Dictated by Roz at 21.36 and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage
Position: -08.10850S, 152.09482E
A calm sky.
My blog to you tonight is a little parcel of peace. But before you open it, find somewhere quiet. It doesn’t have to be quiet around you as long as it is quiet within you. Peace is very fragile, and you don’t want non-peace to get into the box. So no matter what you are doing, put your work aside for now and take three deep, calming breaths. OK now you are ready.
It’s a small box about three inches in each direction. It is a sky blue box with a deep blue ribbon. Go ahead and open it.
Inside you will find a little silver ribbon on a moonlit ocean. The boat is rocking gently, on water barely ruffled by the breeze, and it is pleasantly cool after the heat of the day. There is no sound apart from the slight gurgle of water and the flap of a bird’s wings as it makes its way across the quiet ocean. A few fluffy clouds are glowing like ghosts in the light of the half moon. You feel the sense of accomplishment in a kind of satisfying way; with skin glowing slightly as though from sitting in a chair in the sunshine. (words not at all clear at this point – difficult to transcribe) It is a scene of pure peaceful serenity, soothing and refreshing.
Keep it safe, close the box and retie the ribbon. Put it away and put it in a place where you can find it again any time that you need it, then you can take it out and relax in a moment of calm in this crazy world. This parcel of peace is my gift to you.
Other Stuff: I am thinking of getting a little model of Brocade made to use when I give talks so that I can show what she looks like. A wooden model, a simplified version of the real thing, with no sticky-out bits to get broken, about twelve inches long. Does anyone know anybody who does this kind of thing ?
Another day of good progress today as you may gather from my general air of serenity. Hot, hard, sweaty work and not as calm a sea as yesterday but as my tiredness increases, I just cut the work into shorter shifts so that I manage to keep it going. There is a light wind from the north but it shouldn’t impact me too badly now that I am in a generally northwesterly current. I am about fifty miles from the nearest land, so that is a reasonable margin of safety.
As of tonight, 414 nautical miles to go.
Nova’s News: Check out the GoRozGo button to find out about Snap a Bag and what to do with it!
Roz’s Ebay Store: snap up a bag, 10% discount until the end of the month.
Grateful thanks to recent donors: Sindy Davis and Brian Klees.
Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai. Many more votes needed and time is running out.
Dictated by Roz at 19.48 local time on May 17th and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.
Position: -06.57845 154 30750
I don’t suppose I can put it off any longer. It is confession time, and please before you are tempted to wag your finger at me, bear in mind that I didn’t have to tell you this. I could have kept it quiet, and you would have been none the wiser. So please resist the urge to tell me what I already know, that I shouldn’t have done it.
Some of you have already guessed it, more or less. It made me laugh out loud that someone wondered if I had accidentally stepped on Alf. That would have been very funny, but not to Alf.
No, it was the other thing. I nearly got separated from my boat.
It was a couple of days ago and I had improvised a sun awning involving a boat hook as a prop. Normally everything on deck is attached with lanyards but not on this occasion. Suddenly the boathook slipped from its mounting and dropped overboard. My first instinct was to go after it, just as I had gone after the electric kettle.
By the time I had removed sunhat, rowing gloves, ipod earplugs and sunglasses, the boathook was starting to look a bit distant but I couldn’t bear to leave it littering the ocean so in I went. Even as I was swimming towards the boathook I remember looking back at the boat and feeling uncomfortable about the distance growing between me and it.
I got to the boathook and started making my way back towards the boat, but swimming with a boathook in hand is not appreciably easier than swimming with the kettle. I didn’t seem to be making any headway at all. After a few minutes I realised I couldn’t possibly make it if I held onto the boat hook. It made me think of the monkey trap were the monkey puts his hand inside the jar to grab the food, his fist then too big to pull it back out of the jar. While he refuses to let go of the food, he is trapped. If I refused to let go of the boathook, I was doomed.
So, reluctantly I abandoned it. But even without it I struggled to narrow the distance between me and my fast-drifting boat. I am not a speedy swimmer, I can stay afloat for ages but sprinting is not my style. But now I needed to sprint. My life depended on it.
I could feel myself starting to tire. My fingers already tired from rowing weren’t strong enough to pull through the water effectively. I felt like I was going nowhere. The boat didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
But what choice did I have? I struggled onwards feeling my heart pounding though from exertion or panic, I couldn’t tell. At last the boat began to get perceptively closer and it was with a huge sense of relief that my outstretched fingers finally grasped the black rope of the grabline. I had probably been in the water no more than fifteen minutes but it had been the longest fifteen minutes of my life, and almost the last fifteen minutes of it.
As I collapsed onto the deck I felt really stupid. Of all the things I said I would never do, this was the most obvious. DON’T LEAVE THE BOAT! And to be sure, I never will again. If I have been in danger of being complacent or blasé, this was the wake-up call that I needed.
It made me ponder that in the context of expeditions nature rarely kills, it is much more likely to be human error, a poor choice of equipment, underestimating the conditions, or an error of judgment. Gott, Franklin, Mallory were all in very hostile environments but environments in which others have survived. It only takes one pivotal mistake to make the difference between life and death.
There is a quote: “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.“ And I have to agree. I scared myself silly but the lesson has been well learned. From now on, no matter what goes overboard, I don’t.
Other Stuff: Rowing? I don’t want to talk about it. Today the wind rose from the south west to the extent that I have had to put out the sea anchor. I wouldn’t say that it is helping much, but there was no better alternative. For the last few hours a persistent thunder storm has been rolling around the skies and I have long since ceased to be impressed by the pyrotechnics and tonight finds me confined to the cabin, damp, bored and distinctly grumpy.
Roz’s Ebay Store:
LED Bulbs.
You can bid on an autographed picture of Roz Savage on her boat (The Brocade). Roz Savage is the sixth woman who has rowed solo 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, and aims to be the first to row all the way across the Pacific. This is the 3rd auction of the 5 autographed pictures that were available. The dimension of the picture is 8 1/2 by 11 inches. The 4th auction will happen shortly before Roz reaches her final destination. The 5th auction will happen after Roz reaches land. You can find the auction in the Roz Savage Items section or by following this link: http://stores.ebay.com/Roz-Savage-Ocean-Rower?_rdc=1
Sale! Reduction! The price of the Roz Savage Organic T-shirts has been slashed by 31%! Now selling at $19.99 each.
LED products, especially the LED bulbs – find them under the Eco-Friendly Items.
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Also vote for our coalition partner Project Kaisei to help remove tons of floating plastic debris in our Ocean! Vote here: http://pep.si/alxXp
Dictated by Roz at 21.17 on 14th May, and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.
Position: -05.19215S, 154.35426
Hawaii 2008: Outrigger Canoe Meeting Roz
Today was eventful. Mostly in ways that made me wish for boring.
It got off to an early start about 4am when I checked my GPS. I was happy with my nice west/southwesterley course that got me safely past Cape Henpan but during the last few hours the currents had changed and now the Cape and I were on a collision course. Some emergency rowing was called for, but as I went into the darkness of the new moon night to try and avoid shipwreck, it was not a very mellow start to the day.
It didn’t get much better. By lunchtime I had managed to break off an arm of my one and only pair of sunglasses and my watermaker ground to a halt for no apparent reason and refused to restart. I have no idea what the problem is. Battery? Motor? But I didn’t have time to investigate. I was still rowing strenuously west to try and avoid dry land.
As the current dragged me closer I could see cliffs, dense trees and white sandy beaches. It all looked very nice but most definitely not where I wanted to be. I was probably a mile or two off shore when three fishermen came out to say hello or, to be more accurate, so say whatever hello is in their language as they didn’t speak any English. They were paddling dugout canoes with outriggers with large carved wooden paddles.
The first guy to approach was a big fan of the betel nut, judging from the colour of his teeth. He wore a faded red Digitel t-shirt and a baseball cap with USA embroidered across the front. In his canoe he had a spool of fishing line, a collection of coral he used as weights and a small backpack. He next man to arrive had dreadlocks and a pair of sunglasses on his forehead. He was stripped to the waist. The third kept a more cautious distance.
I tried showing them on my charts where I had come from and where we are now, but I did not see any flash of recognition. Feeling the need to be hospitable I gave them each a Larabar which seemed to please them. Conversation was flagging a bit given our lack of a shared language so I unshipped my oars and departed, giving them a cheery wave. I have no idea what they made of me and my strange craft. But that was the best bit of my day.
Since then I have been trying make some headway west but with limited success. Looks like those happy days of cooperative currents are over. Lee the weathman sent me an SMS asking me to give him a call, and I know from the context that it is not going to be good news. Or it might be another of those “You can’t get there from here” kind of conversations. I will report back tomorrow.
Towards sunset I was feeling rather discouraged with life, when moral is low I try to do some boat maintenance. At least doing that gave me the feeling of being in control. I needed to beef up my ship lights now that I am going to be spending more time closer to land. I improvised all round white lights from the refractive plastic covering of a raillight fitted over an LED light from relics of an old video camera system. Not pretty but it works, and cheered me up before bedtime.
Oh please let tomorrow be a better day!
Visit Roz’s EBay Store on the right hand side of the page:
You can bid on an autographed picture of Roz Savage on her boat (The Brocade). Roz Savage is the sixth woman who has rowed solo 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, and aims to be the first to row all the way across the Pacific. This is the 3rd auction of the 5 autographed pictures that were available. The dimension of the picture is 8 1/2 by 11 inches. The 4th auction will happen shortly before Roz reaches her final destination. The 5th auction will happen after Roz reaches land. You can find the auction in the Roz Savage Items section or by following this link: http://stores.ebay.com/Roz-Savage-Ocean-Rower?_rdc=1
Sale! Reduction! The price of the Roz Savage Organic T-shirts has been slashed by 31%! Now selling at $19.99 each.
Did you know that you can also buy personalised SIGG Water Bottles and Coffee Tumblers – Roz was really excited that these can help reduce plastic pollution.
Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai
Also vote for our coalition partner Project Kaisei to help remove tons of floating plastic debris in our Ocean! Vote here: http://pep.si/alxXp
Dictated by Roz at 20.37 on Monday 10th May. Transcribed by Rita Savage – with difficulty as the voice message broke up from time to time.
Position: -04.25812S, 157.66557
Today I had rather more company than I wanted and saw more people in one day than I saw in 104 days last year. They saw rather more of me than I would have liked.
It started this morning when I turned around at the end of a rowing shift to see a fishing vessel a few hundred yards away. I dived into the cabin to don shorts and bra and to pick up the VHF radio. There was no point in trying to hide as there was absolutely no doubt that they had seen me and had come over to take a closer look.
They were nice and friendly, and asked if I needed food or water or if I wanted them to pass on a message. I thanked them but said that I had more than enough provisions and adequate communication. I was tempted to ask if they had any ice-cold drinks. I wouldn’t really mind what it was as long as it was cold but I resisted the impulse.
They called back several minutes later to confirm the spelling of Brocade. They said they would report my position
And oh boy! They surely did. I can just imagine it: “Hey guys, you’ll never guess what we just saw! There was this crazy naked English woman rowing across the ocean. Check it out! “
The next thing I knew was my post-lunch siesta was interrupted by a loud throbbing noise. I lifted my sunhat and scanned the sky. A helicopter was approaching rapidly. I hardly had time to dive back into the cabin and scramble into my clothes again before they were about 50 yards away hovering just feet above the water. We had a sort of exchange over the VHF radio but it was mostly drowned out in the din of their engine. After about 5 minutes they roared off into the blue sky.
By now I was beginning to feel like an exhibit in a zoo. I hadn’t even realized that I was within helicopter range of land but surely that has to be the end of the unwanted attention.
So I went back to my usual outfit, as nature intended, and carried on rowing. Having my earbuds in and listening to “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” so didn’t even hear the next helicopter until it was too late. The first I saw of them they were hovering about 30 yards away, waving to me from the open door of the cockpit. With a girlish shriek I let go of the oars and tried to cover as much of myself as a wide-brimmed hat could be made to conceal. My wave to them turned into a kind of “Shoo, go away!” gesture. This really was getting a bit much.
I kept my clothes on for the rest of the day, though of course, nobody else turned up. I suppose I will have to keep myself clad for the remainder of the voyage. It is terribly inconvenient. Clothes get sweaty, messy and smelly and are less easy to wash than skin. I also need to scan the horizon and skies before I use my open-air bathroom.
I can’t help but feel rather disgruntled. I’ve only been out here 3 weeks, hardly any time to myself at all. Humph!
Other Stuff: No sign of Alf, three days now. I may have to resign myself to the fact that he has gone to the big spider web in the sky.
I am on course to pass about 30 miles to the north of the Tuu islands, quite a reasonable margin of safety. I logged a personal best of ??? nautical miles today according to my reckoning, despite all the interruptions. (The voicemail message broke up at this point, and I missed the vital number. Probably get it from Roz 12 hours from now, and will insert it then. Rita)
I wish I could say that it was due to my own efforts but it was mostly thanks to a very favorable current.
There was a torrential downpour while I was having my sponge down . . . . so I got a power shower as well.
Ecoheroes is live and thriving now, but it is never too late to join, so do go to ecoheroes.me and join our community of green-doers.
Thanks for all the great comments. Mum has been passing them along to me. So good to know that you are out there and following my adventure. I am feeling the love.
Rita: Roz is delighted to know your response to her request for comments. I enjoyed reading them – with tears and laughter.
Grateful thanks to latest donors to Foundation funds/contest: Russell Matthews and Daniel Peterson.
Nova: Do join in guessing when Roz might arrive in Madang, by clicking on the Go Roz Go button top right corner of the page. Contest ENDING SOON. Share your stories on [email protected] what you would like to tell or ask Roz if you were to win the personal Skype conversation with her featured in this contest.
Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai
“Also vote for our coalition partner Project Kaisei to help remove tons of floating plastic debris in our Ocean! Vote here: http://pep.si/alxXp
Dictated by Roz savage and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage, due to email failure.
Position: at 21.50 on the 9th May. -04.11930S, 158.68321E
My subconscious is throwing up the weirdest things these days and I seem to be having a field day with my dreams; myself, I don’t attribute too much significance to them. I think they just mean that I am not sleeping well.
Last night was especially restless. It was terribly hot in the cabin. I ran the fan for a while, then turned it off, partly because I did not want to completely drain my batteries and partly because the white noise of the fan completely drown out any other sounds that might signify danger, like the engine of a looming container ship. But then I would get too hot again so I would turn the fan back on then worry about flat batteries and container ships. Repeat ad nauseam.
So about 2am I decided to decamp to the deck but this didn’t work so well either. There was a cool breeze so I wrapped myself in a sarong to stay warm, but the sarong kept parting to expose bit of flesh to the breeze. I had a dream that I was on a train wearing something so tattered that I had a struggle to keep myself decently covered. Then an old friend from college that I had not even thought about for years was trying to kill me. Luckily I made it to the home of a friend in Seattle before Eric’s potshots found their target All very traumatic.
I am finding, even when I am awake, that memories of long-forgotten friends, colleagues and relatives bubble up without warning. I’ve heard at least one Polar explorer describe the same phenomenon. I can only assume that in the absence of the usual avalanche of sensory input, surrounded only by sea or snow, the subconscious has the opportunity to excavate long-buried memories.
I feel like I am having a one-woman reunion with ghosts of life-times past. It’s not unpleasant, actually it’s quite intriguing wondering who will pop up next, and what they might be doing now – and consider how they might have played some part, no matter how small in making me what I am.
Other Stuff: I am missing you. Today when I asked my mother what comments we had had recently on the blog, she told me that there had been lots of useful info on Papua New Guinea from Bill Savage, thank you Bill. But apart from that, very few recent comments. I was rather crestfallen. Even though Mum can’t email me your comments since the demise of my email, she is still passing them along, either by SMS or when we speak on the phone, so do please keep them coming, otherwise I feel I am just talking to myself here, and I do than enough of that already.
A couple of recent audiobook recommendations: Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman: a book about Mr and Mrs Darwin, a portrait of an amazing marriage as well as an insight into the moral dilemmas behind the evolution (so to speak) of the Origin of Species. Interesting parallels with yesterday’s ruminations on committing to making something work. Charles and Emma barely knew each other when they married yet came to know and respect each other – and produce 10 children along the way.
The City, Not Long After, by Pat Murphy. A relatively encouraging post-apocalyptic book for a change. After Cormack McCarthy’s The Road had me ready to slit my wrists earlier this year it was refreshing to read a version of the future where truth, beauty, art and peace are the guiding principles. As a bonus, the book is set in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities, and one of the few places on earth where I can realistically imagine those values holding sway.
Alf: no sightings for 2 days now. Seriously concerned!
Rita: Thanks too for some lovely comments on Facebook. Also a message from Glenn Raynor with personal experience of working in that part of the world, and a taste of their beer. Thanks to recent donors Doug Grandt, (carrot$), Ralf Gobel from Denmark and Sam Miller.
Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai
“Also vote for our coalition partner Project Kaisei to help remove tons of floating plastic debris in our Ocean! Vote here: http://pep.si/alxXp
Nova’s Fundraiser Newsletter:
About a month ago my Skype phone rang; it was Roz Savage and there she was, transported from her location in Canada. I had expected Roz to be a fierce tiger of a personality, so I was rather surprised by her modest cat like gracefulness; I liked her immediately. “Hello Nova, how are you?”, her melodic British accent and happy voice inquired. What? Who cares about how I am, its all about you Roz, right? We spent a good 5 minutes out of our 20 minute conversation on how I was and I began to see the attractive qualities that made Roz a leader.
What impressed me was her genuine concern for others and her sharp intellect as we discussed a multitude of fundraising ideas. I loved her cause to help others achieve big personal goals and we set out to organize a fundraiser to launch her Foundation. The long term goal is to raise funds for the dreams of others. We hope that this final Pacific voyage will be her most successful journey in regards to inspiring people to care for the environment, pursue their dreams, and to support Roz’s dream as well. You now have 7 days to guess the time and date of Roz’s landing. Contest closes on May 17th so enter now and be part of the adventure.
Thank-you!
Share your stories below on what you would like to tell or ask Roz if you were to win the personal Skype conversation with her featured in this contest.
To chip in, click on the Chip In button. To bet on Roz’s time of arrival, click on the Go Roz Go button top right corner.
This is Roz’s blog for May 1st, just before all her technology went wrong.
Maybe because it is day 13 but today has not been a good one. The main casualty has been my 12v electric kettle that I use to boil water.
Tonight I was bringing my kettle out on deck ready to rehydrate my dinner. A sudden a wave lurched the boat and I grabbed hold of the starboard guardrail (oar) with the same hand that was holding the kettle. The kettle toppled out of its bracket and dropped into the water.
I didn’t even stop to think, If I had Id’ve done the same thing. It wasn’t the kettle that mattered, I have got a spare, but I couldn’t drop plastic in the ocean and just leave it there. So with barely time for a quick expletive I followed my kettle into the water, hat and all
The day was not the day I would have chosen to go for a swim. It has been stormy and chilly most of the day and the ocean waters have been sullied by a long windrow of plastic shred accompanied by small slimy green blobs and the occasional jellyfish. It was a nasty, dirty, polluted bit of ocean and the last place I wanted to go for a dip but it had to be done.
