy, stormy day at sea and I needed cheering up, NOT to hear about a solitary woman marooned in her own company. It was just a bit too close to home.

But then it got better. In this story, there is a plague on the Earth, and our heroine may well turn out to be the only survivor. Meanwhile, we find out about the existence of an interim afterlife, a staging post on the way to the great hereafter. In a huge city (which bears a strong resemblance to Earth, in fact, to America) souls go in their human form until the last person to remember them also dies. Once they have disappeared from living memory, they then progress to the permanent afterlife.

I’d been thinking quite a bit recently about life after death, and whether it exists. My thoughts had been prompted by Timothy Ray, and also the death a few days ago of a dear friend of my mother’s, a gentleman who passed away suddenly at the age of 89, just as he was about to leave his home to meet my mother for lunch.

The thought had already occurred to me that someone can be said to live on, for as long as there are people to cherish the memory of them. They live on in our hearts and minds, whether or not that individual unit of consciousness that used to be “Tim” or “Peter” continues to exist.

As to that, whether we continue to exist in any kind of self-aware form, who knows?

Although I have read the accounts of people who have come back after near-death experiences, the evidence does not seem conclusive. Maybe they were were experiencing the dying process, and were pulled back before entering a true afterlife. Maybe we continue to exist, maybe there is nothing, maybe we get (re)absorbed into a collective “soul soup”, maybe we get reincarnated, or maybe we get whatever we believe we are going to get. There is no way of knowing.

And ultimately, what difference does it make? Shouldn’t we live good and decent and useful lives, regardless of what waits for us on the other side? So I’m not too concerned about not knowing. But I do like the sound of this fictional temporary afterlife as portrayed in “The Brief History of Death”. It has coffee shops.

Other Stuff:

Today was grey, rainy and cold. All day. With waves splashing up at me as well as rain coming down at me, just to make sure I got as wet as possible. Even though I am now (of course) in my cabin, it is a bit like camping in the rain. Everything gets damp, no matter how careful you are. Bedding and clothing feel clammy from condensation, and my waterlogged feet are taking a long time to warm up.

If I am to even think about doing the North Atlantic next year, I need to give serious thought to clothing, or I will end up with extremities dropping off. I am particularly concerned about my feet. Neoprene booties don’t seem to be helping all that much, and also make my feet slide out of my rowing shoes. Any ideas?

Anna F – I like your nana’s definition of death, as a chance to savour your memories of life. In a coffee shop, preferably…

Hi to Barbara in Prague, a city I have never been to, but would love to visit one day. I’m imagining dark and gothic…. but maybe that is the Faustus rather than the reality.

Jim Bell – I’m a Terry Pratchett fan too. And Douglas Adams. I wonder what kind of heavens they have ended up in….

Quote for today: “The meaning of life is that it stops.” (Kafka)

Photo: can anybody tell me what this little creature is? It is photographed in my all-purpose bucket, which has made its legs look red, although in fact they are black. It jumps around like a crazy thing.
There were several of them on board my boat today. They must be water creatures of some sort, as I’m sure they haven’t been here all along.

Sponsored Miles: Deed Knerr, M C Edwards, Mary Lu Kelley, Celia Savage, Suwin Chan – thank you!

I’d been looking forward to doing some science, in my very amateurish way, while at sea. I’d asked around to find out what I could usefully do, constrained as I am by time, space, and ignorance, and was assigned three missions. Alas, I have to confess, I have utterly failed so far in two of them.

One, at least, I knew I could do. Following on from last year, I have been making cloud observations for NASA, as part of the NASA S’COOL project. As their two satellites, Aqua and Terra, circle the Earth, taking photos of clouds from above, at approximately the time that they cross my position I take photographs of the clouds from underneath, and note the temperature, barometric pressure, my latitude and longitude, and descriptions of the clouds.

I quite enjoy noting down these details in my little yellow notebook. As well as giving me an excuse to stop rowing a couple of times a day, it makes me feel a bit like Charles Darwin or one of the other great voyager-scientists in my own humble way.

However, my other attempts at science have been less successful.

Daniel Pauly, esteemed marine scientist and good guy, asked me to take pictures of birds. This I have dismally failed to do, even though I see those pretty white-bellied birds every day. My reactions are slow, and the reactions of my digital camera even slower, so I end up with pictures of nothing but sea and sky. Like I didn’t have enough of those already.

But probably my most embarrassing failure so far is the sampling of ocean plastics. Dr Marcus Eriksen of 5Gyres made two very handsome trawls, a main and a spare, and shipped them to Australia along with a full complement of envelopes for the resulting samples.

I had my first doubts when I opened the box in Perth. The trawls, although beautifully made, seemed huge in relation to the size of my boat. June’s pertinent comment when she saw them was “let no good deed go unpunished”. I had to agree.

With some difficulty, I found space to store the trawls in the storage cabin, and there they stayed until a few days ago. I felt very guilty about not having tried them out yet, but was using my lack of forward progress as an excuse. Eventually, after they started intruding on my dreams, such was my guilt, I decided I really did need to at least try to make good use of them.