I retrieved my kettle and splashed my way back inelegantly back to the boat trying not to think about jellyfish. I don’t suppose that many people have tried to swim with an electric kettle in one hand, so take it from me, it isn’t easy
Unsurprisingly the kettle isn’t working too well now. The light comes on but it doesn’t heat up, which is kind of the point of a kettle, really. So I had to resort to the spare, but maybe kettle number one may recover when it has had a chance to dry out.
Luckily kettle number two is doing a grand job and soon I will be tucking into some nice hot fish pie, extra welcome on such a dank gloomy day as this.
Other stuff: I found the long trail of plastic pieces very despiriting on an already depressing day. I am a long way from land, and I can’t think where such a quantity of plastic has come from. It looks a bit like packaging material – I’m not sure what it is. I picked it up to give to Marc Eriksen for analysis.Yuck.
Alf was sighted on the forecabin today looking healthy as far as I can tell. Alf lives to fight another day!
Big tech hassles, as you may have gathered from the disappearance of my blog. Technology has reverted back to what it was in 2005, and I’m completely fed up with the whole shebang. A carrier pigeon would be more reliable. Pah!
I hear that Yachtpals have posted a nice article about me. I can’t access it, but you can at http://yachtpals.com/roz-savage-9071 thanks to Kim and the gang.
Thanks for all the GREAT comments further to my questions about the past and the present. I can’t even begin to respond so them here , but it was great to see what thoughtful, insightful, visionary readers I have on this blog. I’m honoured!
My position at the end of Day 13 was 1 17.684 S, 165 23.416E.
Today has felt like rather an eventful day – which is a good thing. The ocean can be a very monotonous place, especially when seen from the surface on a slow-moving rowboat.
It started with my first marine megafauna sighting. At about 8am today a whale came to check me out. He announced his presence by blowing out loudly through his blowhole, and proceeded to surface 4 or 5 times around my boat – at one point no more than 6 feet from my stern.
I wish I could tell you what kind of whale he was, but he showed only his dorsal fin – I didn’t see either his head or his tail – which makes identification rather difficult. I’d estimate he was about 15 feet long – just big enough to make me a little nervous during his closer investigations of my boat.
Later this morning I was on the satphone to record our weekly podcast with Dr Kiki Sanford at TWiT.tv. Our special guest this week was my weatherman, Lee Bruce. It’s not easy being a weatherman – from what I’ve seen mariners have a tendency to shoot the messenger, as if the weatherman had willed bad weather on them rather than just reporting the inevitable results of meteorological phenomena – but today I was able to thank Lee for some perfect conditions. After yesterday’s monsoon today has been gorgeous – bright and breezy with only a couple of showers late afternoon.
So after several days of trying and failing, the conditions finally allowed me to make it past 1 degree south – cause for a celebratory Larabar (love the new peanut butter and choc chip flavour!).
Tonight was the first night since I set out that the moon has not risen before I retired to the cabin. There were still a lot of dark clouds around, with just a few stars peeking out, so it is a very dark night until the moon rises in an hour or so. The extreme darkness, plus the rougher waters, plus my book getting to a part where a psychiatrist is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown, all conspired to make me feel a little off-kilter. So I’m quite relieved to be back in my cosy cabin.
So all in all it’s been a slightly unusual day. Mostly good, and I’m happy to be a bit further south after losing significant ground last night. All’s well that ends well.
Other stuff:
My TED presentation is now live on YouTube. I don’t have the URL here, but if you google on my name and TED Mission Blue YouTube, I’m sure you’ll manage to find it. Apparently some very nice comments have been posted so far, which is a relief. I was such a bundle of nerves – very unlike me – that I can’t really remember what I said, but it seems I must have made some sense!
Too bad they edited out the bit where I had to retrieve my notes from my bra. But probably just as well. Jennifer – I had never heard of “swiss army tits” before, but it’s a great phrase! Well, what else is a girl to do when she has no pockets…?!
No Alf sightings today. That is 2 days now since I saw either of my stowaways. Getting worried that they may be deceased. Defunct. Ex-spiders.
Huge thanks to all the people who have already contributed to the foundation fundraiser. Sorry that I don’t have a list of your individual names, but please know that I am very grateful and can’t wait until we have enough funds to start nurturing the next generation of life adventurers.
To contribute, please click on the Go Roz Go contest button in the top right of my website. We are now up to 1839.00 in our fundraiser thanks to all our donors. We have had donations from $1000.00 to $1.00, no donation is too small or too big. Every donation helps so please Chip In!
So Doug from California, you think I won’t make it until September? I’d better paddle harder!
Richard in Austin – great to hear from you! Hmm, not sure the Nauru song was one of your best – but as you say, maybe some warming up is necessary while you dust off the old vocal chords!
Thanks for the info on Nauru. Hmm, don’t think I’ll rush to go there. Am still sifting through the feedback on the “past vs present” question, but am about to time out on limit of discomfort here in cabin, and still have to try and clip shot of whale from video, so am going to stop here.
[Photos: 1) whale 2) today's cloud pic for NASA S'COOL project]
I wrote this blog on Monday on the plane on the way to Tarawa, but it has taken me a while to get online. Apologies for any consternation caused. Liz Fischer and I are about to head off to the Marine Training Centre to see how my boat has fared since I last saw her in September last year, and to start prepping her for my launch – pencilled in for Saturday if we’re ready in time. I will report back later.
Okay, now to my belated report on TED Mission Blue…. [Note: this blog was posted by email due to limited bandwidth in Kiribati, so the formatting may be unusual]
It is unlikely that any other TED speaker has ever had to pause to reach into their cleavage. Well, I guess I like to be different.
TED seems to have a detrimental effect on the nerves. Even seasoned speakers were admitting to a bad case of the butterflies. I am used to speaking without notes, but on this occasion I thought it would be a good idea to have a safety net in case I suddenly seized up onstage. So I wrote the briefest of prompts on a small sheet of paper from a hotel notepad. But where was I going to put it? There was no podium and I had no pockets (WHY are women’s clothes so useless?) so the only place I could think to put it was to tuck it inside my bra.
But I was sure I wouldn’t need it anyway. Like taking an umbrella usually guarantees that it won’t rain, having notes with me usually ensures that I won’t need them. However on this occasion….
I was getting towards the end of my talk. All going well, well within my allocated 18 minutes and still enough time to wrap it up. “My three main messages are…” I started in conclusion. My little mnemonic was that my 3 main points started with S, R and T.
“S is for stories – how the stories we tell ourselves affect our behaviour. For example I used to tell myself that I couldn’t have a big adventure because I was too small and too timid and too, well, female. Then my story changed. I didn’t get any taller or braver or sprout a beard; I just decided that I could. And our story that we need oil, and we need stuff, and the Earth is ours for the taking – that story can change too. It needs to change.”
R is for… eek, can’t remember. Never mind. Cut straight to T, and I’m sure it will come back to me.
“T for tiny actions, which add up into big differences. Each of my ocean crossings takes about a million oarstrokes. One oarstroke doesn’t get me very far, but you take a million tiny actions, and they make a big difference. We’ve had a few major disasters, like Chernobyl or Exxon Valdez, but mostly we’ve got ourselves into this predicament through billions of poor decisions made by 7 billion people around the world. If we start making better decisions, we can still turn the tide.”
R is for…. dammit. Still can’t remember. Only one thing for it.
“Excuse me a moment, I just need to take a quick look at my notes….” I quickly pulled the sheet of paper out of my left bra cup and refreshed my memory while the audience fell about laughing.
“Responsibility!” R is for Responsibility. Phew.
Ah well, at least they’ll remember my speech. Possibly not for the reasons I had intended.
In the immediate aftermath of my speech, I was a bit down on myself for how it had gone. After the triumph of National Geographic Live in Seattle, I felt my TED talk could have been better. But I may need to revise my self-critical evaluation. The response from members of the audience was very positive, and when I took my Galapagos book around for people to sign, the messages were warm and enthusiastic. The talk should be online within a month, possibly much sooner, so you can make up your own mind.
But to get away from me and down to the real point of the gathering, the TED Mission Blue conference, the first TED of its kind, was an amazing experience. The idea is that it is not just a one-off conference, but the start of an ongoing initiative to honour and implement Dr Sylvia Earle’s wish for the oceans:
“To ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, ‘hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”
There was an impressive lineup of speakers, addressing all aspects of the crisis facing the oceans. The 110 people on board the National Geographic Endeavour also included an impressive lineup of guests, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Glenn Close, Chevy Chase, Darryl Hanna, Damien Rice and Jackson Browne.
I thought I already knew a lot about ocean issues, but to receive so much information in a concentrated span of time was an intense experience. For the first time I really grasped the extent, the seriousness, and the implications. Overfishing, by-catch, algal blooms, dead zones, shark-finning and plastic pollution have assaulted our oceans to the extent that in just the last 50 years we have changed entire ecosystems, and the oceans are in danger of total collapse. Covering 70% of the planet, the consequences for land and air as well as sea will be catastrophic. There is still time, but not much.
So these are my resolutions coming away from TED Mission Blue:
Reduce even further my use of plastic. Recycling isn’t good enough, and comes with its own environmental issues. We need to stop it at source.
Eat less protein, and/or get more of it from organic vegetable sources.
Never eat farmed salmon again. It takes many pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon. It is not an efficient use of our limited resources.
Become more informed about what seafood is sustainable and avoid all else. Especially bluefin tuna.
Do what I can to help create marine protected areas across the Pacific Ocean.
If we all pull together, we can make a world of difference.
Other Stuff:
Most magical TED memory: on the last night I was there (I had to leave early to go rowing) there was a waterborne concert by Damien Rice. A flotilla of Zodiac inflatables moored up around a floating pontoon, and Damien played his guitar and sang a few songs while the audience sipped champagne. The camera lights were blinding him, so they were turned off while he sang an encore, The Blower’s Daughter, my favourite of his songs, in the darkness. A very special memory to take across the ocean with me.
I am writing this on the plane en route to Tarawa. 5 huge bags of expedition food and boat equipment are in the hold. Assuming everything gets through customs in Fiji, I’ll be taking a flight in a few hours to Tarawa and my boat, where Liz Fischer and I will get to work packing the boat. If all goes well, I plan to leave next weekend.
I had a couple of final engagements in Santa Monica this weekend – speaking at the Luncheon Society on Saturday lunchtime, and a bon voyage party on Saturday night organized by Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Project. Huge thanks to the Luncheoners for your support and enthusiasm, and to Maryann and Paul Cummins for your wonderful hospitality and kindness. And the yummy choc chip and cherry cookies!
When I am on the ocean I dream a lot. On dry land, less so, but last night was an exception. Maybe the monotony of the landscape we have been traversing since we reached Holland has triggered the same dream response that the ocean does.
My dreams are usually not much more than a re-hash of the day’s sensory input, jumbled up into some surreal juxtapositions – but while there is less sensory input, either on the ocean or in flat, grey Dutch landscapes, it takes less time for my sleeping brain to sort and assimilate it, leaving more time and headspace for dreams of a more interesting nature.
Last night’s dream started out in amusing enough fashion. Loosely based on Pirates of the Caribbean (but unfortunately not featuring Johnny Depp – boo!) I was the captain of a ship, breaking some news to the crew. The bad news was that all our booty had been plundered by another crew of pirates. The good news was that our boat had been chartered to make the next film in the Pirates of the Caribbean saga so we were going to have enough money to keep going.
But then a particular phrase popped out, which has been reverberating around my head all day – particularly this morning as we trudged through exceptionally flat and featureless surroundings, heads down into the rain.
The phrase was: He Who Controls The Wind Controls All The Ships.
Now, this might mean nothing, but given my current near-obsession with Copenhagen, and the fact that the phrase did not evaporate with the morning light as most of my dreams do, I had to give it due consideration. It does seem particularly relevant to Copenhagen. My goal in going to the conference is a little nebulous. What do I have to offer that is not already being offered by 350.org, the Climate Project, the Climate Group, WWF, or the multitude of other NGOs and individuals descending on the Danish capital?
Sign spotted by Alison in Essex - You've made the difference!
Yet despite the smallness of my individual voice in all this hubbub, I have a powerful feeling that I do have a message that, provided I get the opportunity to deliver it, might just be the one straw on the back of the one camel that could make a difference. My message may possibly strike a chord with someone, or some people, and end up changing the chemistry of the debate. This might sound big-headed, but you just never know – and for my own satisfaction I needed to know, when I look back on 2009 and this crucial moment in human history, that I did all I could to make a difference for the good.
This phrase from my dream seems to sum up what I hope to achieve. The wind is invisible, yet incredibly powerful (and don’t we know it after walking into or across it for the last few days!). If the wind represents the invisible energy of the Copenhagen conference, and the ships represent the countries which currently are heading every which way – with some on collision course – then if the wind of change can become strong enough to get all the ships moving in the same direction, there may be hope for a satisfactory outcome.
But my next question is, what IS the wind? What is this invisible force that could make all the difference? Is it the attitude of the US? Is it the governments of China and India? Is it the NGOs? Is it public opinion? Or is it something more spiritual – the intangible energy created wherever large numbers of humans congregate, especially when united by a common focus?
I don’t know the answer, but I’d welcome comments and opinions. Given the lead-up to the conference, it might seem impossible that we will see any decisive action. But who knows – if we can generate a sufficiently powerful wind of change, we may yet achieve the miracle we need in order to create a sustainable future for humanity.
Caption: Laura with Earth Ball (NOT the one that escaped) in front of Tower Bridge
Not apocalypse now, as it might sound, but one of our Earth Balls coming a cropper early today. After a start considerably delayed by a pleasing amount of media interest in our departure from Big Ben, we set out to start our walk to Brussels, packs on backs and inflated Earth Balls on packs. We were walking along the Thames Path towards Tower Bridge when my phone rang. It was the Associated Press news agency wanting to verify a few facts.
I was just talking with them when I heard a pop and turned around to see an Earth Ball (not mine, but I’m not going to name names) float over the railings and down into the Thames. I burst out laughing, at the same time gasping in horror that we had not only lost an Earth, but also inadvertently dropped a piece of plastic in the river. I then had to explain to the AP journalist what was going on.
“We just lost Planet Earth,” I said. “Luckily, we have another nine.” Then a useful soundbite popped into my head. “Unluckily the same can’t be said of the real Earth. That’s what we’re going to Copenhagen to say. We’ve got just the one Earth, and we have to look after it. In real life, we don’t have any spares.”
And that’s really what it’s all about. We need to clean up our act, and soon, if we’re going to have a nice clean, healthy planet to live on, rather than one polluted with toxins, trash, and, errr, errant Earth Balls.
Fortunately the rest of the day passed without incident. We walked along the Thames Path for a while, then turned north along Regent’s Canal, then followed the River Lea out towards Walthamstow. After an early downpour – which unfortunately coincided exactly with our photo shoot for the press on Westminster Bridge – the skies cleared and the winter sun shone weakly on us as we walked along footpaths and towpaths through the of East London. After our late start it was nearly a couple of hours after dark by the time Jane successfully navigated us to the County Hotel in Woodford.
We have already gathered quite a healthy number of signatures on our Earth Balls – everyone from the patrons of the tiny Caffe Nero where we assembled for our pre-walk breakfast to a group of schoolchildren we met on the canal towpath.
A few thank yous are in order:
Thanks to Marmot for our lovely matching orange waterproof jackets. They looked absolutely splendid for our photo shoot this morning, brightened up an otherwise dreary day, and also made it easy for us to spot each other if the group started to stretch out too much.
Thanks to Keen for my lovely walking boots. After a mere hour of breaking in yesterday, they performed magnificently today, with nary a blister in sight.
Thanks to Sue Losson of Green People for turning up to see us off this morning, despite the inhospitable weather. And to Alan Murray of Murray PR on a great job of getting the press along to witness our departure.
And – of course – to all our backers on Kickstarter, and all the other people who emailed or texted today to wish us good luck on our walk. 15 miles down, 235 to go!
And last but not least, the wonderful women of Team BB2B – Jane, Laura, Alison, Nora, and Mary. It makes a welcome change to have company - and such great company too.
Time to clean up our act (Photo by Natalie Behring for Bloomberg)
Let’s forget about climate change.
WHAT??! I hear you gasp. But that’s all she’s been able to talk about ever since she got back from Kiribati. Is she having a crisis of faith?
No, I’m not. Nor am I caving in under pressure from negative comments on this blog. If 100+ days on the ocean couldn’t break my spirit, then a few naysayers don’t bother me.
All I’m saying is that from now on, my stance is going to be officially pro-sustainability rather than anti-climate change. You might think this is just playing on words, but there are two important points to be made here.
1. Focus on the positive
Regular readers might remember the mini-epiphany I had during the last stage of my row – that we need to focus on the solution rather than the problem. Click here to refresh your memory.
To quote Mother Teresa: “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.” I am going to take a leaf out of that wise woman’s book, and suggest that we focus on what we DO want rather than what we DON’T want.
2. Pulling Together
For certain people, “climate change” has become an emotionally charged phrase. Reading certain comments posted on this site, and possibly the comments of Lord Monckton, it seems they perceive a global conspiracy to overthrow capitalism and democracy. They think that climate campaigners are scamming the public to line their own pockets (I can’t speak for every campaigner, but I can assure you that my pockets are most decidedly empty – and you can ask my unimpeachable mother if you doubt me). They see environmental campaigning being used as a vehicle for self-promotion and aggrandisement.
There is little to be gained by engaging in a tit-for-tat exchange of defense and counter-attack. The personal comments are just a distraction from striving towards a solution. So we’ll move swiftly on.
Both believers and deniers point at the statistics to back up their arguments. Well, we all know there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and it is generally possible to find evidence to support any preconceived point of view. We are bombarded with so much information that it can be bewildering to try and make sense of it all, so our natural tendency is to apply filters and see only what we want to see.
Even some of my best friends are climate change deniers – and yes, I do still speak to them. They have done their research, considered the facts, and arrived at a different conclusion. I respect that. They are at least engaged, informed, and conscious. Provided that they respect me and my beliefs, then I will extend them the same courtesy.
Too much time and energy has been expended, by both sides, on attacking each other’s facts and each other’s champions. Instead of uniting mankind against a common enemy, “climate change” has instead become a divisive issue just at the time when we are most in need of unity.
So let’s forget it. Hopefully I can show that ultimately it doesn’t matter whether we believe in climate change or not – that we still actually want the same things.
Let’s instead focus on these questions:
1. Do we agree that we live on a finite earth, and are unlikely to colonise any other planets in the near future?
2. The first oil was drilled in 1859, just 150 years ago. We have now used around half of it. In 1996 the oil industry estimated we had only 45 years left – at 1996 rates of consumption. But consumption is escalating. Even if you think these figures are pessimistic, do we agree that oil reserves must at some point run out, given that they are a non-renewable resource?
3. Does anybody enjoy inhaling exhaust fumes? Have you read about the appalling air quality in some Chinese cities – largely due to coal-fired power plants? Would you want to live there? If you live in LA, are you happy about the fact that 25% of your air pollution comes from China?
4. Would you prefer that your country (whatever country that may be) is engaged in sustainable industries based on renewable energy sources? Or would you prefer that investment continues to flow into industries that depend on energy and fuel sources that must one day run out?
5. Would you prefer that your country (again, whatever country that may be) is at the leading edge of innovation, a global leader? Or would you prefer to see your economy overtaken by other nations that preferred to invest in industries that will be sustainable, not just in the long term, but in the forever term (or at least as long as the sun continues to shine)?
So let’s raise the tone of the debate. Too often at the moment we look like schoolchildren squabbling over a toy – our most precious toy, the Earth. And the danger is that as we pull in opposite directions in our global tug of war, the Earth will end up broken – or at least unable to sustain human life. That is the worst case scenario – or maybe, from the Earth’s point of view, the best.
Are you new to Roz’s site? Are you a long-time fan?
Either way, you will love Roz’s new “Best of Blogs” section where we present to you some of our favorite blogs that she has written over the past several years. Re-live some of her adventures on the open ocean. Learn about some of the causes that Roz is most passionate about. Read as Roz bares her soul and talks about what makes her tick.
We will be continuously adding to this section from blogs both old and new, so check back occasionally to see if some of your favorites have made Roz’s list. And of course, please add your comments to suggest your own favorites!
Continuing my retrospective on Stage 2 of the Pacific, there are a few special moments that will live on in my memory long after my calluses have peeled off and my suntan/burn has faded. Share these with me as we bask in the afterglow of my voyage…
1. Spectacular departure from Hawaii, escorted out of the Ala Wai Harbor at sunset by a flotilla of outrigger canoes, sailboats, motor launches, and a solitary stand-up paddler. A moment to treasure forever. With a special mention to the crew of the Blue Lady who came out after dark for a final farewell. They would be the last human beings I would see for the next 104 days.
2. Crossing the Equator, featuring a countdown on Twitter, paying homage to King Neptune (or at least his very capable deputy, Squishy the Dolphin), and opening up my goodie bag to discover a mini bottle of bubbly. Then getting slightly tiddly and rambling on at length to my video camera about how great life is – until the battery went flat and saved me from embarrassing myself further.
3. Realizing that I was going to be able to make it to Tarawa under my own steam, when a long-awaited southeasterly wind arrived at precisely the right moment to help me past Maiana and into the home strait.
4. Nicole jumping overboard from the boat carrying my welcoming committee, and swimming over to Brocade to deliver my long-awaited cold beer. Now that’s what I call dedication!
5. The amazing warmth of the reception in Tarawa. Three hundred or so people on the dock, all smiling, and the dancers performing a traditional dance of welcome. Especially after so long of being alone, the emotion was almost overwhelming.
6. The little magical moments in the ocean wilderness that made every day special, the entertainments that Mother Nature provides to entertain the solitary seafarer – sunrises, sunsets, the light of the moon, and the always awe-inspiring spectacle of a canopy of stars and the Milky Way.
And deserving of a special section all on its own, my favorite Rozling moments, of which there are really too many to mention. What a great bunch of people you are! The impression I got from the ocean was that a disparate assortment of individuals evolved over the summer into a thriving community. It was fantastic to witness. You know that feeling you get when you introduce two friends who both know you but don’t know each other – and they really hit it off and you can just sit back and enjoy their newfound friendship? Well, that’s how I felt, but on a bigger scale. It was like a whole party-ful of people, arriving as strangers but soon finding common ground and the conversation flowing. The whole became greater than the sum of the parts. I hesitate to pick out individuals, but If I had to select a couple of laugh-out-loud moments from Roz’s Regulars…
- Richard in Austin, TX, for the alternative lyrics to the Village People classic YMCA – entitled ITCZ
- UncaDoug and his Bimini Bobbity Boobity Moon!
I hesitate even more to try and list the names of the stalwarts of the Rozling community, in case I miss somebody out and offend them for evermore. I apologize unreservedly in advance if I don’t name you here, but I think we’d all agree that special mentions should go to: UncaDoug, Richard in Austin, Karen Morss, Laurey Masterson, Sindy Davis, Joan in Atlanta, Naomi in NY, Greg from Conway Kayaking Company, John Kay… and, of course, the inimitable Texino.
To these and to each and every person who has visited my blog this year, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am honoured to count you as my friends!
[photo: Luxuriating in the feel of an ice cold bottle of water just after I arrived on land.]
There is a lot to do while I’m here in Tarawa, but – lazy cow that I am (?!) I grabbed the opportunity for a day off yesterday. By a “day off”, I mean an opportunity to stop, think, and clarify before hurtling on regardless. I suppose you’d think I’d had all the time in the world to think while I was rowing – and I did – but I always do my very best thinking when I have my pen in hand, blank page of my journal in front of me. And ocean thoughts don’t always make so much sense on dry land. It was time to get real.
But first let me tell you a bit about the sheer pleasure of being back on dry land. One of the best things about spending long periods of time out at sea is that it makes me appreciate the simple things of land life so much more. To wake up in a comfortable, clean, soft bed… to feel the warmth of the shower jets on my skin… to open a fridge and take out a bottle of refreshing cold water…
So it was with an immense feeling of wellbeing that I woke up in my hotel room yesterday morning. I lay on the floor to do my morning stretch-and-breathe routine, trying to remember how it goes. I went to sit out on the balcony overlooking the lagoon, which is actually very polluted, but from a distance it’s a gorgeous light blue, so different from the deep blue of the open ocean.
I flipped through my trusty spiral-bound notebook while I ate a breakfast of granola bars. I am a great maker of lists and notes, and it was half-full of the lists I’d made in the month or so before my departure from Hawaii. I felt the need for a fresh start, so I tore out the used pages, neatly trimming away the perforated edges before archiving them. Now I had a book of blank pages, ready for the next chapter of my life.
Continuing my theme of simplicity and fresh starts, I next cleared out my backpack. I’d been shocked when I took it off the boat, safe in its drybag, to feel how much it weighed. Did I really used to carry this around on my shoulders all day, every day?! No wonder I’m getting shorter! I found all kinds of junk that had accumulated in its many pockets – useful junk, put there “just in case”, but now some cases seemed too unlikely to justify the weight. Simplify, simplify, said Thoreau. So I did.
Feeling fresh and organized and ready to face the day, I joined up with TeamRoz and we got going. We headed over to the office of David Lambourne, the Solicitor General, to use his relatively good internet connection so Nicole could post the press release and Conrad could upload his video footage of my arrival for the media. The poor guy had been up all night editing 6 hours down to 6 minutes.
David, originally from Australia but now a permanent resident of Tarawa is fast becoming our local angel, as well as being a local mover and shaker. His wife, Tessie, is the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Kiribati. Somebody (oops, could it have been me?) made mention of massage, and he said that one of Tessie’s relatives does a great traditional Tarawan massage. A quick call to his house, and it was arranged. It was definitely one of the more unusual massages I’ve ever had. I was introduced to a multitude of David’s wife’s relatives, sitting in a row of small shady thatched cabanas on the lagoon side of the island, whiling away the hot hours. Two of them tended to me, while a small audience of aunts, sisters and children watched nearby. I sat on the palm matting under the thatch while I was rubbed down with oil and water, and my aching back muscles soothed with long, gentle strokes. Then I was sponged down with a wad of coconut wrapped in muslin and dunked in hot water. Coconut milk ran down my skin. A gentle breeze wafted in from the lagoon. It was all very nice indeed. I smelled like a pina colada.
My masseuse and I chatted as best we could across the language barrier. She is the same age as me – 41 – but has 8 children and 3 grandchildren. Her eldest child is 26 and the youngest is 7. Her husband died of cancer 4 years ago. What different lives.
I spent the rest of the afternoon communing with my journal in the cabana, covering several pages with thoughtful handwriting while the relatives around me chatted amongst themselves in the melodious language of Kiribati, played dice, crocheted, ate and snoozed in the shade. A litter of new puppies slept in a furry heap underneath the cabana. A pig lay in its pen, also comatose. Island life.
Towards dark David’s wife Tessie came home, and David himself arrived with Nicole, Hunter and Conrad. We sat in the cabana drinking toddy, the diluted sap of the palm tree. It’s unlike anything else I’ve ever tasted, but very delicious. It smells strangely of hot dogs, but tastes much better – sweet and fresh. David told us they gather it by climbing to the top of a palm tree and shaving the bark at the site of a new palm frond to get to the rising sap beneath. As you drive around the island you can see the jars they attach to palm trees to gather the juice.
After sunset we sat on the beach under the palm trees, watching the moon rise over the lagoon as we ate a dinner prepared by the relatives. This is how their household works – David and Tessie work to support the relatives, in return for which the 20 or so members of the extended family provide them with cooking, cleaning, and massage services. Everybody’s happy.
The food was the best I’d had so far on the island. There is nowhere on a coral atoll to grow vegetables, so they are in scarce supply. Cabbage is about the only fresh veg available. So we had coleslaw with local tuna and chicken, and the ubiquitous white rice, washed down with coke, cold beer or a very nice New Zealand Pinot Noir according to choice.
Conversation was varied and interesting – including a lot of talk of climate change, which is very much on the minds of the Kitibati government. But more of that later. This blog is too long already. Ciao for now – more tomorrow. We have to go to the airport to collect Ian, who is arriving from San Francisco to help with the boatworks.
[Note: All travel by members of TeamRoz is balanced by carbon offsets to maintain our carbon neutral status.]
Other Stuff:
Just so you know… I still have very limited internet access. Tarawa is progressing fast, but its infrastructure is still a way behind US levels. David’s office has the best data speeds, but it still took Conrad 7 or 8 hours to upload his 6 minutes of video footage. I’m still having to post blogs via email, and Tweets via my satphone, and it’s not easy for me to see comments and other responses. So please forgive me if I seem a bit remote from the online dialogue. A more normal service will be resumed once I leave Tarawa in a couple of weeks.
Some facts on Tarawa – as gleaned by Nicole from the internet:
Tarawa Overview
Latitude: 1° 25′ North, Longitude: 173° 00′ East
Tarawa atoll is the capital of Kiribati, previously capital of the
former British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
Tarawa is not a single town but a group of 24 islets (of which at
least 8 are inhabited) surrounded by a coral atoll. Apart from the
south where causeways link the islets, one needs a boat to
navigate around the main features.
The largest islet (South Tarawa) extends from Bonriki (southeast
corner of the atoll) along the entire south side of the lagoon to
Bairiki. A causeway now connects Bairiki to Betio (Japanese causeway).
The largest town, Bikenibeu, and the only airport on Tarawa, Bonriki
International Airport, are on the southeast corner of Tarawa.
Betio island, the chief commercial center of the country, is a port of
entry. The main hospital is located at Bikenibeu. The central
Government offices, Parliament building, President’s Office and
Residence, Central Post Office, Telecommunications Services Kiribati
Limited (TSKL), Library and Archives, and various other official
buildings are all on Bairiki islet.
The population is mainly Micronesian. Tarawa was occupied by the
Japanese (1941-43) and fell to U.S. marines after a bloody battle. In
the early 1990s the southern part of the capital, particularly Betio,
had one of the highest population densities in the world, leading the
government to resettle residents on less crowded islands.
They are 2 hours behind Hawaii Standard Time. (ie when it is noon in
Hawaii, it is 10 am in Tarawa)
Travel
Flights: The only flights into Tarawa (TRW) are Air Pacific flights
from Nandi, Fiji (NAN). They leave twice a week, on Tuesdays and
Thursdays.
From Honolulu (HNL), there are a few more carrier options. Air
Pacific flies from HNL to NAN as does Qantas, American, United,
Hawaiian and Air New Zealand.
Ships: Supply ships occasionally go to Fiji and Tuvalu.
Accommodations
There are a few options for lodging on Tarawa but we are staying at Hotel Otintaai. It is the main hotel in Kiribati. Fully owned by Government, the hotel is on South Tarawa with a good view of the lagoon. It is about a 10 minute taxi ride from the hotel to the airport. They have a restaurant, running water, clean rooms and
Internet (ish).
I stepped ashore, setting foot on dry land for the first time in 105 days. This was now my third arrival after prolonged periods at sea, so I wasn’t surprised when the ground seemed to lurch beneath my feet. My brain had adapted to being on a constantly pitching boat, so now it was over-compensating when I stood on terra firma. I looked up at the crowd of several hundred people that had come to greet me, and wondered if my first act on arriving in Tarawa would be to topple over like a drunkard.
Then two big hunky men in traditional island outfits approached and knelt in front of me, forming a cradle with their arms. “Thank heavens for local tradition” I thought, as I sank gratefully onto the proffered cradle.
I was carried to a plastic chair, and the hunky men were joined by several more who performed a local dance of traditional welcome. I felt like visiting royalty as I smiled appreciatively. They presented me with a coconut, its top lopped off so I could drink the cool, refreshing, sweet coconut water inside. It was exactly what I needed. I was feeling a bit woozy after my exertions. It had been an exhausting 3 days.
As I approached Tarawa from the south on Sept 4th, I hadn’t been sure if I would manage to make landfall under my own steam. Given the strong easterly winds that had prevailed over the previous few days, I thought it much more likely that I would get close to the island but miss it by several miles, and would need a boat to come out to catch me as I whizzed past.
But finally Neptune decided to give me a break. I had already made it safely past the island of Abemama (where Robert Louis Stevenson lived for a while). I was making good progress in a northwesterly direction, but there was a problem. Unless I managed to shift course to north- northwest, I would run slap into the island of Maiana. I had to choose whether to go south of it, which would mean I had no chance of getting to Tarawa under my own steam, or else east of it – which was the way I wanted to go, but was it possible? Under present wind conditions, no, it wasn’t.
Then, finally, the long-awaited southeasterly wind arrived. Woohoo! Now I was in fine shape. The wind only lasted a few hours, but I was able to ride it all the way up the east side of Maiana, which lined me up nicely for Tarawa.
I rowed late into the night until I was reasonably sure I was clear of Maiana and its reefs. Then I tried to grab a quick nap, but I kept opening one eye to squint at the GPS to make sure I wasn’t going to shipwreck. At one point I got up and rowed some more, just to make doubly sure. It would have been a real shame to get this far only to end up on a reef within sight of the finish.
So as I approached the final 20 miles into Tarawa, I had had less than 6 hours of sleep in the previous 48 hours, and the heat was brutal. The wind had dropped away to nothing and the sun was intense. When I got to 9 miles out, I really wondered if I was going to make it. After rowing 3000 miles, the last 9 seemed to loom very large. I put some good rocking music on to help me through.
And finally, mile by mile, I crossed off the final hours of my voyage. After each mile I posted another Tweet and had a bite of food. A boat arrived to escort me the last mile or two to land. On board were Nicole, Hunter (from Archinoetics) and Conrad (our cameraman). Also Rob, the New Zealand High Commissioner, who put his sea kayak in the water and paddled alongside me.
But I could feel that I was getting depleted. As I always seem to do, I get over-excited on my final day and push myself too hard. I arrive on land dehydrated, sunburned and exhausted.
The last mile was really tough. I wondered if it would ever finish. Rob told me I was rowing against the incoming tide. I was reduced to counting tens. Just ten more strokes. Then another ten. Then another ten. As I crossed my finish line of latitude, I collapsed backwards off my rowing seat.
But nothing that an ice cold beer wouldn’t cure (oops, ignore this bit, please, Dr Aenor!). Nicole knew what was needed. I heard some splashing as I lay on the deck with my eyes closed, and then Nicole’s head popped up over the side of the boat. She had jumped off the escort boat into the water and swum over to Brocade, beer in hand. It was a bit warm after its time in the water, but tasted pretty darned good regardless. Now that’s what I call a dedicated Program Director!
So now I am on Tarawa, quite possibly one of the most remote places on the world. I’m dying to tell you all about it, but this blog is long enough already, and the Solicitor General’s wife’s aunt is waiting to give me a much-needed massage. So I’ll sign off now, but will tell more tomorrow. I intend to blog every day until we leave Tarawa, probably Sept 17th. But internet access here is very limited, so please forgive me if I miss a day or two.
It seems to be my karma in this lifetime to be faced from time to time with tough decisions – and this one is up there in my Top Ten Tough Decisions Of All Time. I spent most of last night agonizing over it. The
night seemed hotter than usual in my cabin, and I was – literally and metaphorically – sweating over my options.
It had been just a week since I declared my intention to head for Tuvalu. My weatherman had assured me it was possible, although certainly not easy, requiring me to cut directly across the prevailing winds. And
I wanted to believe it was possible, not least because Tuvalu has become synonymous with the human impact of climate change, which is the key message of this stage of my row as we approach the crucial summit in Copenhagen. I knew getting to Tuvalu would be challenging, but I was prepared to put in the hard work to make it happen.
However, a few things had changed during the course of the last week. I had discovered that the coordinates I had for Tuvalu were for the westernmost island, not the capital Funafuti, which is the easternmost island. This would make it much harder to reach the capital than I had realized. Then some brisk easterly winds had halted my progress for 36 hours while I waited on the sea anchor – this had two implications. First, it would only take a few more days of such winds to put Tuvalu beyond my reach. And second, if I had to use the sea anchor on a regular
basis to stop westward drift, it would take me much longer to get to Tuvalu. And time was limited – by my water supply.
Since my watermaker stopped working I’ve been relying on my reserves of water, but some of my water bags had leaked. And my water consumption is much higher than it has been on my previous rows, due to the heat. So less water supply + higher water requirement = bad news. I do have a backup manual watermaker, but I was already going to have to row 16 hours a day to maintain the necessary tight control over my course, so then pumping water for 2 hours a day (manual watermakers produce water drop by drop, rather than a steady stream) was not an attractive option.
So the worst case scenario was pretty bad. There was now a substantially increased risk of running out of water, and possibly missing Tuvalu altogether and spinning off into the great blue yonder. Oh, and the food situation wasn’t looking too good either. I was concerned.
After churning all this over and over in my head for half the night, part of me still resisted changing my mind. I wanted to go to Tuvalu! My imminent arrival had been announced on the radio, I was due to meet with members of the government, we had storage arranged for my boat… and of course I wanted to find out more about how they plan to be the world’s first carbon neutral nation.
I was unbearably hot in the cabin, so I went out on deck to cool down. I looked up at the stars and the setting moon. They helped me get a sense of perspective on the issue. Ultimately, although the message is important, it helps if the messenger is a) alive, and b) has not had to rely on some fossil-fuel guzzling means of transport to come rescue her if/when she seems in danger of disappearing over the horizon with no water and no food. So, it seemed, the choice was clear. The sensible, responsible thing to do would be to change course for Tarawa. I could reach it relatively easily (or as easy as ocean rowing ever gets) well
before I ran out of sustenance – and without having to rely on outside intervention.