I deployed one of the trawls from the side of my boat as instructed, and went back to the oars. Oh man. Every stroke was like weightlifting, and the already slow progress of my boat all but ground to a halt. This was just not going to work for me. I persevered for about half an hour and then gave up, my only catch being a few dozen fish eggs.

I have now confessed all to Marcus, and he has been most gracious about my dismal failure. I believe the trawls would work very well off a sailboat, but not so well off a human-powered boat. If I spend time on the sea anchor in the future I will most definitely try the trawl again – in fact, it would work pretty well as a sea anchor in itself.

Meanwhile, I’d best just stick to my photos of cirrocumulus and altostratus. And bits of sea and sky where a bird just was.

Other Stuff:

Today started grey and I thought it was here to stay. But then it cleared and there was a lovely display of fluffy altocumulus this afternoon. Then the clouds with legs reappeared, and by sunset were marching all around the horizon in a squally mass. Progress continued slow and steady.

I’m really enjoying my Richard Russo book, Bridge of Sighs“. Like many of his books, it touches on topics dear to my heart. Are humans products of nature, nurture, or free will? How much are we in control of our destiny? Is it better to challenge everything, or to accept it? I am already sad that sometime soon the book will have to come to an end.

A very special hello today to Max Gotts, 9-year-old son of my old Oxford crewmate Natalie, recently relocated to Mill Valley, CA. Natalie tells the full story in her blog, but in case you’re reading this offline, here is the crux of it: for World Oceans Day, Max (aka Superhero Ocean Warrior and Turtle Rescuer) organized fifty-two 2nd and 3rd Grade children and teachers in a competition to collect as much rubbish from school property as possible. He’d explained to them the importance of looking after the oceans and the significance of the ocean’s health on other animals’ and humans’ health. Good for you, Max, and keep up the great work. Turtles are my favourites too!

Hello also to the Einreinhof family – Mark, Heather, Michael and Kaitlyn. Mark very kindly replaced the beloved G-Shock solar watch that I lost overboard on the Pacific. Mark, I use my watch to set alarms for the times each day that the NASA satellites are going overhead, and think of you with thanks every time I do so!

Thanks to Claire in LA for the beautiful Oceans Day visualization, and also to Tim Ray’s family for letting me know that his ashes have been scattered at sea, where he is now exploring all its wonders. Both are wonderful ways to picture the oceans, the lifeblood of our planet, and to feel connected to them. Thank you.

Thanks, Pippa, for the news on Keith Whelan. Glad to hear that he is okay, and that they picked up the boat as well, albeit slightly damaged. If he needs a good fibreglass guy in Geraldton, I can highly recommend Shane Donegan, who fixed Sedna after her damaging encounter with the crayfishing boat. He did a superb job.

Martha K – thank you for the laugh! I enjoyed hearing about Goldin’s hypothesis that: The “whoosh” sound of the ocean “brings up feelings of relaxation and tranquillity.” I can only conclude that she was talking about the sitting-on-a-beach kind of ocean whoosh, rather than the here-comes-a-capsize kind of a whoosh!! Still, if it increases people’s appreciation of the ocean, even if not relevant to my personal experiences, then it’s all good.

A quote to set you thinking today: “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Sponsored Miles: Today’s thanks go to Kristian Ruggieri.

Latest Podcast now available: http://rozroams.squarespace.com/podcast/2011/6/9/episode-35-one-tiny-pin.html

Yesterday colour

I spent this morning lamenting the passing of my GPS chartplotter (model 265C, if you’re interested). I reminisced about the formative experiences we have been through since it was first installed on Sedna in Hawaii in 2008. I thought of the photographs I have of its little screen showing 180 degrees East (the International Date Line) and shortly thereafter, 0 degrees North (the Equator). I remembered how it has counted me down from an impossibly large number of miles to, eventually, zero, as I arrived at my destination.

By this afternoon I had set up my backup GPS (the very basic Garmin eTrex) with my route, and to use my preferred units for position and distance, and was pretty much over my faithful old 276C.

It’s not that I’m fickle. Just that there’s no point wishing I still had something that I don’t. I could choose to be annoyed by the demise of the chartplotter, or I could choose to lay it to rest and move on. The latter seemed the less emotionally exhausting option.

I thought my motivation might drop off when I couldn’t watch the miles or the degrees ticking down on the GPS display as I rowed, but in fact the opposite has been the case. Instead of focusing on the rowing and the numbers, more of my brain has been available to indulge in the welcome distraction of audiobooks (currently Bridge of Sighs“, by Richard Russo).

All of which has served to remind me of the endless and marvellous adaptability of the human animal. We tend to dread change out of all proportion to the reality of it. “Oh no, we couldn’t possibly do without….”, when in fact we very possibly can.

This is one of my arguments in favour of a simpler, less environmentally impactful life. I’m not saying we should return to the stone age – I like my toys as much as the next geek. I’m just saying that we might surprise ourselves what we can manage without, and how quickly we would adapt to our new “normal”.

And wouldn’t it be good if we made those changes as a matter of choice, while we can still select what we keep and what we can do without, before those decisions are thrust upon us?