So I swallowed my pride and admitted to myself that it made sense to change course. First thing this morning I rang Ricardo, my Lisbon-based weatherman, and we talked it through. He was totally supportive of my decision. Then I spoke with Nicole, my program director. She, too, fully supported me – even though this meant that a lot of the fantastic preparations she’d lined up for Tuvalu were now moribund, and she’d have to start over again with Tarawa. By the end of today she had already worked miracles – people had been informed, flights were booked, and plans were coming together.
I feel hugely relieved by this decision. It has been a tough one, but the cold dread and anxiety of what might happen if I missed Tuvalu has been lifted from me. It would otherwise have hung over me every day until I made – or failed to make – landfall.
So now it is all suddenly very imminent, and the energy levels in TeamRoz have skyrocketed. With just 300 nautical miles to go, I am hoping to arrive in about 2 weeks, around Sept 9th, so this doesn’t leave much time – and lots to do. On Sunday Nicole and Conrad (our filmmaker, who by the grace of the many generous Rozlings is going to come out to Tarawa to film my arrival) will leave Hawaii for Tarawa to start lining up the multitude of logistical arrangements.
I’d like to take a final opportunity to enjoy some “alone time” before I make landfall. Call this my Walden time. So I’m going to go incommunicado and take a few days out from social media, and hand over to Nicole to do the blog. Her life is going to be much more interesting – and hectic – over the near future anyway. She will be posting updates on this blog from tomorrow until Sept 2nd, when I’ll return from my self-imposed exile, and from then until my arrival Nicole and I will blog on alternate days. Amongst the trials and tribulations of an expedition program director, she’ll be sharing details of the preparations for my arrival, her first impressions of Tarawa, and how she is being assisted by celebrity contacts (thank you to author J Maarten Troost!).
I hope you’ll enjoy these final stages with us. I’m really excited to see how everything develops over the coming 2 weeks. Nicole and Conrad are going to have their work cut out – to find boat storage, boat transport, accommodation, even internet access – and, of course, a source of ice cold beer! So join with me in wishing them huge amounts of good luck in pulling all this together in an impossibly short timescale. They are going to need it, but if anyone can pull off a miracle, it’s TeamRoz!
[photo: Go west, young woman! Tonight's sunset was a bit drab, so here is one from the archive…]
If I was underwhelmed by crossing the International Date Line, today I have been overwhelmed by crossing the Equator. It has been quite an emotional experience – and that’s not just the bubbly talking – and I’m trying to figure out why this might be.
It could be because crossing the Equator had assumed such massive significance in my mind as a Very Difficult Thing. I had maybe allowed myself to get just a bit freaked out by the difficulties encountered by my predecessors in human-powered vessels. And sure, I’ve had my fair share of battles with the elements in trying to get through the lower latitudes, as the winds and currents thwarted my attempts to get south.
But, as with so many things in life, the reality was not as bad as the anticipation. Or it might be because the Equator, unlike the IDL, is actually a geographically significant line. The IDL is a man-made line, allowing us to segment our world into convenient time zones. It could have been located anywhere, and is just where it is because it lies opposite the equally random line of the Prime Meridian at Greenwich – set by British geographers in the days when Britannia ruled the waves. The Equator, on the other hand, is a natural line marking the mid-point between the Poles. It is the line where the Earth is nearest the sun. It is where the Earth is spinning the fastest on its axis. It has a greater sense of significance and reality than the IDL.
Anyway, for whatever reason, today felt very special. I am now a Trusty Shellback, a Pollywog no more. And now I am in the Southern Hemisphere the water will be going down the plughole the opposite way – or would be if I had any plugholes on board. Crossing the Equator was actually quite a busy and time consuming thing to do. I had to pay homage to Neptune and his cohorts (Squishie the Dolphin, with his courtiers Quackers the Duck, the Robin, and the Other Duck). I had to offer gifts – a Larabar (Ginger Snap flavor), and a dollop of California sunshine (a spoonful of Lemon Ladies marmalade). I had to make a sacrifice (I wasn’t prepared to offer a chunk of hair, for fear of spoiling my elegant coiffeur (???!!) so Neptune had to make do with the leavings pulled out of my hairbrush). And I had to deploy the ”coconut” for Project Niu – and then jump in after it to photograph it in the water.
The coconut is actually a high-tech data-gathering device created by the team at Archinoetics, one of several devices that have been let loose in the Pacific to send back information and photographs. The one I deployed today is called something in Hawaiian (Evan, help me out here) which translates as “Pink Savage”. It felt strange to deliberately deposit a large and non-bio-degradable object into the ocean, but as an educational device the end justifies the means, so I am sure Squishie, sorry, I mean Neptune, will understand. I just hope the Niu doesn’t travel faster than I do. That would be embarrassing.
Then, duties done, it was time for my treats. With a sense of eager anticipation I opened up the yellow drybag that Liz and Nicole had given me before I left Hawaii. The girls had done me proud. There was the ”bling” – a many-stranded necklace of plastic beads, and some pink face paint, both of which I promptly put on. There was the jokey gift – a cooking spatula with a wooden handle. There was the declaration admitting me to the ocean domain as a Trusty Shellback, a Pollywog no more. There were the edible treats – a snack bar and some Sharkies. And, oh bliss, there was the miniature bottle of bubbly. Thank you girls!
I must be the world’s cheapest date at the moment (had there been anybody about to take advantage – which there wasn’t). After 3 booze-free months, the 2 glassfuls of bubbly went straight to my head in the nicest possible way. As the sun set I was sitting on deck feeling happily woozy, admiring the pink and grey clouds, full of oceanic bonhomie and thinking there was really nowhere else on earth I would rather be than at the Equator on such a beautiful day.
[photo: Pulling the bubbly back on board after a brief chilling in the ocean (in the net bag that usually contains my beansprouter) – while Neptune/Squishy the Dolphin looks on]
Other Stuff:
After not seeing another vessel for 3 months, today, on MY Equator, there were intruders. A container ship was just sitting there, doing nothing much. I think I could hear a faint sound of a bell ringing repeatedly, so presumably they were having their own Equatorial celebration. I tried hailing them on the VHF radio, in hopes that they might cruise on over and bring me some additional water supplies – or even some more bubbly – but there was no reply. Guess they were too busy partying.
Although I’ve taken the evening off – largely due to the after-effects of the bubbles – tomorrow it will be back to the oars with a vengeance. I’ve still got 500 miles to go, and I need to make some East if I’m going to have any chance of hitting Tuvalu. Ricardo tells me conditions are going to be calm, so it’s a prime opportunity to head back towards the IDL and set myself up for the final push for home.
For the record, I crossed the Equator at 18:42:02 Hawaii Time, at longitude 179 12.359E.
Weather report:
Position at 2210 HST: 00 00.860S (yayyyyy!), 179 09.371E
Wind: variable but light throughout the day. Generally 0-10kts, S-E.
Seas: swell of about 4ft, SE
Weather: sunny and fine, scattered cumulus cloud. Very hot.
Today would have been my father’s 80th birthday. But he died 5 years ago, so he will be forever 75. Given this special date, today seemed an appropriate day to post a guest blog by my mother. Those who have been following my blog since the Atlantic will be well acquainted with Mum, especially after she had to step in and update my blog after I lost all
communications 24 days before the end of the crossing. She had no more idea what was going on than anybody else did, so there was some impressive improvisation and ad-libbing on her part that would have made any TV presenter proud – even while she was worried sick about me.
So, without further ado, over to my poor long-suffering Mum…
Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em is the name of a TV show in the UK- but not many mothers have a daughter like Roz. Yes, I am proud of what she has, and is, achieving, but she has given me some heart-stopping moments along the way. Like the day she first told me she was going to row across the Atlantic.
A few months before she set out, Roz invited me to go and stay with her in Emsworth on the south coast of England, where she was living at the time, to help with fitting out the boat. What a wise move that was on her part. She got me so involved in the whole project that it was no longer what she was doing, but what we, together, were doing.
This involvement came at a good time for me. It was just a year since my husband had died, and gave me a new purpose in my retirement days. Many a time people asked if I was worried about her. I think that we were so closely involved, that she was not a separate entity – out there on the ocean- but very much a part of our togetherness. I hope you can understand what I mean. I lived all the time with the reality of what Roz was doing.
However, in her various ocean crossings there have been tough, worrying moments. Leaving out some of the minor shocks, there came the day that her satphone packed up, leaving me without any communication with her. The boat rolling over three times during her first time attempt to depart the Californian coast. Watermakers packing up on the first leg of the Pacific crossing.
Even when our sons or daughters are adults, it is still the longing of a mother to protect and guard her family. It can be hard when we feel helpless, that nothing that we do can solve the problems; I am sure that many a mother has felt this, in all sorts of circumstances. We have to try to raise our children to be independent, capable of making their own decisions, and looking after themselves. To quote a book that I know rather well: “Now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” The greatest gift we can give, no matter what they do.
I have not been quite so closely involved with Roz’s activities this year, for several reasons (I have been busy with a double hip replacement, and two weeks ago I moved house), and just so grateful to Nicole for being there for Roz. I am standing on the side-lines, watching, yet Roz is still very much in my thinking and feeling, my daily life and tasks.
Thanks, Mum – I can’t even begin to imagine the emotional hell I put you through while I am out on the water, and I can only say – thank you, you’re one in a million.
[photo: Mum and me]
Other Stuff:
On this crossing no two days have been alike – until today. Which was very much like yesterday. Very, very hot, calm conditions, with the weather pretty much leaving me alone to do my thing – my thing being to row steadily and sweat profusely. I’ve made another 18 miles south towards the Equator.
Finally at around sunset today I finished uploading my video messages, so normal Tweeting service should be resumed tomorrow.
Thank you to Roz’s Regulars for some great messages!
Doug – your message about the Booby Training Center gave me a good laugh. No boobies today though – in fact only one solitary bird all day to break the monotony. Only other wildlife sighting was a few jumping fish.
AH – loved your take on the 7 Habits – thank you! I listened to “Three Cups of Tea” a few weeks ago – and can definitely vouch for the fact that having a powerful sense of purpose allows people to overcome all kinds of inhibitions.
Gary – “Take it easy, but take it” – wise words. And to share a secret, I find motivation a huge problem too. It was so much easier in the days when I was rowing crew and had a coxswain yelling at me to keep going. But actually, having said that, I’m finding motivation easier and easier the closer I get to my goal So I suppose one idea is to have interim targets and milestones – like keeping tally of how many meters you have rowed overall, and reward yourself every once in a while. Has to be worth a bottle of champagne, surely! (Champagne isn’t too calorific either – that’s why the supermodels drink it! Or maybe it’s just because they can….)
Weather Report:
Position at 2240 HST: 01 33.737N, 178 16.106W
Wind: 0-5kts, E
Seas: 2-4ft, E
Weather: hot and sunny, clear skies, hot. Towards sunset ranks of little fluffy clouds passed over, then cleared again.
As of Thursday morning 13 Aug 2009. According to measured data, there have been Eerly winds up to 7-12kts over your position and some rainshower activity to your north. SEerly winds 10kt is south of your position to the equator. The SEerlies eventually shift to Eerly 10-15kts by today. A further shift to the north will keep the winds north of east until late on the 15th. Then shifting to SEerly for a brief period before returning to Eerly by the end of the forecast period.
The widespread clouds mentioned in last report have cleared to partly cloudy skies with minimal convection.
Forecast sky conditions: Partly to mostly cloudy. Scattered moderate rainshowers.
Ocean currents should be light SSWerlies (flowing towards the NNE) at about 0.1 to 0.2 kts in your area to about 00 30S. To the north of you beginning at about 3 30N there is a band of Eerly flowing current of about 0.5 to 0.7kts. South of the equator along your longitude there is a band of Werly flowing current of about 1.0kt.
Forecast (low confidence)
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft) est
13/1200-14/1800 E 5-15 2-4
14/1800-15/1500 E-ENE 5-15 2-4
15/1500-15/1800 ENE-E 5-15 2-4
15/1800-17/0600 E-SE-E 5-15 2-4
17/0600-18/0000 E 5-10 2-3
(with no disrespect intended to Steven R Covey, author of The 7 Habits
of Highly Effective People)
Today it occurred to me that it takes a rather peculiar skillset to row
across an ocean. Almost anybody could do it – if they wanted to – but
there are a few abilities that are particularly useful. So here are my
suggestions for the 7 Habits of Reasonably Effective Ocean Rowers – and
I’d be interested to hear if you have any other suggestions to add to
the list.
1. Ability to make 2.5 gallons of fresh water last for a week. This one
was absolutely necessary last year when both my watermakers broke. FYI,
2.5 gallons is about the size of a toilet cistern. And that had to serve
for drinking water, rinsing beansprouts, rehydrating freeze dried meals,
brushing teeth, and washing.
2. Ability to spend 100+ days alone at sea without going crazy. This is
possibly the toughest one. Even though obviously I am very entertaining
company (?!) even I get a bit tired of my jokes after a while…
3. Ability to contort oneself into a tiny sleeping cabin. Yoga helps.
4. Ability to attach a lanyard to almost any object – to prevent
accidental losses overboard.
5. Ability to find something new to photograph after 80+ days at sea,
with nothing but a 23-foot boat, sea, sky, oneself, and the occasional
passing sea creature
6. Ability to open a Larabar without tearing the wrapper. After having
now consumed about 1000 Larabars over the course of the last 3 years, I
am now quite the expert.
7. Ability to find something to be happy about and thankful for, even on
the worst of days. Essential.
[photo: it struck me we hadn't had an underwater photo for a while - so
here is a pic of one of my ocean-going Rozlings, who is usually to be
found hanging out under my boat]
Other Stuff:
I’ve had a lot to be happy about and thankful for today. After 10 days
in the attempt, I finally crossed over 2 degrees North. That has been
the toughest degree yet. 3 degrees North took 8 days to cover the 60
nautical miles between degrees of latitude. Others have generally taken
between 3 and 5 days. I don’t know exactly how many miles I actually
traveled to achieve these 60 miles of southerly progress, but I’m
guessing it must have been over 120. Ah, if only I could travel as the
booby flies!
This achievement was all the sweeter because at the moment I’m rowing
directly against the current. It isn’t a big strong current, but nor am
I a big strong rower. So I was pleased to make headway. The winds have
been very light today – mostly just 3-5 knots – so my mileage was very
much my own work. King Neptune just left me alone for long enough to
allow me to make some headway – for which I thank him.
Apologies for total Tweetlessness today and yesterday. The reason is
that I have spent most of the last two days trying to upload three short
video clips – the regular RozCast, plus one for the Discovery Channel
(Blue August) and one for the UNEP International Children and Youth
Conference taking place next week in Korea – which I had hoped to attend
but obviously I’m still bobbing around in mid-Pacific. My satphone has
been tied up all day while I try repeatedly to get the uploads through.
I have really poor satellite phone reception this close to the Equator,
so the transmission keeps dropping out. Every time I take a break from
rowing I restart the transmission – and come back at the next break to
find it broke off again the moment my back was turned. It took all day
yesterday to upload the RozCast clip, and all day today for Discovery
Channel. Tomorrow I hope to get the UNEP clip uploaded. And I’m just
trying not to even think about the cost….
Thanks to the Rozling community for all the great comments,
especially…
Caroline H – would love to see you the next time I am in London for some
reflexology – that would be a real treat. And thanks for the food for
thought – I probably won’t blog about it, but it will be a fun thing to
think about – and make me extra glad to be out here!
Doug – There IS a day spa in Tuvalu/Tarawa, isn’t there?!
Ellen – hope you had a blast at rowing training camp. Thanks for
spreading the word!
Claire – thanks for the great message.
A special thank you to Mick and Chris for their message. Honored to be
called their “Pacific Sister”. I think often of my Pacific Brothers, and
hope to see them in San Francisco for a post-row beer if the timings
work out. If I can’t be there, I’ll leave some money behind the bar at
the South End Rowing Club!
Richard – I just have to share your poem. It made me laugh out loud!
ODE TO A BOOBY
Booby, booby, over the sea,
Why have you abandoned me?
Was I unkind?
Did I drive you away?
Have you found another boat,
On which to play?
I miss you now.
I didn’t before.
Did I hurt your feelings,
With my swinging oar?
It was just that,
I’m sensitive to smell.
And frankly, my darling,
You reeked to hell.
And now also know,
I’ve got things on my mind.
What with rainstorms, and currents,
And remoras on my behind.
So you can see, my sweet,
That you’re in my thoughts,
Although our friendship, probably,
Will come to naught.
I’ll remember you, though,
And I’m not blaming,
But frankly my love,
You needed toilet-training.
ROFL!!!! (or should that be RODL – for Roll On Deck Laughing?!)
Weather report:
Position at 2310 HST: 01 51.091N, 177 59.227W (yayyyyyy!)
Wind: 3-8kts E-ENE (happy days!)
Seas:2-4ft E
Weather: some cumulus cloud at sunrise, clearing to devastatingly blue
skies and hot sunshine. Scattered cumulus passed over late afternoon,
then mostly clear again, but another band of cloud on the horizon as the
sun set. There have been no squalls or rainshowers for several days now
– which is just fine with me!
Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com
As of Thursday morning 13 Aug 2009. According to measured data, there
have
been Eerly winds up to 7-12kts over your position and some rainshower
activity to your north. SEerly winds 10kt is south of your position to
the
equator. The SEerlies eventually shift to Eerly 10-15kts by today. A
further shift to the north will keep the winds north of east until late
on
the 15th. Then shifting to SEerly for a brief period before returning to
Eerly by the end of the forecast period.
The widespread clouds mentioned in last report have cleared to partly
cloudy
skies with minimal convection.
Forecast sky conditions: Partly to mostly cloudy. Scattered moderate
rainshowers.
Ocean currents should be light SSWerlies (flowing towards the NNE) at
about
0.1 to 0.2 kts in your area to about 00 30S. To the north of you
beginning
at about 3 30N there is a band of Eerly flowing current of about 0.5 to
0.7kts. South of the equator along your longitude there is a band of
Werly
flowing current of about 1.0kt.
Forecast (low confidence)
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft) est
13/1200-14/1800 E 5-15 2-4
14/1800-15/1500 E-ENE 5-15 2-4
15/1500-15/1800 ENE-E 5-15 2-4
15/1800-17/0600 E-SE-E 5-15 2-4
17/0600-18/0000 E 5-10 2-3
Recently Marv H asked me if I am religious, or spiritual in any way. It is supposed to be taboo to discuss politics, religion or sex…but well, hey, what are blogs about if not to break taboos? So (taking a deep breath) after butts, boobies, bird poop and exploding squid, now we move onto The Meaning Of Life….
I am a preachers’ kid (yes, the apostrophe IS in the right place – BOTH my parents were preachers) but I do not count myself a religious person. But I do have a strong belief system that I have evolved over the few years since I stepped out of the rat race to get a fresh perspective on life. I have done a lot of reading and thinking – as well as simply observing – and have been especially influenced by Aldous Huxley’s “Perennial Philosophy”, “Conversations With God” by Donald Neale Walsh, and the teachings of Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer.
I believe that there is more to this world that can be perceived with the five human senses. It would surprise me if reality in its entirety could be witnessed through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. We evolved these five because they are what our physical body needed for survival, but I am sure that there are other dimensions to reality. Although we can’t perceive these other aspects directly, we CAN see the effects that they have on our sensory reality if we try playing around to make them work for us – like, for example, the Law of Attraction.
The way I see it, one of these other dimensions that we can’t physically see is a kind of pool of energy that unites us all – call it God, the Source, the Oneness, the Universe, or whatever you will – and that this force exists in every single living being in the world – or even the universe, if there is life on other planets.
To try and illustrate this… in a sense we are united physically by the Earth. We all stand on it, sit on it, or lie on it – or in a building that rests on it. We’re not floating several miles above it, or off in space somewhere. We are all in some way physically and directly connected to the Earth. Similarly, we are all united spiritually by this unifying force. We are connected to it by whatever that magical thing is that makes us into living beings rather than just inert lumps of flesh. That spark of life force, or your soul, or your heart, or your energy – whatever you call that thing makes you a living, moving, sentient being – is what connects us all to each other.
And this energetic field that connects us all is also, I think, where we can draw things to ourselves that cannot be explained through the laws of logic or the perception of our five human senses. When we act, talk, or think, our actions, words and thoughts reverberate through that field and create consequences in the visible world.
So, that’s the basis. But what does that mean in real life? How does this belief system influence how I live?
First, I will always treat other people with respect – in fact, I will treat them as I would want to be treated myself – because we are all connected. So if I hurt them, I hurt myself.
Second, I believe that we owe it to ourselves, and to everybody else, to be the very best person that we can be in this lifetime. Because we are all connected, when one person strives to be better, it raises everybody up.
Third, I’ve found the best way to be the best person I can be is to put ego aside, and to tap into that greater force – to ask it, what is my purpose? How can I serve the whole? When we take our guidance from that collective energy, by listening to our heart, we can be sure that we do the right things for the right reasons. It also enables us to make sure what we do is the very best that can be done, because we do it not alone, but with the enormous resources of energy and inspiration that lie in that pool of collective consciousness.
I do not claim that my belief system is “true” – I claim only that this is what I have CHOSEN to believe, based on my experiences, and because these beliefs serve me well. It makes sense to me, makes me happy, gives me a sufficient feeling that I am in control of my own destiny, while also allowing a bit of room for those magical moments of serendipity that make me believe there is a sense of justice and harmony in the world.
But I also freely admit that there are many other ways to perceive the world, and many other belief systems that can be construed based on the same evidence. We only have to look at any scientific controversy to see that intelligent, rational people can look at the same data and arrive at radically different conclusions.
So I have no problem with other people believing whatever they want to believe – provided that their belief does not impinge on my personal freedom. And similarly I would never dream of foisting my belief system on anybody else.
I think it is up to everybody to figure out what works for them. I’ve put a lot of thought into my own system of spirituality. To me there is nothing in life so important as those big questions – who am I? Why am I here? What is the point of it all? And that we all owe it to ourselves to spend time and effort thinking about these questions – if we want to be happy.
Wow, this is a very personal blog, and I feel almost shy about baring my soul to this extent. But, hey, I’ve bared just about everything else this voyage. So why not my soul too?
[photo: feel free to think I'm crazy, but at least I'm happy!]
Other Stuff:
This morning I had just 13 miles to go to get to 2 degrees North. If the weather had been like yesterday I would have done this today, no problem. But the weather wasn’t, and I didn’t. The wind veered round from E, to ESE, SE, until I was being blown north again. At the moment the wind is looking undecided as to how mean it’s going to be. Will it let me off with just a temporary hold-up at this latitude, or will it be a total b*****d and blow me all the way up north again? Who knows. I’m deliberately not thinking about it – or at least, rapidly redirecting my thoughts every time I do start thinking about it. It will be what it will be.
Apologies for not updating you on the fate of the fish that I invited to supper last night, on the condition that he provide the main course – or, in fact, BE the main course. Truth be told, he was a dead loss. I started trying to cut the flesh off him, but as you may have observed from the photo, he was built for speed, not supper, being long and skinny rather than plump and round. So, basically, there was so little meat on him that he was a total waste of space supper-wise. So I recycled him over the side of the boat and resorted to freeze-dried curry instead, which with the addition of some powdered coconut milk was very yummy indeed.
Dave Finnigan – your film concept sounds very interesting. I do have a contact at Lucasfilm. Could I ask you to get back in touch with me when I am on dry land, and we will follow up then? You can contact me at [email protected]
Dale – thanks for the reminder about enjoying the here and now, and being present in the moment. I’ve actually become much more aware of that in the last couple of days, and have been working on it – and am feeling much more content as a result. Thank you for the timely reminder.
Margaret Taylor – thank you for your very special message. You in turn have inspired me. I hope that we both reach the far side of our challenges as better and stronger people.
Amy Olmstead – I will be sure to give you a shout if and when I make it to Austin!
Rozta’ Bill – alas it looks like the UH forecast was overly optimistic. Hey ho! I listened to Tribes the other day. Really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. Pretty inspiring stuff!
Thank you to Robert Pfeiffer, Roman Lyubimov, Andrew M Reed and Laurey Masterton for their kind donations – all very much appreciated. Thank you, Rozlings!
Jerome, Judy, Joan, Sebastian – great to hear from you too. Thanks for your comments!
Weather report:
Position at 2215 HST: 02 09.407Nm 177 12.476W Wind: 5-20kts, sometimes E, sometimes SE, sometimes in between Seas: 3-5ft NE Weather: showers this morning, overcast for a while, mostly clear skies with scattered showers this afternoon, clouding over again towards nightfall
Weather forecast courtesy of weatherguy.com
Latest tracker reported your position as: 02 39N 177 05W as of 09Aug 2335HST.
As of Monday morning 10 Aug 2009. According to measured data, there have been Eerly winds up to 7-12kts and little significant rainshower activity in your area. 10kt Eerly winds extends to 01 30S then increase to Eerly 15-20kts then shift to SEerly 0-20kts. Winds continue to be very shifty next couple of days becoming Eerly 0-15kts by 1500HST 11Aug. Then shifting to SEerly 0-20kts by 12Aug 1200HST. Uncertainty remains in the forecast, as previously discussed.
According to satellite imagery, there remains widespread areas of low level clouds amongst scattered areas of deep convection. There is a significant area of deep convection south of the Equator centered near 03 00S 175 00W. Rainshowers, squalls, and thunderstorms in areas of deep convection.
Sky conditions: Partly to mostly cloudy. Scattered moderate rainshowers, squalls, and possible thunderstorms.
Forecast (low confidence due to extreme variability in equatorial regions and naturally occurring small scale fluctuations in direction/speed in the Doldrums) Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft) est 10/1800-10/2100 E-SE 0-20 2-5 10/2100-11/1800 SE-E 0-20 2-5 11/1800-12/1200 E-SE 0-20 2-5 12/1200-14/0600 SE-ENE 5-20 2-5 14/0600-15/0000 ENE-SE 0-20 2-5
Anna asked: How has your mindset changed from your first adventure? I am assuming that you grow each journey?
My mindset actually changed a lot DURING my first adventure – it had to. When I look back to my attitude before the Atlantic crossing, I marvel at how I could have been so well informed and yet so naïve. Many people had been incredibly generous in giving me the benefit of their wisdom and experience, and yet I chose to blank so much of it out. Oh, I won't have that problem. Oh, it's going to be just fine.
And yet… maybe it was necessary for me to be that naive, because if I'd known at the start just how hard I would find the voyage, I'm not sure I would have ever started it.
It didn't take long for the reality to hit me like a hammer blow. I really, really struggled to come to terms with the frustrations of thwarted progress, the discomfort of being constantly wet and cold, the pain of the tendonitis in my shoulders, and the uncomfortable feeling that I was way out of my depth (literally) and had been a total idiot to take on the challenge in the first place.
But I was too stubborn to quit, so I had to find a way to get through it – and that was a very steep learning curve. I had many "a-ha" moments while I was out on the ocean, but it was largely through the process of giving presentations and writing the book during the couple of years that followed that I really figured out what I had learned.
My book (Rowing The Atlantic) goes into a lot more detail about what I learned – in fact, that is really the point of the book – but if I had to pick the Top 3 things, they would be:
1. Accept what you can't change. On the ocean, this usually refers to the weather. On dry land, it might be other people. You can fight reality all you like, but you'll only drive yourself crazy. 2. The biggest task can be broken into little pieces. Just deal with the next half hour if the next 3,000 miles is too much to get your head around. Focus on the process. 3. Patience, perseverance, persistence. Discipline, determination, dedication. With these things there isn't much you can't do. Unfortunately none of them come easily to me – but that doesn't stop me trying to acquire them.
I forget my own lessons as often as not (e.g. my frustration with the smelly poopy booby birds!), and have to keep reminding myself what I learned before. But gradually they're starting to become second nature.
Do I grow on every journey? I hope so – or else what is the point? On the Atlantic I felt I'd learned a lot about how NOT to row an ocean, so I wanted to put that to the test. That is what the Pacific Stage 1 was about – and yes, I proved to myself that I really had learned the lessons. So the first two rows were fairly inward-looking, working on myself.
Pacific Stage 2? I'd like to think I'm maturing into a new, more outward-looking phase. I'm figuring out that I can use my rowing as a way to communicate with people and maybe have some influence in the bigger scheme of things.
Lance Armstrong's book was called "It's Not About The Bike", and I feel like my rowing is only about 10% about the rowing. It's much more about me trying to be a better person, and trying to make the world a better place. It might seem weird to try and do that from a tiny rowboat in the middle of the ocean – but if you're reading this blog then I must be doing something right!
[No photo today - I'm having real problems uploading the blog over the satellite phone connection, so am going to try it minus photo attachment. It was only a picture of me anyway...]
Other Stuff:
Today started out so well… and ended up in the navigational House of Horror. I was awake at 5am, the ocean was nice and calm, so I was up bright and early and rowing under the stars. And all went well for the morning and early afternoon, and I even dared allow myself a glimmer of optimism that I would cross over 4 degrees North. Indeed, I got within 3 miles of it. But then I got caught up in a succession of squalls that swirled everything around. I felt like I was in one of those electric food mixers with the three spinning whisks, caught up in all kinds of confusing winds and currents. After going east, north, west, northwest, southwest, and northeast, I got fed up and put out the sea anchor. And I hope that by morning the weather might have made up its mind what it wants to do. Or there's going to be cussing from the cabin…
A reminder – if you'd like to reserve your exclusive Larabar bookmark, free when you pre-order my book Rowing The Atlantic, just send your Amazon confirmation email, or any other pre-order confirmation, to [email protected], and we'll add you to the list. Obviously we can't start sending out the bookmarks until I get to dry land with the empty Larabar wrappers – so thank you for your patience!
Ciao to all the Rozionados! (or should that be Hola? Anyway…) Thanks for the comments – when the going gets tough, the comments keep me going.
Eco Champs of the Day: Stephanie and Wayne! "Regarding our ocean cleanup at the same marina from which you set out, we pulled up two carts worth of garbage, to include a huge plastic covering for a mast and a boat fender. All in all, over 100 pounds of garbage, much of which was plastic and fiberglass. Not bad for a grand total of six people. We'll look to do it again on Ocean Awareness day, coming up soon… Stay strong and happy!" Great job – that must have been a great feeling to leave the marina cleaner than you found it – and the ocean wildlife thanks you too! Many places have regular beach cleanups – if other people would like to get involved, in the US you can contact the Blue Frontier Campaign which supports grassroots marine conservation efforts and can probably put you in touch with a local organizer.
Janis – I wish you could indeed arrange an air drop of grapefruit and summer squash – at this stage anything a bit different from the norm would be most welcome! Oh my word, I'm salivating at the thought of a grapefruit!
Arnoldus in the Netherlands – no, I don't worry about big waves. I'd probably just ride up and over, and even if they knocked my boat over, she'd come right side up again. Nice idea about the beer rendezvous!
Alex – the Green People sunblock IS awesome. It's available through the store at rozsavage.com. Just click on the Green People icon – and I get a commission on that too, so feel free to order lots! Just a word of caution – not sure if they can deliver to the US, if that's where you're located… do check first.
UncaDoug – very entertained by your comment and the IRCN [Inspi-Rozional Collaborative Nexus] – and I LOVE the idea of mobilizing the Rozlings to help out with some PR. I get emails from people saying "how come this is the first we've heard about you?" – so it would be great if you could help spread the word. It would be especially great if we could generate some awareness in the UK and Europe in the run-up to my march from London to Copenhagen in October-December this year for the climate change conference. PR for me is PR for my cause! So yes please, DO write to your local paper – or better still, organize a Rozalicious bake sale (maybe to celebrate my Equator crossing if it ever happens) to give the story some local interest and write to the paper about THAT!
Thanks also for the perspective on my progress. I think I need to stop zooming in so close on my GPS – a rather depressing view right now – and zoom out to the bigger picture, which looks MUCH better! And just today I was wondering why you do the Crescent Moon Watch – and now I know!
Cindy Maxwell – what a brilliant idea! I am so touched that you do that!! That is a wonderful way to spread the word. In case anybody else feels inclined to do the same, Cindy has this message as the footer on her emails: "I'm following Roz Savage, as she rows solo across the Pacific Ocean. http://www.rozsavage.com/"
Michele – thank you – made me laugh! Glad you're enjoying the blog – welcome!
Quick answers to quick questions:
Q: How did you first make contact with Leo? A: We were introduced by a mutual friend, Bill Chayes, who has been working with me on plans for a documentary about my Pacific row. Bill invited both Leo and me to dinner at his lovely house in Petaluma, Leo loved what I'm doing, and the rest is history!
Q: Do you have an emergency sail in case your oars break and the oars are irreparable? A: No, I don't. I have 4 oars, very strong ones made out of ash with a carbon fiber wrap, so I'd be really unlucky to break all of them. I could probably make a sail out of my bimini (sun canopy) but I don't really rate my chances of managing to steer without a proper mast and boom. So, erm, best strategy is not to break the oars!
Weather report:
Position at 2150 HST: 04 03.865N, 175 01.018W Wind: SE-E, 3-20 knots Seas: SE-E, 4-8 feet Weather: mostly sun and clouds, with passing squalls making a right old mess of things
Using last night's Feedblitz blog email (22 Jul), reported position was: 04 32N 175 19W as of 22Jul 1930HST. Your are still in the ECC which is good because you might want to be at this latitude for as long as you can.
As of Thursday, 23 July 2009. Wind predictions still uncertain while in the area of the Equatorial region. According measured data, there is SE winds 15-17kts over your area. To the SE (between 01N to 04N and 168W-170W) of your position, there was a patch of measured winds of 40-50kts in rainshowers.
It would appear you are almost through the southern boundary of the ITCZ. According to satellite imagery, there is minimal convection south of 05N. There is one exception.the patch of high winds to the SE. This is associated with downdraft winds in convective cloud activity.
Movement eastward should be viewed as positive because south of the Equator the prevailing E to SE winds will carry you westward with no problem. If you are too far to the west already, potential landing spots in the southern hemisphere might be missed. So just hang on for the ride and take the Eerly current as long as it lasts.
Sky conditions: Partly to mostly cloudy. Isolated rainshowers, squalls, and possible thunderstorms.
Forecast (low confidence due to extreme variability in Roz's position and the fluctuations in wind direction/speed in the Doldrums) Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft) est 23/1800-25/1800 SE 12-17 3-7 25/1800-28/1800 ESE 10-15 4-6
Today was a bit of a scramble to get things finished, but I’ve started to notice a pattern emerging on my departure days. It’s very difficult to say how I feel – there is a kind of numbness that settles over me. By this stage most of what can be done has been done, and it’s too late to push to achieve more. So I just drift through the day in a kind of haze, biding time until the hour of departure arrives.
Having said that, there was quite a buzz at the Waikiki Yacht Club today. My team of helpers had been on hand all day, all working hard on boat, medical kit, last-minute purchases, laundry, technology, etc. But at 6pm approached a new contingent arrived – press, cameras, and so on. Tom Stone, the kahuna (Hawaiian priest) blessed my boat.
But the memories that will stay in my mind the longest are of the departure itself. So many people on land and sea there to wish me well. People standing along the harbour wall on Magic Island holding up big signs to cheer me on. A flotilla of paddlers (both seated and stand-up), sailboats and powerboats. The big media boat. The helicopter swooping overhead to get aerial footage.
One by one they turned around and headed back to shore, and after all he noise the silence of the ocean surrounded me. I rowed for a while longer, and had just popped into the cabin to post a Tweet when a familiar voice accosted me. It was Barry Pickering, Mike Marsh and Cindy on board the Blue Lady, a small sailboat I’ve enjoyed some memorable Friday nights on. A final goodbye, and then I was really alone, watching the bright lights of Honolulu recede behind me as I rowed out into the inky darkness of the open ocean.
I’d planned to row a bit longer tonight, but I’m bushed. It’s been a long day. So I’ve just had a sponge-and-bucket bath to rinse away some of the sweat of the day, and soon I’ll get my head down for a short sleep. Conditions are calm tonight – dead silent and only the slightest swell – so I hope I get some good zzz in between waking up to check for shipping. I won’t be able to relax until I get out of sight of land, and well away from shipping lanes.
Just finally, I’d like to say a HUGE thank you to everybody who came down to see me off. I didn’t get the chance to say thanks and goodbye to everyone – so please forgive me. Thanks especially those who came from the mainland, and to Captain Vince of the White Holly and his new wife Joanna – they got married today, but still found time to come and wish me well. Congratulations, and very
best wishes for the future!
There is now just a week before I launch Stage 2 of my Pacific row, from Hawaii down into the South Pacific. I’ll set out on Sunday May 24, and there is a lot to do – much of which I will report via my Twitter updates as the week goes on. For now, I’d just like to share with you the afterglow of my presentation to The Climate Project conference in Nashville. I won’t allow myself long to bask – there is just too much work to be done, both for me personally and for all of us generally – if we are to save ourselves from the worst consequences of climate change. But please permit me this brief pat on my own back.
I gave my presentation on the middle day of the conference, and, ahem, blush, got a couple of standing ovations. I was more nervous than usual before my speech – hmmm, that might be something to do with speaking in front of a Nobel Peace Prize winner and another legend of the green movement, Canadian environmentalist Dr David Suzuki. But that memory of a roomful of people, including Mr Al Gore, standing to applaud my speech will make me smile for a long time to come, and will help motivate me through the tougher days on the ocean. It’s just good to know that what I say makes sense and resonates with people – even people of intelligence and distinction.