Today - grey

Other Stuff:

Today has been grey. Unrelenting, unremitting, grey. Grey sea, grey sky. Thanks heavens for this big bold splash of purple.

Apparently my comms problems are due, at least in part, to solar activity, which is due to calm down after June 10. Here’s hoping…

George Sackett – you asked about the purple flash at sundown. I’ve heard of the green flash, but not a purple one. Are you sure you haven’t caught “purplitis” from my frequent mentions of all things purple?! Either way, alas, I haven’t seen a flash of either colour, despite always looking out for it. Maybe one day!

Jay – thanks for the plentiful supply of verbs. I will attempt to live up to them, and certainly felt invigorated after reading them.

Apropos of verbs, it’s funny thinking about the “Eat Pray Row” moniker. All three most definitely present and correct. During those two false starts from Australia, I made the most of my time ashore by having repeated “last suppers” (not to mention last breakfasts and last lunches too!). I just about ate the Davidsons out of house and home during my unscheduled pit stop on North Island (sorry, Mike, for scoffing so many of your hot cross buns!). During the knockdowns there was a fair amount of praying going on. And now, thank heavens, we’re into the rowing phase, although I am sure that there will be much more eating and praying too before the story is over….

Sponsored Miles: Donna Perry, Vicki Jackson and Don Lunge – thank you!

Not me living on borrowed time (don’t panic) but my GPS chartplotter. Today has been a bad day for electronics.

This afternoon the GPS kept beeping to say it had lost its external power supply. When I removed the power cable to investigate, one of the five pins parted company with the GPS, stuck in the hole of the power cable’s plug. So I won’t be able to charge the battery any more.

It’s not the end of the world – I have various other GPS-enabled units on board, and in 2008 managed to navigate from San Francisco to Hawaii using the TomTom out of my car after my chartplotter failed on Day 2 – but I will miss my little Garmin. Its large, friendly numbers have kept me company through many a rowing shift. When motivation is flagging, I could tell myself “just another mile” or “just another 0.01 of a degree”. Now I’ll have to go back to counting oarstrokes, as my other GPS units had best stay inside the cabin for their own good.

My satphone is also playing up. Today I was trying to discuss the future of EcoHeroes with Steve Nelson in California when we lost the signal and I couldn’t reconnect with the Iridium network. A couple of hours later I managed to get a signal and speak to Mum, and she started to tell me that communications have been affected by solar activity.

But I didn’t get the full story because just then, ironically, we lost communications.

Other Stuff

I finally managed to receive some emails last night, which means I now have a huge backlog of comments to respond to. I’ll do my best!

Spirituality – thank you so much for all the very thought-provoking comments about spirituality. I’ve started to appreciate what a very enormous topic it is, but also which aspects of it particularly interest me. I realize this isn’t a very democratic way to organize a discussion – picking the bits “I” want – but it’s my blog, so that’s the way it goes.

I would say that I am most fascinated by the philosophical end of the spirituality discussion, rather than the religious end. So I’m pondering questions like: Why am I here? Why are any of us humans here? What is our relationship to each other? To other living things? To the planet? To the future? What is the relative importance of nature, nurture, and free will? How is everything connected? Or, isn’t it?

More on these and other easy (?!) questions over the coming weeks…

Following rower Keith Whelan’s rescue from the Indian Ocean earlier this week, a press conference was held in Australia today, Thursday. There is an update with pictures on his website, showing the rescue, and his boat on board the rescue vessel.

To Anna in Delaware – Hope you had a happy 12th birthday and enjoyed your birthday cake. Wish I could have been there to share it!

Marty Hawke – thanks for the invite to speak. I’ve made a note of it, and will get back to you once I know my schedule for the remainder of this year. CA wines in San Luis Obispo sound good to me!

Anne and Pete – I would LOVE to come and stay at your beach house in Jersey. Invitation noted! Funny to hear from you – just that day I had been thinking about the two of you, and Mike and Pippa Brooke, and our boat-cleaning in Antigua. And, of course, dinner on board the Muskrat!

Shelley Blum Ziegler – thanks for the offer of help in NJ next year. I’ll keep you posted, and look forward to meeting you!

Connie – I’ll be dropping in to get my hair done just as soon as I can once this row is over!

HeyMissK – loved the Emile Zola quote: “If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”

Charity – you ask if I believe in the creator. Good question, and more on that in due course…

Bonnie Monteleone – I’d say I’ve seen about a dozen objects floating in the ocean since I left from North Island. I haven’t been close enough to identify them, and since a close shave last year have sworn not to go swimming after things in the ocean. Very sad to see such things so far from land. Keep up the great work with 5Gyres!

Kevthebrit – hahahaha! Enjoyed your description of my feathered friends. Very entertaining!

Guin Batten – your version of maritime rowing sounds a lot more civilized than mine. “Home for tea” sounds good to me. Will def come play when I’m back in blighty! I’ve been invited to Istanbul for an event (non-rowing) in September. Not sure I’ll make it off this ocean in time though!

Sindy – lovely to hear from you. Hope to be in SoCal later this year. See you then!