The last day of the conference was even more amazing for me, and I still get a little glow of satisfaction thinking about it. In his closing remarks Al Gore suddenly said my name, out of the blue, not in the middle of a sentence – just suddenly “Roz”. I nearly jumped out of my skin, like a student caught daydreaming. But he then went on to say “When you wrote those two stories with the two alternative versions of your future…”, referring to my obituary exercise. He went on to use that as his main theme – we have two possible futures – which will we choose?
Then as we were being photographed together he said he’d shown my website to his wife and daughter the night before. Who wouldn’t be flattered to imagine Al and Tipper huddled around the computer screen checking out my website?
[The photo above is just a placeholder, taken by Nicole on her iPhone. Better pics to come.]
So, yup, even though I try (and generally succeed) in not being too impressed or over-awed by anybody based on reputation alone, I couldn’t help but be pleased to bits that my words had made an impact with him. Hey, I’m only human!
So now it’s back to Hawaii and some seriously hard work. But I’ve got fantastic support from my friends, several of whom are coming out from California to help out with last-minute preparations. So I’m sure it will all happen. And then the hard work starts – the rowing. Oh boy….
If you’re really interested/a glutton for punishment, I’ve included my speech in its entirety below. It’s not exactly what I said – I tend to write out speeches in full, but then ignore the notes while I’m actually on stage – but it’s more or less what you would have heard if you’d been there.
My name is Roz Savage. I am an ocean rower, and a recovering addict. I used to be addicted to money, materialism, and stuff. I’d like to tell you a story about how and why I turned from management consultant into ocean rower, and what this has to do with climate change.
Back in the year 2000, I was supposed to be happy. I had the well-paid job in London, the big house, the foreign vacations, the little red sports car. In other words I had the classic materialistic western lifestyle – everything that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had told me would make me happy. But there was something wrong with this picture. I wasn’t happy. I felt there was something inherently unsustainable about my lifestyle. At this stage it wasn’t even an environmental awareness. It was just a niggling feeling that there was a mismatch between the person I was and the person I was pretending to be.
What brought it home to me was an exercise I did one day. I sat down and wrote two versions of my own obituary – the one I wanted, and the one I was heading for. They were very different. So I realized then that I needed to make a course correction. I realized that my future would be the accumulation of my todays, and my todays weren’t taking me in the direction I wanted to go.
So I set out on a different track, and it was around this time that I read about the Hopi prophecies. The Hopis have been sending a delegation to the United Nations ever since the Second World War, to deliver their message that if we lose touch with our spirituality, and start exploiting the earth instead of respecting it, it’s not going to go so well for us.
When I read that, it just made sense to me. I remembered how as a child I would look out at the English countryside from the back seat of my parents’ car and notice how deep a mark mankind had left on the landscape – and feel that it wasn’t quite right. But then I grew up, and lost that sense of what was right and what was wrong. I got caught up in the modern day myth that stuff makes you happy, and for 11 years did a job I didn’t like to buy stuff I didn’t need. It took me a long time to realize that it was this disconnect between my values and my lifestyle that was making me unhappy.
I think that deep down many people have that same unease. We know, intuitively, that we are on an unsustainable course. We know that we can’t keep sucking all the goodness out of the earth, turning it into stuff, and throwing it into landfill. Nature works in cycles, cradle to cradle – a cycle of life – while our current model of industry goes from cradle to grave – a line of death.
We can try to hide from this knowledge, as I used to – numbing ourselves with TV, over-indulging in food, or burying ourselves in the constant busy-ness of 21st century adult life, most of which revolves around stuff – buying stuff, selling stuff, maintaining stuff, fixing stuff, earning the money to buy yet more stuff, all for the greater good of the economy, which is based on our growing demand for stuff.
Finite earth, infinite growth – this just cannot work in the long term. It cannot be sustainable.
Deep down we do all know how to live. Once I saw the insanity and self-destructiveness of where we are going, I couldn’t NOT know it. And I couldn’t stand by and watch us all go to hell in a handcart. So I resolved to live more sustainably – and hopefully to inspire others to do the same.
So, from the arch-materialist of 2000, let’s fast forward six years. It is March 2006 and I am bobbing around on a 23-foot rowboat in the western Atlantic. I am homeless, penniless, jobless and exhausted after 103 days at sea. But bizarrely, I’ve never been happier.
During the intervening years I have gradually reassessed my entire value system. I’ve transitioned into a life that is simple and authentic, and it feels good in a way that life never felt before.
Now I am sharing my human-powered, environmentally friendly adventure across the internet from my boat, in the hope that other people might be inspired to try out a different, more sustainable way of living.
And it seems to be working. I get emails from people thanking me for making them aware of environmental issues, and for showing them how they can make changes in their lives that will make a real difference to their environmental impact.
When I’m sharing my message, I try to focus on the positive. There is so much information out there – if people want to know about climate change, a quick Google search will give them all they need to know. But most of them don’t want to know it. They are just worrying about getting food on the table or paying the mortgage.
Thinking about the environment makes them feel guilty, ashamed, stressed, afraid. So they ignore it. What I love about what I do is that it enables me to reach the unconverted. I get in under their radar. People come to my website because they are interested in adventure, or technology, or the ocean. Some of them think what I am doing is pretty cool. And when they see that I care passionately about the environment, they think that is cool too – kind of coolness by association, a new kind of aspiration.
So I’m doing it again. I finished rowing across the Atlantic just over 3 years ago. Now I am one third of the way through rowing across the Pacific. Last summer I rowed from San Francisco to Hawaii in a time of 99 days, and I am about to set out on Stage 2 – starting in just 9 days time.
And I’m about to announce my environmental initiative this year, which is all about climate change in the run-up to Copenhagen. When people read my blogs or hear my presentations, they tend to feel energized and inspired, and I want to take that energy and divert it in an environmental direction.
So I am asking people to match my 10,000 oarstrokes a day with 10,000 steps, which is the minimum we are supposed to take for our health. And the best way for them to fit the walking into their day is to walk as a substitute for driving. Short journeys – walk instead. Longer journeys – park a mile before the end of the journey. People will be able to upload their step counts to a website where they will be able to see all the other people around the world who are also taking part in the challenge, to build that sense of community and collaboration.
The idea is that I will then take the combined efforts of my walkers as a message to the climate change conference in Copenhagen. On October 24 – designated as a global day of action on climate change by Bill McKibben’s 350.org – I will be setting out to walk 600 miles from London to Copenhagen. I am hoping that people will come and join me on the march.
We are working with the United Nations Environmental Program, and I am hoping to have the opportunity to deliver a message to the delegates to say – “We’ve had this many people in this many countries taking this many steps and saving this much CO2. We’ve done our bit to save the planet – now you do yours.” And we plan to take a crystal model of the earth with us, which doubles up as a crystal ball looking into the future. We will present the delegates with this crystal earth, as if to say, “This is our fragile earth – its future is in your hands.”
We are calling this initiative Pull Together, and we really do want to build that sense of connectedness – a global community of people all pulling together to make a difference. Some people might feel that anything they do is just a drop in the ocean, but every action counts. Each of my ocean crossings has taken a million oarstrokes. One stroke doesn’t get me very far, but you take a million tiny actions and you string them all together, and you can accomplish almost anything.
And everybody in this room is contributing to this. You are all spreading ripples in your communities. I want to invite you to use me and my adventures to destroy people’s excuses. If I’m prepared to row 7,500 miles across the Pacific to make a point about climate change – then is it really so much to ask, to get someone to leave the car at home and walk to the corner store? Help me to make sure that there never comes a day when I can row across the Arctic Ocean, because the ice cap is no longer there.
Point your audiences to my website at rozsavage.com, ask them to check out what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Make them believe that anything is possible, if only they want it enough. I used to believe that I had to live a certain kind of a life, because that was what Oxford graduates in the late 80’s did. It was what I was expected to do, and I bought into it. But then, you know what, I asked myself – is this true? This assumption I’ve made, about what I “have” to do, maybe it’s wrong. Maybe there’s a better way. And so I stepped outside. And the world carried on turning, the sun carried on rising. In fact, life got a heck of a lot better.
We’ve told ourselves that growth is good, that we need all this stuff, that we have to keep consuming, consuming, as our God-given right. But is it true? We tell ourselves that because we’ve been doing things this way for as long as we can remember, then it must be right to carry on this way. But maybe there’s another, better way, if only we find the courage to try it.
We stand at a pivotal moment in human history. I had my own pivotal moment when I wrote those two versions of my own obituary, and realized that the future I was heading for was not the one I wanted. Now as humans we have a collective pivotal moment, when we have to consider the possible outcomes and decide what kind of a future we want – do we want to live on a planet blessed with biodiversity, in a healthy, self-regulating biosphere? Or do we want to live on a planet wracked by famine, drought, floods and storms, with populations displaced, and wars waged over increasingly scarce resources?
When I looked back over my life from my imaginary deathbed, I realized I wasn’t living a life I could be proud of. It was a nice enough life, comfortable, pleasant, but I didn’t feel I was contributing anything valuable, I wasn’t leaving a legacy. When we look back at 2009 from a point in the future, will we be proud of the choices we made, will we be proud of the legacy we left, or will we be saying, “if only”?
The time for finger-pointing is past. Sure, some countries have been more at fault than others. As a Brit, I’m painfully aware that we probably started it with the Industrial Revolution. But as with so many things, the Americans took it and beat us at our own game.
But that doesn’t matter now. We can’t change the past. We have to look to the future.
We human beings are amazing creatures. We are creative, artistic, scientific, and philosophical. But we have also been arrogant, conceited, carried away with our own cleverness and believing that we can buck the laws of nature and get away with it. For a while, we HAVE got away with it, but now we’re living on borrowed time.
We’ve been killing this earth through a thousand billion cuts. There have been a few major disasters, but mostly the damage has been caused by a multitude of consumer decisions, multiplied up day after day, six billion times across the globe. Actually, it’s not the earth we’re killing – it’s ourselves. Give the earth a few billennia, and it will be just fine – but will we be around to see it? Or will we have drowned in our own filth, made sick by the toxins we have pumped out into our environment, day after day, year after year.
But the good news is, that we can counteract those thousand billion cuts with a thousand billion conscious, responsible decisions. We can start to heal the earth, by taking responsibility as individual consumers and by being the change we want to see in the world. In the past we have allowed our egotistical brains to overrule the wisdom of our hearts. Now it’s time to reconcile our inner and outer lives – to use the wisdom of our hearts as our compass, showing us which way we need to go, and then to use our brains to create the strategy for getting there.
This is the only earth we’ve got, and we have to take good care of it if we want it to take good care of us. We know this, and we need to tune in to that deep knowledge of how to live, respecting the earth instead of exploiting it.
We, you, are already creating awareness and change at grassroots level, which is good and necessary. But we also need to create change at a global, political level, to turn this tide before it is too late. And that is why it is so crucial what happens in Copenhagen – and beyond. We need decisive action, and a firm commitment to get back under 350ppm as fast as possible.
The best way to achieve something is to aim to achieve twice as much, so we need to push, and push hard. Time is too short for half-hearted ambitions. We have the technology, we just need to commit. It won’t be easy. Rowing oceans isn’t easy. There are many times when my motivation wavers, and I wonder what the hell ever possessed me to do this. But the thing that keeps me going is that I have a powerful reason why. I just have to keep my eye on the goal, and know that in the end it will all be worthwhile, because I am fighting for something that I care about.
So, we have to ask ourselves, is our continued survival as a species something that we care about? Is it a strong enough reason why for us to take the short term pain to achieve the long term gain? Do we believe we are worth saving?
I absolutely believe that we are, and that we can do it. It won’t be easy, but I truly believe that if we all pull together, we CAN build a better, greener future, the same way that I row across oceans – one stroke, one action, at a time.
Today I heard that sad news that ocean rower Oliver Hicks has decided to temporarily abandon his attempt to become the first person to row around Antarctica. His ambitious plan was expected to involve 18 months alone in the Southern Ocean, in some of the coldest, windiest, most inhospitable waters in the world. But extrapolating from his rate of progress over the first 80 days, he realized that it would in fact take him around 5 years to complete the voyage. Wisely, he is now making his way to New Zealand to regroup and consider his next move.
Olly’s decision, while no doubt bitterly disappointing for him, allays the fears that I had when I first heard what he was planning to do. Having the maturity and strength to suspend his bid and modify his plans reassures me that ultimately his chances of success and survival will be good. Recently my friend Sarah Outen turned back from her first attempt on the Indian Ocean, but has now relaunched and is making excellent progress at the second try.
Ernest Shackleton, no stranger to polar climes himself, wrote that “It is better to be a live donkey than a dead lion”, and just two weeks after the death of extreme skier Shane McConkey it behooves the adventure community to be mindful of public perceptions of risk vs benefit.
But here I’d like to provoke some debate as to how accurate those perceptions are. Do we sometimes lose sight of real risk as opposed to perceived risk? Many people are afraid of flying, but apparently more people die on the way to the airport than die in plane crashes. Risk assessments are complex, and much can be done to mitigate the dangers. What I do in ocean rowing may be pushing the limits of human endeavour, but I carefully limit the risks – through careful preparation, comprehensive range of safety equipment, contingency plans, and the exercise of my very strong sense of self-preservation.
A dangerous thing done safely can be less risky than a safe thing done recklessly.
And this looks dangerous – and I was scared – but I had limited the risks by setting up a safety line across the roof of the cabin and clipping myself onto it, so the risk of actual death was minimal. Believe me, I fully intend to die at an old age, peacefully in my sleep (ideally while in bed rather than while driving…)
And here I’d just like to point out that we ALL die. Death is not optional. Sooner or later, the Grim Reaper comes for each and every one of us. And this is an important realization. For me it was only when I acknowledged that I was going to die that I started to live. I realized that I didn’t have an endless supply of tomorrows, and that if I was going to have a life to be proud of, the time to start was now.
And I commend Olly for doing the same. He has an audacious dream, and he has chosen to go for it. The bigger the challenge, the greater the risk of “failure” – but the biggest failure of all is not even daring to try – and even an adventure that doesn’t go as planned can be counted a success if it has provided a useful learning experience.
I can imagine what he must have gone through to reach this tough decision – no doubt he considered the implications for sponsorship deals and finances, not to mention personal pride. But he had the guts to say, “You know what, this isn’t working. Let’s go back and make some changes and try again.” As it says on his website…
The difficult is what takes a little time. The impossible is what takes a little longer. (Fridtjof Nansen)
Go for it, Olly, and if I can do anything to help then you know where to find me.
Other stuff:
It’s that exciting stage of the planning process where mysterious packages are arriving from all around the world. Recent product sponsorships include: - sun lotion and skin creams from Green People - vitamins from Biocare - nuts and seeds from Wilderness Family Naturals - gloves from Kakadu Golf Gloves - antifoul from International Paints - and huge quantities of Larabars from, errr, Larabar!
Next Thursday I fly to Hawaii for final preparations before my launch from Waikiki on May 24. Between now and then I am speaking at eBay (Monday), the Kiwanis Club (Tuesday lunchtime) and the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race Dinner here in San Francisco (Tuesday evening).
Meanwhile, work continues apace on the technology and partnerships that will support this year’s major environmental initiative, due to launch later this month. More news soon…
[Photo: me at Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, from a photo shoot with Doug DeMark last month]
After I spoke recently at Google in Mountain View, CA, a Googler from the audience sent me an email with this thought-provoking opener: “As you can tell from my questions, I’m interested in the process of reducing stress by reaching that level of “zen acceptance,” as you called it. I’m not necessarily looking for an easy way to get there — I’m not sure there is an easy way. But it would be fascinating to find out the thought process you went through as you worked your way to zen acceptance (kind of like the 5 stages of grief?) Reading about what you went through may give people ideas of how they can create experiences for themselves (probably short of rowing across an ocean!) to work through a similar process toward the goal of zen acceptance. I really think this is an area that people can “train” themselves in, and there are so many mental and physical benefits that it’s worth spending some energy on.”
So I have duly spent some thought and energy on it, and although I think my answer still has some evolving to do, I’d like to post my thoughts here to stimulate some debate. Maybe you have a story to share so we can benefit from your experience? If so, please post it as a comment to this blog, so we can work on this together.
So here goes…
For me it was a combination of factors – and here I am talking about the Atlantic row in 2005-6. By the time of my 2008 row from San Francisco to Hawaii I had moved much closer to a state of zen acceptance – largely by doing things the wrong way on the Atlantic. I talk a lot more about this in the book that will come out on October 6 this year – Rowing The Atlantic: Lessons Learned on the Open Ocean. But for now, here is a summary of what I went through on my zig-zagging journey towards some lowly level of enlightenment:
1. Several months of creating endless frustration and internal conflict caused by fighting reality (“the weather shouldn’t be doing this,” “my shoulders shouldn’t be hurting” etc) until I realized that I could fight reality all I like, but reality wins!
2. Ditto when fighting the ocean. In the early stages I thought the ocean was being deliberately malicious towards me. I took it personally. Then I realized the ocean was just doing what oceans do. It wasn’t trying to teach me a lesson – it was just obeying the laws of physics. The ocean was doing its thing, and I had to do mine, i.e. just carry on rowing!
3. Demise of satellite phone – when my access to weather forecasts was cut off for the last 24 days of the Atlantic row, it ended the seesaw between two extremes: a) good forecast –> expectations of good progress –> disappointment and more frustration; b) bad forecast –> fear and anxiety –> forecast usually wrong anyway so fear and anxiety a needless waste of emotional energy. It forced me to live in the present moment, and accept things exactly as they were.
4. Recognition of the perfection in everything. This created an attitude of positive thinking that became self-fulfilling – the clouds had a silver lining, because I had decided that they would! So I sought the positive in everything. e.g. when my satphone broke, I realized that this was my perfect opportunity to truly test my self-sufficiency.
5. The “Retrospective Perspective” – putting the present experience in the larger context of my life, and knowing that it would all be worthwhile in the end. It really helped when I learned to project myself into the future, and know that even the worst adversity would one day make a great story to tell my friends in the pub. (Hmm, not sure pubs are very zen. Enlightenment/sobriety evidently still a long way off!)
So if I was going to try and break this down into something analogous to the “5 stages of grief” that you mention, they might be:
1. Indignation that “it shouldn’t be this way!” 2. Frustration and anger as fight against reality escalates 3. Crisis and catharsis (yell therapy is good for this – and in the middle of the ocean, nobody can hear you scream…) 4. Grudging acceptance 5. Recognition that there is something positive to be found in every situation, and that the greater the suffering, the greater the learning. To grow you have to get outside your comfort zone, and getting outside your comfort zone is (duh!) UNCOMFORTABLE!
And that invaluable sixth stage…. telling the story over a pint of beer afterwards – which we can call celebrating one’s achievements, and saying, “Well, hey, haven’t I come a long way.”
Ocean rowing was my crash course in personal development. But how to replicate this in a non-rowing environment? To be honest, I don’t know. This is where I need you to help. What have you experienced that has pushed you to what you thought was your limit – only for you to continue beyond your limit and experience some kind of enlightened acceptance?
Over to you!
[Photo: on the ocean, no one can hear you scream....]