PeacefulJeff – no, I’m not familiar with the “three mental poisons” but am intrigued. What are they?

Sarah Watson – good for you! Keep living life with purpose, and the rest will follow.

Sally in DC and Anna in Yorkshire – thank you both for your beautiful messages of encouragement. I have to confess that I am finding this row a tough one, and your words moved me, and will help me keep on going. Thank you.

Thanks to Steve Ray for passing along details of Oceana and the donations page they have set up in honour of his brother, Tim (as mentioned in my World Oceans Day blog).

Oh boy. This has been a long bloggage session. Time to get off my backside and into my bunk!

Just before I go, a final quote for you: “The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” (Ben Stein)

Photo: if all else fails, at least I have my compass!

Sponsored Miles: Today our thanks go to Jo Fothergill, Catherine Good, Donna Perry. (If a name is shown on more than one day, it is because they sponsored several miles)

I finished listening to “The Book Thief“” today. It really moved me. At the denouement I was sitting there in the sunshine, rowing along with tears rolling down my cheeks. So it may be best not to listen to the last part while you are driving. Or you might be in danger of a premature meeting with the author.

The “author”, in this case, being Death. The book is written from Death’s viewpoint. He’s quite a nice chap, actually – very sensitive, and with a wry sense of humour, which I suppose helps in that line of work. As he points out, he is not a killer. Death is simply a result, not a cause.

This book is set during World War II, when Death was extremely busy. He witnessed, and reflects on, the best and worst of human nature. The story centres around the life of a young girl in Nazi Germany, her foster parents, the Jew who hides in their cellar for two years, and the boy next door. The tale is told with simplicity, beauty and truth, and I highly recommend it.

Other Stuff:

I am having technical problems. Last night it took me about 40 attempts to send my blog (I send it as an email, and my mother posts it to the website). I haven’t managed to pick up any incoming email for 2 days, so apologies for not acknowledging your comments, but I haven’t been able to receive them as yet.

I am not sure what the problem is. The comms log has shown a variety of error messages, and has broken down at different stages of the process at different times. I will keep the show on the road somehow, but there may be some glitches. No need to be alarmed if there is some disruption to usual service.

Last night and today have been rough. I’m not complaining, as the wind is helping me in the right direction, but I was relieved this evening when it came time to retreat to the cabin to warm up. As I closed the hatch behind me, it immediately blocked out much of the roar of the wind. I changed into dry clothes, and gradually the warmth is spreading. It probably won’t reach my toes until I get into my sleeping bag.

And how late that is depends entirely on whether my comms decide to cooperate tonight – or not. It’s not fun sitting in this cramped cabin, on a seat improvised from flotation cushions, trying repeatedly to get recalcitrant technology to work when all I want to do is crawl into my sleeping bag and warm up.

A quote apropos of our friend Death this evening: “You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it.” Carl Jung

Photo: where I spend my days. Note the iPod tied to the cargo netting over the sea anchor on the right.

Sponsored Miles: Kathy Dervin, Karen Douglas – thanks for each sponsoring a number of miles.

Timothy Ray

I’d like to suggest that we dedicate this year’s World Oceans Day to Timothy Ray, the passionate young ocean sciences student who passed away last month (as previously mentioned in this blog).

If life had continued according to the normal order of things, Tim would have had about another fifty years on this Earth, and would no doubt have dedicated much of his life to the preservation of the oceans. So with his premature loss we have a shortfall of about 18,250 ocean days that we need to somehow make up for. We could start by everybody reading this blog observing World Oceans Day 2011 on 8th June. I know that most of you never met him, but take it from me, he was one of the good guys. So I hope this is okay with you.

If you’re short of ideas on what to do for Oceans Day, here are a few suggestions:

1. Get informed – maybe watch one or more of the TED Mission Blue talks. If you want the bad news, check out Jeremy Jackson. If you’d prefer something more upbeat, Brian Skerry is very good, and has some superb photographs. But there are lots more there too – you’ll be spoiled for choice.

2. Make a donation – to Oceana, Blue Frontier Campaign, or one of the other nonprofits working for the future of the oceans. See also Marine Conservation Society UK.

3. Have your own mini beach clean-up, or if you don’t live near the coast, clean up along the banks of a river or stream. All rivers lead to the ocean – and take rubbish along with them.

I’ve been trying to think what I can do to mark the day. It seems odd, given that I am in the middle of an ocean, that I’m short of ideas that go above and beyond what I am doing every day anyway. I could refrain from swearing at the ocean for 24 hours, no matter how provoked, but that seems a bit lame. Let me know if you have any better suggestions!

Other Stuff:

Photo: my Hawaiian turtle, positioned above the hatch to the sleeping cabin, just in front of my rowing position. The turtle is my favourite of all sea creatures. I bought this sticker when I was in Hawaii for the 5th International Marine Debris Conference this March.

Ocean life goes on. A few more miles under the hull today. My hands are almost impossibly crusty, with calluses and flaking skin, but otherwise the bod is bearing up okay.

Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to Sindy Davis, Kathleen Detseye and Kathy Dervin

Latest News: Keith Whelan, mentioned by Roz in yesterday’s blog:

Irishman Keith Whelan has been rescued off the Australian coast overnight after suffering a minor injury while at sea.
Keith’s rowing boat was hit by a large wave last night while he slept. The force of the wave threw him across the boat’s inner cabin and resulted in a laceration to the head. Keith was able to stop the bleeding himself and with that in mind, decided to seek help at first light.
At approx. 7am local time Keith alerted a member of his team based in the UK via sat phone, who in turn alerted the Australian authorities.
Contact was made with the local radio operator in Geraldton and once it was established that there were no fishing boats in the area, contact was made with Kalbarri search and rescue.
Keith was too far offshore for Kalbarri search and rescue, so the matter was handed to Perth Water Police. Perth Water Police issued a Pan Pan and a passing container ship diverted and has now recovered Keith.
The ship is now en route to land with Keith on board.
Once he reaches land, Keith will be assessed and if necessary, will receive medical treatment.
An update will be issued on his condition at this stage.
Keith initially departed Geraldton on his challenge on May 7th. Since then, bad weather has hampered his progress and forced him to spend some time on the Abrohlos Islands, off the Western Australian coast, from where he departed on June 4th.

Okay, I’ve got over my whining phase, at least for now. I am actually feeling quite lucky to have made it out onto the ocean at all, when I compare myself with the two other solo rowers who had hoped to row the Indian Ocean this year.

Rob Eustace, who I met in Perth when he came along to help at the Saturday work party to get my boat ocean-ready, seemed well set up and ready to go. I didn’t see his boat before it left for Geraldton, but it sounded as if it had been in good shape when it left the UK and all he would have to do is hop in and go. But unfortunately he got a horrible stomach bug within the first few days, leading to vomiting and diarrhoea, and abandoned the attempt. I believe he intends to try again next year.

Keith Whelan,I haven’t quite managed to piece together the facts, but I gather that during a tow (either to the Abrolhos or to Geraldton, I’m not quite sure) his hatches leaked, resulting in various rechargers being damaged and having to be replaced. There was also some damage to the rudder.

It goes to show how much is involved in making a successful ocean crossing. Boat, equipment, rechargers, provisions, watermaker, and electrical system all have to be present and correct and functioning (and paid for, which can be one of the biggest challenges). The rower has to manage to stay healthy – with very basic bathroom facilities, more than one ocean rower before now has succumbed to stomach ailments.

Then you’ve got the navigational challenges – islands, currents and winds to contend with. Sometimes ocean rowers have even had to be picked up because they were falling apart mentally – being on a small boat out of sight of land isn’t for everybody.

I don’t say this by way of tooting my own horn. Rather, my intention is to say that I feel very lucky that my troubles were relatively minor, and were discovered while I was still within reach of land and able to get them fixed and get going again within a matter of a couple of days. And thank heavens for Aquapacs, Sea To Summit drybags, and Pelican cases, which I have in abundance and which so far have kept my portable electronics safe from water damage.

Since I left North Island in the Abrolhos, my progress may have been slow, but I’m still out here and still shipshape.

So far. But I know better than to tempt fate by taking anything for granted. Still many miles to go, and anything could happen….

Other Stuff:

There was no wind today, so I was able to make some slow but steady progress in the direction of my choice, which made a nice change. A few squalls around (it’s raining again now) which resulted in this rainbow. I don’t know if you can tell from this picture, but in real life it looked as if the rainbow continued beyond the violet band, heading back into red and yellow again. Is that possible?!

Richard in DFW – liked the Nessie poem! No, I don’t think the Nessie/Heffalump is a collection of creatures. But we may never know.

Jay – thanks for your thought-provoking questions. To pick up on just one aspect of that, it seems to me that much of our “reality” is about perception. We find inspiration where we look for it (Rolling Stones, ocean rowers, etc!) rather than where it actually exists. It is all about how we filter and process “reality” as we perceive it. So is there such a thing as an objective “spiritual reality”? Or is it what we want it to be?

Tumbleweed Truckers – Joe Hurley was superb as the other narrator on “Life”. Even (dare I say it) better than Mr Depp himself. He actually sounded quite like Keith Richards, but with teeth. I hope the skunk aroma has worn off your dog by now. You live in a lorry? Very cool! (except when shared with a skunky dog!)

I am now listening to “The Book Thief“” by Markus Zusak, which was highly recommended to me by James Lush in Perth. By “highly recommended” I mean it was pretty much a direct command to read it! But it was a good call. Excellent so far. Thanks, James!

Sponsored Miles: Grateful thanks to Judy Ebert, Connie Cook and Ian Malcolm – between them they have sponsored quite a number of miles.

Many thanks for the encouraging comments I received after the last time
I had a whine about “what am I doing out here?” I’ve just read them, and
they couldn’t have come at a better time. Today has been another one of
THOSE days. Lots of hard work for bugger-all results. I had retired to
the cabin in a thoroughly grumpy mood, but after reading the comments am
feeling much restored.

I’m sure this lack of progress is all very good for my spiritual
discipline of non-attachment. (Haha! The Thunderbird email app just
popped up an automated reminder, triggered by the word “attachment”,
that I need to remember to add the attachment. Not this time, Thunderbird!)