Other stuff:
As those of you who have been following my Twitter feed will know, I am now in London for a couple of weeks of meetings and PR. At last Nicole and I have some breathing space to regroup and consolidate. The clock is ticking, and much remains to be done, especially around the launch of this year’s green initiative.
Meanwhile, packages have been arriving in Hawaii – tea tree oil, wet wipes, a newly-serviced Winslow life raft, Aquapacs. Work continues on my boat, in readiness for my launch on May 24.
Ocean Rowing Update
For ocean rowing afficionados, there are two rows currently in progress you may like to follow. I am especially proud to link to Sarah Outen, who I have been informally mentoring for the last couple of years, and who launched her attempt on the Indian Ocean a few days ago. She is a fantastic writer/blogger as well as a mature and impressive young woman, so please check out her blog and join me in wishing her well.
I’d like to make special mention of an important film I went to see last night at its premier in London. The Age of Stupid has been tagged the natural successor to Al Gore‘s An Inconvenient Truth and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s The 11th Hour – moving the emphasis from information to action. Powerful, informative, potentially life-changing. Recommended. More than recommended. Positively encouraged, urged, compelled. Please go! (Have I made my point?!)
At 5.55am local time on 1st September I crossed the line of longitude at 157 50.550′W and stopped rowing, let out a whoop of delight, and beamed a huge grin of satisfaction. I had completed the first leg of my solo row across the Pacific, in a time of 99 days, 8 hours and 55 minutes. And just as I had been for all but a few hours of that time, I was all alone.
The final hours had not quite gone according to plan, but in the final analysis it made no difference. I had still done it, and a warm glow of accomplishment filled me as the waters fill the ocean – all the way to the edges.
I had entered the Molokai Channel the night before, and based on my average rate of progress over the previous few days, it looked as if I would arrive at my personally-designated finish line between 9 and noon local time, and this was the timescale we had communicated to Brocade’s PR people so they could muster the media for a photo opportunity. But we had reckoned without the Funnel Factor.
The Molokai Channel is the stretch of water between Oahu and Molokai, where the winds are funneled between the islands to create a wind tunnel. It was living up to my worst expectations. It was apparently a relatively quiet night – but if that was a quiet night, I wouldn’t like to see a rough one. The wind was blowing 25 knots and my red ensign flag stuck out perpendicularly as if it had a rod running through it. The waves were high and my boat pitched around in the darkness. The stars were bright overhead despite the nearness of the orange streetlights of Oahu – now resolving themselves into individual dots of light – but there was no moon and the deck of my boat was dark.
The battery on my iPod went dead so I switched over to a CD of music that a friend had compiled for me. I sang along to drown out the sound of the roaring wind and give myself courage.
And so the night passed. And so did the Brocade – very rapidly. It became clear that I was going to arrive way earlier than anticipated. I discussed the situation with my weatherguy. I had the option to throw out the sea anchor to slow my progress, but I doubted that this would have much effect in these conditions. And at this final stage of my adventure it went against the grain to try and slow myself down. I wanted to finish in style, not dragging my feet (metaphorically speaking) across the line.
So I suggested that we separate the two aspects of my finish. I would carry on rowing, and cross my line in my own time. Then I would be towed back to Diamond Head to re-row the last half mile for the cameras.
And so it was that I crossed the line the same way that I had crossed the previous 36 degrees of longitude – alone. And it couldn’t have been more perfect or appropriate. The morning was just starting to lighten the eastern horizon and the stars were winking out one by one. The waters were rough but I was rowing strongly. The track playing on the CD – by accident rather than design – was IZ the Hawaiian singer, and his version of Wonderful World/Somewhere Over The Rainbow.
And it was indeed a wonderful world.
After that things started to get hectic, and I relinquished the peace and solitude that I had so enjoyed over the previous 99 days. The towboat from the Waikiki Yacht Club arrived (we had already arranged for this vessel to tow me into the yacht harbour, regardless of what time I finished, so it was quick to scramble) and using my sea anchor line connected me up and towed me back to Diamond Head, a spectacular peak that forms the backdrop to the finish line of the TransPac yacht race. By 10am the media boats had arrived, along with wellwishers and, of course, my mother.
And, just as I had started this leg of my row twice (once last year – which ended in disappointment, and once this year), I also finished it twice, once for me and once for the media. It was well worth the extra effort – the few photos I have seen so far have been fantastic, and have made quite a splash on the front pages of local newspapers. We also shot footage for the documentary – quite a lot of footage, until I was really starting to wonder if I was ever to be allowed to stop rowing.
Eventually we were finished, and the towboat connected me up again. As they towed me towards the skyscrapers of Honolulu I retreated to my cabin for a few final moments alone, bracing myself for the onslaught of sensory input, in marked contrast to the watery world that had started to feel to me like a normal way of life.
The towboat dropped me at the entrance to the yacht harbour and I rowed the last few hundred yards in to the dock at the Waikiki Yacht Club, where I was greeted by cheers, a crowd of people, a phalanx of TV cameras – and a glass of chilled champagne.
I had become the first solo woman to row from California to Hawaii – but that was not what was running through my mind. Records are not important to me. The feeling I had inside was not pride, but a quiet sense of achievement in a job well done, having achieved my goals both environmental and personal. Records can be broken, but that inner sense of satisfaction can never be taken away. I was happy.
Unusually, I am writing this blog mid-afternoon. Normally I wait until my day’s rowing is over and get out my laptop at about 9.30pm, but today the JUNK has asked me to stop rowing for a while so they can catch up with me, so I find myself with time on my hands – and even on the ocean I don’t like to waste time.
It would be amusing to watch the progress of our two vessels as radar blips or on a MarineTrack chart. Their top speed is about 2.8 kts, mine about 2 kts. We are two very slow-moving objects converging on each other ever so slowly, like two garden snails about to mate (do snails mate?!).
Later:
We met. Although for a while it looked as if it might be tomorrow. The wind dropped right off this afternoon, which isn’t a problem for a rower (apart from getting very hot without the cooling effects of the wind) but it is a problem for a sailboat – especially one built for a purpose rather than for speed – like the JUNK.
After hanging around for an hour waiting for them to catch up I spoke again to the JUNK, and we realized that if we wanted to meet today, and before dark, I would have to turn around and row back towards them. This caused me a minor personal crisis. After nearly three months of heading west, west, always west, it felt totally unnatural to turn the Brocade’s bows deliberately to point east.
But in the overall scheme of things, it seemed to be best to get over this mental obstacle and row back the way I had come. I was finding it unsettling today to be in close proximity to another boat, and much as I was looking forward to meeting Marcus and Joel, I was also looking forward to getting back into my routine and pushing on towards Hawaii. To extend this episode into tomorrow would mean another compromised day at the oars.
So east I went (and north) – and it was well worth it. It took some hard rowing to get close enough to the JUNK – and eventually Marcus jumped into the water and swam over with a thin line so we could connect the two vessels. I used my makeshift cleat to reel in the line to bring Brocade close enough to the JUNK for me to jump aboard their vessel.
And what a vessel she is. I am so glad to have seen her – or I may not have believed her. A raft supported by thousands of plastic bottles lashed into cargo nets, the fuselage of a small aircraft as a cabin, a plush pile bucket seat as a captain’s chair. The JUNK is very, errr, home-made, but all the more impressive for that very reason. I thought she was very cool indeed.
The Brocade bobbed around about 10 yards away at the end of her line. It was strange to see her from the outside – for the last 3 months she has been my entire world. She’s weathering well, and I felt quietly proud of her as she waited there patiently for me.
Marcus pulled up their dredger, which skims the surface of the water to gather plankton and debris. He showed me the results. They are finding more plastic than natural matter -which is sad. Tiny pieces of plastic, still recognizable, dotted the dredger’s haul.
After that it was on to the social part of the evening. I had a great time. Not so different from your average suburban dinner party, except that Joel hopped overboard with mask and snorkel to harpoon our main course – a huge mahi mahi, which went from ocean to stomachs in less than an hour. Joel kept asking if I wanted any more, and I kept saying yes, with the result that we had mahi mahi cooked 3 different ways. I just couldn’t get enough of it. I’d like to think it was my body craving protein, but more likely I was just being greedy!
Conversation revolved around the environment, the Garbage Patch (which Marcus knows well, after 3 trips there), and our respective plans for Hawaii. There is much overlap between our goals and objectives, so hopefully we can maximize the impact of our message by combining forces. We took a load of photos, recorded a video blog for their website, I wrote a good luck message on the fuselage, and just before sunset I returned to the Brocade. The guys had been wonderful hosts, and I went back to my oars with a full belly and a smile on my face.
As I rowed off into the sunset, I reflected that it had been a great evening, and quite surreal in its way – a dinner party on board a pile of junk in mid-Pacific, hundreds of miles from anybody or anywhere – but I still have many miles to go to Hawaii, and I can’t afford to ease up yet. It was good for the soul to have a night off, but tomorrow it will be back to business as usual.
[photo: Dr Marcus Eriksen inspects the haul from the water-skimmer: a mix of plastic and natural debris]
Other stuff:
Position as at 2300 12th August Pacific Time, 0600 13th August UTC: 23 05.760′N, 147 15.961′W.
So today has been a bit of a disaster mileage-wise, but well worth it for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a very special mid-ocean rendezvous with a couple of great guys.
Thanks to everyone who has voted for my project in the Amex awards. I can’t tell you how much a cash grant like this would help. Without it, I don’t have enough funds for the next 2 stages of the Pacific row – so do please spread the word amongst your friends and family – enabling me to carry on spreading the word about the oceans!
Hi Dana – no, no major muscle cramps. Just a few twinges from time to time – knees, fingers, back – but nothing serious. On the Atlantic I used nearly all the painkillers in my first aid kit. This time around, not one!
Eric – thanks for the recipe, but I brought only the main meals from the MRE packs. On the Atlantic I would make a kind of chocolate mousse from organic hot chocolate drink mixed with a little cold water, which was great. But very sugary, and I am now sworn off refined sugars! (unless we are talking about caramel syrup in a latte.)
Sandi – the Cotswolds? Lovely! I’m enjoying my virtual journey from Land’s End. Thank you!
Well done, Jonathan, on your epic bike ride for a good cause. Happy to be of service!
Hi also to Jennifer, JD, Ruth, Gene, George, Bev, and John.
Thanks to Tim (webmaster) for putting the AMEX information on the home page – please remember to vote for the film project about Roz.
Also, take a look at the Books box on the website – it contains all the books that Roz has listened to while rowing – and if you wish to buy one, click on the title to go straight to Amazon (USA). (These last 3 notes from Rita.)
Today I have been listening to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I’ve read it before, in March 2004 – it was one of the many books on philosophy and religion that I gorged on during a self-imposed one-month retreat in a cottage on the windswept west coast of Ireland – and which lay the groundwork for my decision in August that year to row the Atlantic.
It’s been good to read it again, and to be reminded of certain lessons. One of those lessons was about “stuckness” – something I’ve certainly been able to relate to recently. According to the book, a certain amount of stuckness is to be expected in any challenging undertaking (be it mending a motorcycle or rowing an ocean) but if you persevere through the stuckness you can always resolve the problem. Eventually.
I got pretty stuck under the Golden Gate Bridge when I first set out from San Francisco. I thought the tide would never let me through. I battled it for about half an hour – then, just as the camera crew was packing up to go home, the tide changed and/or I moved over closer to the north pylon and passed out into the open ocean.
Then I got stuck again at 124 degrees West. For a very long time.
And I may well get stuck again. Weather will do that to you.
But I’ve accepted that progress is rarely linear. In all kinds of contexts, on dry land as well as on the water, I’ve often slogged away at something and wondered if I will ever break through. And, 9 times out of 10, I have – although often the breakthrough has come about in a surprising way. Like I’ll have been working away on one potential sponsor for ages – and then a generous donation comes from an entirely different quarter.
Or when I was looking for a life purpose – I knew what my values were and knew that they would guide me towards it, but I couldn’t find the actual Thing that would meet those criteria – until one day, when I wasn’t even thinking about it, the answer hit me like a thunderbolt from the blue.
I sometimes feel like the universe is testing me. I have to put in the donkey work, and eventually I get my reward – just not always from the direction I expected. Einstein once said that problems are rarely solved on the level at which they were created. He also reckoned that he wasn’t any smarter than the next person (hmm, debatable), he just stuck at problems for longer.
All of which leads me to the conclusion that often the difference between failure and success is perseverance.
Other stuff:
Position at 2145 15th July Pacific Time, 0445 16th July UTC: 25 47.506′N, 131 14.001′W.
Been going great guns today. The wind has been coming out of the NE, and has been strong enough to create a swell also from that direction, both of which have helped me along. Strange weather though – lots of sunshine but also the occasional big black raincloud. I’ve had my buckets out a couple of times today, but the actual rainfall has been minimal. So no hair-washing just yet!
Any rumours (MarineTrack) that I have been doing 5 knots are probably much exaggerated. 3 knots possibly, but 5 would be the stuff of dreams!
Thanks to all the regulars for the lovely messages.
Click here to see Day 52 of the Atlantic Crossing 21st January 2005, Blue Skies and Cable Ties – more problems with broken oars.
The value of things on an ocean rowing boat is very different from their value on dry land. Out here, the dollar/pound value of an object is totally irrelevant. If I can’t eat it, drink it, or row with it, then it’s worth very little to me, whereas there have been moments when I would have paid hundreds for a slice of pecan pie.
Actually, that’s a slight over-simplification. There are some items on board that I don’t eat, drink or row with, but which make my life that much more pleasant. Here are a few examples of things that are enrich my life out of all proportion to their monetary value (including some edible ones):
iPod – I actually have 4 iPods on board, but by far the most cherished is the one donated by Leo Laporte (who does the podcasts). It is loaded with 323 books, courtesy of audible.com. I listen to the books while I row, and they make the time pass SOOO much more easily than the total silence I endured on the Atlantic. Leo’s taste is very highbrow. I’m learning a lot!
Lock ‘n’ Lock boxes – simple food storage boxes with admirably watertight lids. I use them for everything from my Sanyo Xacti video camera (also an excellent item) to my various snacks.
Sleeping bag – my Ocean Sleepwear sleeping bag is my haven. Waterproof outer shell, fleecy lining. Fantastic.
Trusty latte spoon – probably purloined from a coffee shop at some time in the past. I eat every meal with it. It’s long enough to reach to the bottom of boil-in-the-bag meal sachets, or to the bottom of the mug I use for freeze-dried food, thus avoiding the unappetizing horror of lumpy, partially rehydrated food that managed to avoid proper stirring.
Tea tree oil – applied neat to the parts of the body (use your imagination) that are susceptible to the saltwater sores that caused me such misery on the Atlantic. It has powerful antiseptic qualities, and smells lovely and fresh and clean.
Boil in the bag meals – so much nicer than the freeze dried meals, because they have proper chunks of meat and veg in them (and even dumplings!) rather than the finely minced dusty rubble of freeze-dried food. Alas, I ate the last one a couple of days ago, so it’s freeze-dried from now on.
Sproutamo – my doughty seed sprouter (see photo). It lives in a mesh bag, tucked away in a corner of the deck underneath the gunwales. I’ve mastered the art of sprouting seeds using the absolute minimum of water, and in less than 48 hours I have fresh crunchy beansprouts. Super-healthy! And environmentally friendly too, as they are fresh and unprocessed so don’t have the carbon footprint of freeze-dried foods, nor the packaging. (Roz was very tired last night after making the most of good rowing conditions – she was unable to attach the picture. I have added one taken on the Atlantic crossing but she uses a different sprouter now. Rita.)
From my ocean perspective it strikes me as pretty funny what people will pay for a Picasso or a rare stamp. Out here it’s all about survival and efficiency. Not enough room for a Picasso on the wall of my cabin, anyway.
Other stuff:
Position at 2150 14th July Pacific time, 0450 15th July UTC: 25 56.708′N, 130 37.513′W.
Lovely conditions for rowing today, and I’m making good progress. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts!
Blue Pledges: today was the grand presentation of the pledges at the British Houses of Parliament. I’ve asked the BLUE Project to let me know how it went, and will report back.
Glad to hear about all the cool stuff on the internet – the podcasts, 1planet1ocean and so on. I just wish I could see them too!
Today I saw a tiny piece of plastic floating past – it looked like a square inch or so of plastic carrier bag. And there was one of the little blue crabs sitting on it! So now I don’t know if the crabs actually swim, or if they just hitch rides on passing debris.but either way I was sad to see the plastic so far from land.
Today I took my first saltwater sponge bath. I can’t spare enough fresh water, but I desperately needed a wash – it was hot and windless today and I was sweating. Further to John H’s suggestion, I made sure I wiped off all the saltwater when I’d finished to avoid that sticky feeling. And it seemed to work pretty well – I felt clean and refreshed. Thanks, John!
From BLUE Project newsletter: Anne Qu?m?r? (France): Ocean Kite Surfer
As our second BLUE Ambassador set to cross the Pacific Ocean this year, Anne will follow in Roz’s footsteps when she sets off alone from San Francisco in three months time. However, this is where the similarities between the voyages end as Anne will be using a kite to propel her tiny craft across the Ocean rather than oars and is heading for the French Polynesian Islands some 4,350 miles away.
That’s all for now. It’s been a long day at the oars. Thanks again for all the wonderful messages of support and encouragement that continue to pour in.
Click here to see Day 51 of the Atlantic Crossing Friday Night Dinner Party: the 4 guests she would choose for such an imaginary event.
You might be surprised to see a blog about Antarctica written from a rowboat on the Pacific, but one of the real joys of audiobooks is the way they suck you into a different world – and today, for me, that world has been the South Pole, 1914-16.
It’s been a long day’s rowing, but has passed relatively pleasantly because I’ve been listening to The Lost Men, the story of the men who were enlisted to support Shackleton’s attempt to be the first to cross Antarctica. Their job was to sail to the opposite side of the continent from Shackleton’s primary team, and set out from the Ross Sea to deposit caches of food and fuel for the last third of Shackleton’s journey.
As it turned out, the whole expedition was a spectacular failure in the finest British tradition, following on from Scott’s noble but fatal attempt to be the first to the South Pole (the Norwegian, Amundsen, beat him by a month, and Scott and his men died on the return journey). Shackleton didn’t make it to the Pole, or indeed, even onto the continent. And the support team fell into disarray, with half-baked plans and lack of leadership leading to delays.
What the two teams had in common was intense hardship, many of the men spending a total of two years in Antarctica, enduring harsh weather, starvation, malnutrition, frostbite, 24-hour darkness, and uncertainty as to whether they would ever be rescued. The Ross Sea party, particularly, seem to have suffered – when they were eventually picked up, they were almost feral, stinking of seal blood and blubber, and speaking strangely.
There was no way for the teams to communicate with each other, or with the outside world. Nobody would know if they had succeeded or failed until they returned. Or didn’t.