The concept of non-attachment, as I understand it, is that although it’s
good to care about things, it’s best not to be attached to them, because
everything is subject to change. So if you are attached to, say, your
looks or your house or your job, then eventually you’ll suffer because
one day you may lose them.

This morning I was attached to my goal of x number of miles of progress
today. But a sneaky west wind had other ideas. And so, I relinquish my
attachment to my goal. It was probably all ego anyway.

All the same, and despite all the encouraging comments, I do still
wonder why I felt the calling to do my campaigning through the odd
medium of ocean rowing. I’m sure there are other ways I could have been
at least as effective, without being put through quite such trials of
patience and perseverance.

Next time around, please could I be the supermodel-turned-campaigner, or
rock-star-turned-activist?
A quote for the day: Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. (Aldous Huxley)
Photo: just keep sticking the oars in the water…

Other Stuff:

The sunshine service was turned back on today. Good news! Enough sunshine to power the watermaker to replenish supplies after yesterday’s gloom.

I saw a container ship today, the first I have seen since I left the
Abrolhos Islands. I didn’t feel the urge to raise them on the radio. In
fact, I felt vaguely indignant that they were intruding on my ocean.

I finished listening to “Life” by Keith Richards. I ended up really
enjoying it. Now I’m back to some good old Maisie Dobbs, my favourite
psychologist/private investigator. This particular story is set in a
Cambridge college founded to advance the cause of world peace. If only.

Sponsored Miles: Scott McCarter (with birthday wishes for his daughter Anna), Kevin Hamilton and Judy Ebert.

Today I entertained myself with thoughts of what I would do if I could take a day off and teleport myself to anywhere on the planet for 24 hours.

As it’s June, and my favourite time of year in England, I think I would head back to Blighty to enjoy the blossoms and fresh foliage on the trees and long hours of daylight.

I’d love to go for a good long walk, as I find walking very therapeutic and the two steps to my rowing seat and back just aren’t doing it for me. Maybe I’d do part of the coastal walk in Devon, or more likely head to the Lake District and go for a long yomp with my sister. We’d have a hearty English breakfast to fuel us up, and then head out for a good fifteen-miler or so, enough to work it all off again.

We’d enjoy a picnic lunch at the top of a mountain, enjoying views of the cloud-dappled countryside below us – lakes, villages, farms, and fields full of sheep and newborn lambs. We’d natter on about this and that as we walked. The nice thing about spending time with my sister is that we don’t have to work too hard at conversation. We can talk, or not talk, and it’s all okay.

In the evening we’d meet up with a few others and have dinner in a country pub, with real English beer enjoyed in front of a cozy fire. Oooh, that beer would go down well after a long day’s walking. And maybe game pie with veggies. Followed by sticky toffee pudding. (This is a fantasy day, remember, so I don’t need to worry that all that rich food would keep me awake.)

And then, just to round it all off, a massage. Ah, what wouldn’t I give for a massage right now! Followed by a night of the deep and dreamless.

But then it would be such a rude shock to find myself back on board my boat. That would be the trouble with a fantasy – the bump back to reality.

So maybe I’d best just get on with this, and save up my fantasies for fulfillment once it’s all over.

Other Stuff:

The weather has been turned back on. Thanks to whoever it was who paid the bill and got it reconnected. Not sure if you went to the right supplier, though – this isn’t the kind of weather service I was used to. It used to be mostly sunny, but today was overcast and grey. As I am typing this, rain is drumming on the roof of my cabin, and I am glad to be inside. Can you take a look in the Yellow Pages and see if you can find a sunshine supplier? And see when they might be able to schedule the connection?

Thanks for the feedback on my blogging foray into matters spiritual. I feel encouraged, and will occasionally season my ocean blogs with a smattering of spiritual-ish type musings.

Thanks especially to Rico for his thoughts on religion (blog for Day 28). I acknowledge your point about the benefits of sticking to one religion, while still being well-informed about others. I’m probably not the best person to respond to that comment, having an aversion to organized religion – or, in fact, having an aversion to authority figures, particularly male ones, which most religious leaders seem to be. I make an exception here for the Dalai Lama, of whom I am a fan. Having been very obedient and unquestioning in my early life, I now seem to be making up for lost time, and react poorly to instruction. Maybe in time I will find a balance between the two extremes.

Cornelia – interested to hear you are reading “Conversations With God”. I read it in 2004, and it was VERY formative for me. Especially powerful was the concept that everything you think, say and do says something to the world about who you are. Wow. Powerful stuff!

Karen S – a 24-foot sailboat? That is TINY! Only one foot longer than my boat! Where are you planning to sail to? All sounds very exciting. Good luck with final preps, and bon voyage!

Karen – congrats on (mostly) giving up use of your car. And living in Western Canada, I am sure that you have some absolutely awesome places to vacation without ever needing to get on a plane. Lucky you! An idea for further ensuring a healthy future for Mother Earth – when/if I have more geographical stability (aka a home) I intend to look at ways to become more self-sufficient food-wise. Even on a small scale, it would help to reduce food miles, food packaging, and would also be a great way to ensure that my food is truly organic. Just a thought….

Hi to Penny, one of my old OULRC crewmates. Thanks for the message, and congrats on the Jura Fell Race. Sounds gruelling. I am VERY impressed! We’re not doing badly for old women, are we?! I wonder if you’ll run into my cousin at one of these races. She is a fell runner too, based in Yorkshire. Diane Haggar (nee Savage) is her name. I’ll introduce you two when I’m back on dry land.

And finally, a thought-provoking quote to leave you with:

The man who sticks to his plan will become what he used to want to be. (James Richardson)

Photo: my solar panels had woefully little to work with today

Sorry to hear about Keith Whelan‘s misfortunes, but am glad to hear he is safe on North Island. I expect he is staying with Mike and Cath Davidson, who also kindly took me in. At this rate they will have to start charging B&B rates for ocean rowers! The Indian Ocean is proving challenging for rowers this year.

Sponsored Miles: Tim Williams – more than one mile sponsored.

Never mind an existential vacuum (per yesterday’s blog) – today I feel like I have been rowing in a meteorological vacuum. The weather just didn’t turn up. Maybe it’s been cut off. Did somebody forget to pay the bill?

I suppose there was some weather. The sun shone. Clouds came and went, and very prettily too. But there was not a breath of wind all day. The ocean had no wind waves, just a long, slow, rolling swell. The ocean seemed simply vast and endless.

I slogged along, sympathising with sailors who have gone stark raving mad in the doldrums, craving for the weather to just do something, anything, to alleviate the nothingness of it all. I keep scanning the water, and the horizon, and the sky, vaguely hoping to see something new. But there is just more endless blue.

At least I have one advantage over the sailors of old. I’ve got Keith Richards to keep me entertained.

Other Stuff:

A special hello to Pippa in Perth (nicely alliterative). I continue to silently thank you every time I lay my weary head on the pillow you bought to replace the rather solid old ones in the Purple Palace. This one continues plump and bouncy and very, very comfortable. Thank you!

Also a shout-out to Col. I was thinking back to the creative pictures you took of our evening event at the UWA boat shed. I am sure that if you were here you would find a lot more interesting angles and subjects to photograph than I am managing to think of. I will try asking myself “what would Col photograph here?” and see if that helps!

Margaret – loved the quote so much I will reproduce it here. Thank you. “He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.”~ Horace

Julie (Tim Ray’s mother) – thank you so much for getting in touch, and for your kind invitation. I will definitely let you know the next time I am in southern California. I think of Tim daily, and my thoughts and prayers are with you and the rest of his family.

Anna Farmery – grand to hear from you! Congrats on surviving law finals. I still occasionally have nightmares that I am about to take mine, and am woefully underprepared. Oh hang on, that’s what actually happened! Anyway, well done, and very much looking forward to a celebratory beer next time I am in Yorkshire.

Marks the Spot – there was a really good TED talk, too, on using gamers to solve real world problems. Elizabeth McGonagal, I think, was the name of the speaker, although I may not have the spelling 100% correct.

As mentioned in today’s podcast, there are these lovely birds that have been keeping me company out here. They have white bellies and grey backs, and skim low over the waves, almost touching the water with their wingtips. I have tried to get pictures of them, but they move too fast, and my camera is very slow. Does anybody have any suggestions what they might be?

Photo: the pinnacle of today’s excitement – mares tails overhead.

Sponsored Miles: Michael Dunn, Joe Dominguez, Tim Williams, Diane Freeman.

Sunrise

Today I went back to listening to Life, the Keith Richards autobiography. It seemed hypocritical of me to criticise his book for moving too slowly, when I am struggling to make two knots. And today I was much more in the mood for it. On an otherwise undistinguished day (I am still languishing in that meteorological no-man’s land of negligible winds) the book passed the time well, and even inspired a little musing on the nature of spirituality.

The following is purely my view. You’re free to agree, or disagree, or not to care. But I offer it up in the hope that it might make you think about your own definition of what is spiritual.

Spirituality, for me, is the recognition of that shared living spark that resides in every living thing. Scientists haven’t yet managed to explain what makes us alive, or in what part of our anatomy our “aliveness” resides, and yet it is there, connecting us with everything else that is alive.

If you’re alive, then you’re spiritual, whether you acknowledge it or not. You have life, therefore you have spirit. What else animates you, prevents you from being just a lump of skin and bone? It is your spirit.

When we say someone “has spirit”, what we really mean is that their spirit shines brighter than the average. Often this equates to them having a purpose, which endows them with energy and drive, and we unwittingly respond to this on a spiritual level. It isn’t something we see or hear or feel – we just sense it and are drawn to it.

Looking up at the stars tonight, it occurs to me that this is why we call some people “stars” – of music, or acting, or whatever. There are billions of stars in the sky, but some of them shine brighter than others. Human stars are like that. Their spirits shine brighter, illuminating more planets and visible from further away than the rest. They touch more lives.

To be spiritual involves feeding your spirit, shining brighter, touching more lives. You don’t have to focus on touching more lives as an end in itself – it just happens as a by-product of your spiritual growth. A star doesn’t have to try and shine brighter in the night sky. It just does.

To be a human star, you feed your spirit by finding a purpose, and having the courage to pursue it. As Viktor Frankl says, purposes vary from human to human, and from moment to moment. For Laurey and Rochelle (members of this blog’s community and now also friends of mine) it might be their respective battles with cancer. For Timothy Ray it might have been his passion for ocean science. For Richard in DFW it might be the sharing of his life story through a film.

And for Keith Richards it is his music. Hmmm, who would have thought that a raddled old rock star would inspire such contemplations?!

Other Stuff:

Does anybody know why the narration of “Life” suddenly switches from Johnny Depp to somebody else at the start of Chapter 5? Did he quit? Or have to depart to be a pirate of the Caribbean? Or did he just get tired of mis-pronouncing English place names?! (Sorry, that was a cheap shot. It’s just plain rude to make fun of Americans for getting the pronunciation wrong, when in fact their versions are much more rational than the strange but time-honoured pronunciations that Brits use.)

As aforementioned, the pursuit of more favourable winds continues. But they continue to elude me. Looks like tomorrow will be another day of chasing, but I’m not too concerned. Progress may be slow, but conditions are comfortable and life aboard the Purplest Boat in the World continues in an entirely satisfactory manner.

Photo: the flip-side of yesterday’s dawn rainbow – what was going on in the east while the rainbow adorned the west

Sponsored Miles: Joe Dominguez. Michael Dunn, Martin Hawke – and some unsponsored.

Dawn Rainbow

Today I listened to a short but tremendously inspiring book – “Man’s Search For Meaning”, by Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

He believes that the cause of much 20th century malaise (and this is probably even more true of the 21st century) is a lack of life purpose. It was his own strong sense of purpose – the book that he intended to write – that helped him survive the horrors of the holocaust. When you have a strong enough reason why you want to stay alive, you’ll find a way how.

Not for a moment to compare my Atlantic crossing with a concentration camp – it was pretty bad, but nowhere near that bad – but I was interested to find that I stumbled across a couple of psychological survival techniques that he mentions.

When his life at Auschwitz was at a particularly low point, he mentally stepped outside his immediate situation, and imagined himself giving a lecture on the psychiatric aspects of the experience. In a much more mundane way, when I was struggling to cope mentally with the Atlantic crossing, I found it helpful to think about a speech I was due to give in New York in a few months’ time, and how I would summarise what I had learned on the ocean. It really helped to get some objectivity, and to derive something constructive from my struggles. The retrospective perspective.

He also mentioned something that has echoes in my obituary exercise. In helping people to find meaning in their lives, he suggests that they consider the biographies of the people they admire, and to deduce from that what might bring meaning to their own existence.

So maybe what I went through in my early thirties was not an early midlife crisis, but actually the realisation that I was in what Frankl calls an “existential vacuum”, that the pursuit of money and possessions could not fill.

He quotes statistics (from the 1980s, I think) showing that the “existential vacuum” is especially prevalent in the USA. This made me think of, and be encouraged by, the recent youth eco marches spearheaded by Alec Loorz that were called “iMatter”. I hope this movement is a sign that the tide is turning, that a new generation is emerging where individuals know that they matter, that they are responsible for their future, and that a life with no purpose is no life at all.

Other Stuff:

Having rowed my little heart out yesterday to reach a particular latitude, above which winds were due to turn favourable, I was rather crestfallen to receive an updated weather forecast saying that the goalposts had moved, and the good winds were still at least 60 miles to the north. So today, after a rather spectacular rainbow at dawn (see photo) I found myself in a meteorological “no man’s land” – no wind and not even much of a current. A funny kind of inbetweeny day.

That Big Something was around again. A quick dash and splash at the surface, but not revealing enough to offer clues as to its identity. I’ll call it the Heffalump after the mysterious creature in Winnie the Pooh.

Richard in DFW – the creature could be a Nessie, but would be a very long way from home! Loved the latest instalment of the poem. Very funny! (Oh dear, I’m sure I really shouldn’t encourage you!)

Special hellos to special friends – Doug, Jenna and Gabrielle in Chesapeake Bay, John in Juneau, Norm of the prairies, and Martha Kaufeldt. Martha – good to hear about the Maker Faire. I’m really intrigued by the Maker phenomenon since Vic mentioned it in our podcast, and will definitely be checking it out once I’m back on terra firma. It has to be the way of the future, if we’re going to avoid living in a Wall-E world!

Laurey – sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis. You’re an incredibly strong woman, and I’m sure you will once again face this with a positive and purposeful outlook. I’ll be thinking of you and sending you my strength and love. And I’m sure the rest of the Rozling community will also be sending you their best wishes for a full recovery.

Mum tells me this is an amazing video. I can’t watch it from here, but I’ll post the link so you can enjoy it. Youtube video of a dolphin leading two whales to safety out at sea after they had been stranded on a sandbar in NZ. Humans had given up hope of helping after their rescue attempt failed. Sounds amazing.

Sponsored Miles: David Church, Joe Dominguez (several miles each)