Listening to this sorry saga made me feel very humble, and frankly, like a bit of a wimp. On the Atlantic I felt pretty sorry for myself at times, with all my oars broken, as well as my stereo, camping stove, and ultimately my satellite phone. But at all times I had enough to eat and drink, was warm enough, and even after my phone broke my team could follow my progress via my locator beacon. And it was only for a mere 103 days.
So it was good to be reminded of a time when explorers really were pushing the boundaries in a way we can’t even begin to imagine now. They were seriously hardcore. Respect!
[If you're interested in reading more about my Atlantic crossing, we're going to start doing a series of links: "This day on the Atlantic.". Mum will be adding the links to my blogs, as I can't do it from here, so there may be a time delay of a few hours between this blog first appearing and the link being added, due to the time difference.]
Other stuff:
John in Reno – I would love to tell you more (or show photos of videos) about what I am seeing and observing, but there really hasn’t been anything apart from sea and sky, and that wears a bit thin after a while! I haven’t seen any wildlife since the sunfish a few weeks ago (apart from a couple of birds). Nor have I seen any ocean debris, although I have been looking out for it. Rest assured, if and when I see something interesting, I will duly report.
Rachel – so after the first 10 days you had no electricity at all on your Atlantic crossing – wow! I’m in absolute luxury, then! You’re almost in the Shackleton league.!
Marty U – if you’re interested in the weather, check out my weatherguy’s blog. I can’t see my website from here, but I think the link is on the right of this page.
Special thanks to Chris Martin for the words of encouragement. (fyi, Chris was the only other solo entry in the Atlantic Rowing Race 2005.}
ARE YOU COOL YET?!
If not, do it now. Go to www.theblueproject.org and click on the Make a BLUE Pledge button. Let’s make this world a bluer/greener/happier place!
This is a future-dated blog entry, posted the night before my launch on 24th May. It is an interview with my old friend Will Stockland, for Oxford’s Romulus magazine.
THE FREEDOM OF THE OCEAN. AN INTERVIEW WITH ROZ SAVAGE: ROWER, WRITER, AND MARINE ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGNER.
Roz Savage left a successful career in the City of London as a management consultant to pursue her dream of rowing solo across the Atlantic. In 2005 she successfully completed the Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race and is now about to embark on being the first woman ever to row solo across the Pacific – a feat she is undertaking to raise awareness of marine environmental issues. Here she talks to Will Stockland, about her experiences and aspirations.
WS: Why did you decide to leave your previous life – was this in some way an act of personal liberation?
RS: Oh yes, definitely. I had a belief system which was very rigid and I believed that possessions would make me happy but that was suddenly to be completely undermined. My husband and I moved into this wonderful huge house and I had everything I had aspired to: money, a wonderful house, a husband, a flourishing career. But I realised quickly that even though I had all these wonderful things I was still the same person with all the same hang-ups – nothing had changed! I had to make a serious reassessment because I started to feel that I was simply not living the life I was meant to live. I sat down and wrote two obituaries: the life I wanted to be remembered for and the life I would be remembered for if I carried on in the way I was going. There was a terrifying difference. So I made the changes which meant leaving everything behind – house, husband, career. It felt like the most radical thing I had ever done in my life! I had stepped off the known world.
WS: You then went travelling in Peru for a while – why Peru?
RS: I wanted to step into an unknown environment where spontaneity was a necessity. Up to this point in my life I had been a compulsive planner and I had been going down a blinkered path. I knew that I had to become more intuitive and be open to gut-feel and serendipity. Peru was delicious open-plan process. I became immersed in the process rather than the end-product even though I kept the vague end-goal of writing up my experiences for others to share. In fact, I felt like I was a character in my own book – it was very exciting. I had little money and a lot of time and this gave me a hugely rich experience – this was a different model of wealth than the one I was accustomed to!
WS: But what prompted you to take on the Trans-Atlantic Rowing Race?
RS: Self-empowerment. I had been reliant on other people for so long – on things and forces outside myself. I knew I needed to change that and have a sense that I was creating my own life and achieving my own goals – this was the first step in doing this.
WS: Setting out into the open ocean is about as close to complete freedom as it gets in most people’s minds, I imagine. Did you find this? Did you ever, in fact, feel trapped when you were in the middle of the ocean, alone?
RS: Excellent question! Someone texted me on my satellite phone mid-way through the race and it said: “Enjoy this time: You will never be this free”. I was enraged by this – had this person any idea how it felt to be stuck in 23ft boat for 3 and a half months at the mercy of the impersonal ocean and weather?! So yes, one shouldn’t get too geographical about freedom! Having said that, at night with the phosphorus-illumined ocean beneath me and the Milky Way above me – that was wonderful. Strangely, the most free I really felt was when my satellite phone broke for 24 days and nobody could contact me. Then I just became completely immersed in the process with no idea what I was rowing into because I had no weather reports – I was completely in the moment. It was blissful.
WS: You set off from San Francisco in May to be the first woman to row solo across the Pacific. Do you see this as an act of female liberation?
RS: It is more about facing personal challenges and using that as a platform to promote awareness of larger issues. When I was growing up there weren’t really any female role models although Anita Roddick was emerging as one. I aim to use my activities as a platform for awareness of important issues and it’s good to show that you don’t need to be a square-jaw Arnie figure to get things done. Often physical limitations are really mental limitations – a serious amount is achievable with determination and gradual application.
WS: You are involved with a marine environmental charity, Blue Frontier Campaign, and are using your Pacific row to highlight ocean environmental issues – can you expand on this?
RS: Yes, that’s right. Blue Frontier Campaign raise awareness of marine environmental issues and have helped me to plan my journey effectively in terms of publicising these issues. The first stage is from California to Hawaii which takes me through the Pacific Garbage Patch – a Texas-sized floating mass of cumulative rubbish that is getting into the food chain steadily. Then I go from Hawaii to Tuvalu, an island that is already being depopulated because of the increase in the level of the ocean – it will soon disappear. Then I row from Tuvalu to Australia and will be concentrating on raising awareness of the Great Barrier Reef and how changes in it show how much marine environmental damage has and is being done by us. The ocean shows us that we are facing such an environmental crisis that it may lead to extinction. Anybody who argues that the radical measures required to stop this process are too expensive should be aware that dead people are not very good for the economy!
WS: You do a lot of inspirational writing and lecturing. Do your experiences of personal freedom have any influence on this?
RS: I have to be careful here. Different people have different ideas of personal freedom, but I do try to get across that not living up to your full potential as a human being will create problems for that person – being trapped by fear, being scared to dream, or change, or being scared of what other people think of you – this is not living up to your full potential. If you take baby steps out of these fear traps you can achieve a lot. My book is called One Stroke at a Time – if you take too big a leap out of your comfort zone you will scare yourself stupid but gentle steps one by one can go a very long way. Very occasionally, you may have to make a big leap but you should prepare gradually and carefully for that.
WS: So what is your definition of freedom and how do we balance security and freedom in our lives?
RS: I was attached to security – money, a home, a husband. But homes burn down and husbands go bankrupt – suddenly it’s all gone, security shattered. Security is in fact greater when you realise how little you need. I am secure in the knowledge that I have the mental and spiritual tools to cope – that is real security. It’s a sense of freedom that comes from an inner confidence that I never used to have – it’s empowering. From an environmental perspective too, the quest for financial security and over-production and consumption is limiting our freedom. If we damage the environment through excessive industrial activity then we will all become sick – sickness is very limiting!
WS: The founder of Wolfson College, Sir Isaiah Berlin, said: “Total liberty of the wolves is death to the lambs”. How do you interpret that in the light of your experiences and work?
RS: Well, yes. We need a different paradigm of business – less short-termism and shareholder prioritisation. Governments must step in and influence commercial activities more. But also we, as individuals, must do more by being mindful of what we buy into. A lot of people feel helpless in the face of the environmental problems but I want to say to them that every single action they take makes a difference and the cumulative effect of billions of individual actions is, of course, huge. Aldous Huxley said: “The only corner of the universe that we can be sure of changing is ourselves”. We can control what we do and we are already making a difference to the environment so we need to take responsibility for that and decide whether we want that difference to be good or bad. We should act as if we are powerful because we all are.
Roz Savage’s book One Stroke at a Time will be published in the US in Autumn 2009 by Simon & Schuster. To keep informed of her activities, events, and publications please see her website: www.rozsavage.com.
Other Stuff: I continue to inch my way slowly west, while the wind is blowing me south. Today the wind and waves have increased, making for uncomfortable rowing conditions, with occasional big “drenchers” crashing in over the side.
I have to confess that I have had little patience for the ocean and its tricks today. I’m feeling a little downcast over the demise of my watermaker. While the ocean does its best to encrust me with salt, it depresses me slightly to consider the prospect of another couple of months without a sponge bath. After a hard day’s rowing it feels so good to have fresh water and zingy shower gel on my skin. But I have to conserve all the fresh water I have for drinking. I have a large supply of wet wipes, but they just don’t have that Fresh Factor.
Right now the happiest news that anybody could give me would be that they can resupply me with fresh water in about 2 weeks time. If you, or anybody you know, is planning to sail, say, from San Diego to Hawaii over the next couple of months, please do get in touch.
Roz’s position Tuesday night: 31 04 197N 124 47 058W
Why do I do what I do? Why, having had a life of relative ease, comfort and affluence, have I now chosen to put grey hairs on the head of my poor long-suffering mother by rowing alone across oceans?
It’s a good question, so I’ll try to give a good answer.
By 2004 I had figured out that money wasn’t everything, that maybe who I was mattered more than what I owned.
So I had already quit the office job and was looking around for something more fulfilling – and for me, “fulfilling” had to involve making a contribution to the greater good. I was doing a lot of reading about philosophy and religion, and was especially influenced by the prophecies of the Hopi tribe, which foretold dramatic consequences if ever humans lost touch with their spiritual life, and started to overexploit the resources of the planet rather than living in harmony with nature. This made intuitive sense to me, and I resolved to live my own life in a more spiritual, less environmentally damaging way.
When I started to live this way, it felt good. I thought maybe I should spread the word – not in a preachy way, but just by making my life an example, showing that there was a viable and enjoyable alternative to the materialistic kind of life that I had been living before.
I toyed with several ideas – setting up an organic coffee shop, riding a motorbike around the American Southwest to write a book about the native culture, converting a tugboat to a liveaboard home using only sustainable energies. But none had seemed quite right, or required more money than I had.
I hadn’t been particularly looking for a big adventure – but when the idea of rowing across oceans came to me in a flash of inspiration one day, I just knew, with a scary certainty, that it was the Perfect Project.
Believe me, I tried to talk myself out of it. I thought it was too big, too ambitious, that people like me just didn’t do things like that. But the idea refused to go away, until I really had no choice but to do it, or spend the rest of my life thinking “if only”.
So here I am, aged 40, homeless and usually penniless, bobbing around in a tiny rowboat about to be hit by a Force 10 gale. Hmmm, interesting choice.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Other stuff:
This morning I recorded another podcast with renowned TV/radio journalist and podcaster Leo Laporte. Do check them out if you haven’t already. I can’t see my website from the ocean (I have email but no internet browsing) so I can’t tell you exactly where to find the podcasts, but hopefully they are fairly evident.
Today I squirted the watermaker liberally with WD40, according to a suggestion from Spectra, the manufacturers. It ran OK for about half an hour and then stopped again. The pressure seemed rather low and the tone of the pump sounded rather feeble. It’s still a major cause for concern, although now at least the Bag Balm seems to be stopping the compartment from flooding again.
The weather was quite pleasant for most of today – sunny, although the wind was still too strong to row against. But in the last couple of hours there has been a marked deterioration. The skies are now heavy and grey, and the waves are getting larger. Is this The Big One? I am bracing myself…
Last night I felt afraid. I was reading the weather forecast from Rick Shema, my weatherguy:
“Wind and sea conditions likely to increase to gale force (Force late on Jun 4th or early June 5th. Winds to 40kts and seas steadily building to Force 10 conditions (for seas) on Jun 7th.”
The prospect sounded terrifying. My insides knotted and Fear started running around inside my head like a madman, waving his arms wildly and wailing, “We’re all doomed!” in a high-pitched cry.
The Voice of Reason stood off to one side, waiting for Fear to quieten down enough so he could make himself heard. Eventually Fear got tired of doing laps of the inside of my head and started to wind down like a clockwork toy. Reason managed to get a word in.
“Look,” he said in his calm, strong voice, “this weather isn’t even happening yet, and you’re already in a tizz about it. Let’s look at this objectively.
“OK, so we’ve never been in a Force 10 before, but we’ve been in some pretty bad weather and we know this boat is seaworthy. If we just stay in the cabin most of the time, and clip on to the boat when we have to go outside to go to the bathroom, we’ve got a good chance of coming through this in one piece.
“And besides, we have no choice. We’re out here now. There’s nowhere we can go, and no way we can avoid this weather. We’re just going to have to tough it out. But we can do it if we keep our head and stay calm. Just DON’T PANIC!!!”
So this is where I am now. I’m not looking forward to the next 3 days, but that’s just the way it is.
Fear comes from our sense of self-preservation: when we get into a situation we’ve never been in before, Fear starts freaking out – NOT doing this thing has kept us alive so far, so why change now?
But just because you’ve never been in a situation before doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you. And just because you HAVE been there before, doesn’t mean it WON’T kill you. So although fear can be a useful indicator saying, “don’t go there”, it can also be excessively cautious, warning us against anything at all that is unfamiliar. So it has to be balanced against reason and, of course, the spirit of adventure.
Meanwhile, the daily practicality of dealing with this situation is very mundane. Unlike sailors, who have to run around on deck attending to halyards and sheets and suchlike, there is really nothing at all I can do on deck at the moment, and my best survival strategy happily coincides with my natural instinct – to curl up into the foetal position, strap myself to my bunk, and ride out the storm.
So I spend most of my time inside my very small cabin, wriggling around in my red sleeping bag like a big red grub in a chrysalis, waiting for the time when I can emerge back into the outside world. I doze, nibble on snacks, listen to audio books and write my blogs. And try to keep the Fear under control.
Other stuff:
I am worried about the watermaker after finding its compartment flooded yesterday. This morning I ran the watermaker for a few minutes and it seemed fine. But this afternoon it suddenly stopped after about half an hour, and wouldn’t restart.
I’ve spoken to Darren at Spectra Watermakers and he has suggested a couple of possible solutions, but I can’t do either of them while there are waves crashing over the deck every few minutes. I will have to wait for the weather to calm down.
Meanwhile, I have done what I can to prevent swamping the watermaker again. The water must have come in around the edges of the hatch lid, which is partly submerged when the footwell fills up with water, as tends to happen in these wet and wild conditions. I’ve got some proper marine sealant, but it needs a dry surface, and in any case would possibly glue the hatch shut if I can’t leave the hatch open while it dries. So for now I’ve taken my panacea for all ills – Bag Balm – and daubed it generously around the o-ring and the edges of the hatch. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do for now.
[photo: view from inside the cabin as a wave crashes across the deck]
Someone has written in to ask whether I get lonely at sea. Strange though it may seem – no, I don’t. Not in the slightest.
I’d like to think I’m as sociable as the next person in normal life. I certainly enjoy being around people, and always seem to find myself among the last few diehards left at parties, having somehow forgotten my earlier resolutions to “just drop in and get an early night”.
But when I’m on the ocean life is very different. Socializing simply isn’t an option, so I don’t even think about it.
Maybe one reason for my self-reliance is that when I was growing up my parents moved around a lot. They were both preachers in the Methodist church, and tended to move every five years or so. My younger sister and I were always the new kids at school, so I always felt a bit “different” – my accent would be different from the other children’s, and my parents didn’t have a “normal” job.
My response to this situation was to be fairly quiet and introverted throughout my schooldays. It wasn’t until I went to university that I started to come out of my shell and enjoy social situations.
So I can be either – extrovert or introvert, sociable or unsociable, gregarious or solitary. It’s useful to choose which to be, as the occasion demands. For now, I am very happy to be on my own. But you can be sure that (if all goes according to plan) when I arrive in Hawaii, I will be up for a VERY big party!
Other stuff:
Panic today. I opened up the hatch to the watermaker (see photo above) so I could replenish my stocks of drinking water – and found that the hatch was full of water. The watermaker was almost completely submerged. It is a complicated piece of electrical equipment, and does not take kindly to being swamped. I bailed it out as fast I could, and it seemed to run just fine today – but if water has got into the pump, it could be just a matter of time before rust sets in and it grinds to a halt.
If that happens, I do have a backup manual watermaker, but it takes an awful lot of pumping to make enough water for a day. For now I am keeping everything crossed and hoping that the watermaker survives. Having got this far, I am very reluctant to return to dry land to make pre-emptive repairs.
The wind seems to be in favour of the return-to-land option, though. I was able to row for about 7 hours today before the wind picked up again, and I am now sitting out another gale. The sea anchor is out and I am hunkered down in the cabin while steep grey waves crash and seethe around my little boat. And all the time, the wind is driving me back towards the coast. I just hope I have made enough progress west to avoid being pushed all the way back to California.
And one final thing: to clarify my comment yesterday about the external video camera not working. This is not a major issue, as I do still have the internal video camera, as well as a small handheld camcorder – so I am capturing lots of footage for our environmental documentary based around my Pacific row. I have at least two of almost every item on board – just in case – and cameras are no exception.
I have a confession to make. I do not love the sea. Admire and respect it – yes, as you might admire a strict and unforgiving teacher – but love it, no. Before I rowed the Atlantic I had romantic notions of the ocean as the last great wilderness, where sea creatures played and humans enacted heroic tales of courage and derring-do. And no doubt, for some people, the ocean is indeed like that.
But my experiences have been rather different. Today, as so often on the Atlantic, the sea has soaked me, chilled me, pushed me around and generally behaved rather badly.
So why are you rowing across oceans to help save them, then? you might be wondering. Surely you must care?
Yes, I absolutely DO care – passionately. Although I do not love the oceans, I emphatically believe that we have to look after them. On this planet of ours, big though it may seem, everything is connected. We cannot have dead or dying oceans and hope to have healthy life on land.
So maybe there is something selfish in my mission to help preserve the oceans – I see marine conservation as essential for the future of the planet, and for the continued existence of the human race. It is a logical and pragmatic reason rather than a sentimental one – and if that offends anybody, then I make no apologies, because I think my reasons are just as valid, and the end result is the same – doing what I can to help preserve the oceans, and every other part of the planet that may be affected by my actions too.
But it does make me smile wryly, on a day like today when the waves have knocked me off my seat more than once and almost swept me out of the boat and into the sea (yes, Mum, I WAS wearing my safety harness) – when it comes to preservation of the Sea versus preservation of the Me, I need to make sure I do both!
Huge apologies for recent silence… and I don’t even have the excuse of a non-functioning satphone now. My feeble excuse is that life has been hugely hectic and a logistical nightmare – on my boat everything I needed was within 23 feet, but back here in England, and without a home to call my own, it has been a challenge to get myself to where I need to be, on time and suitably clothed. There have been times when I’ve yearned to be back on my little boat bobbing around in the big blue, when life was relatively simple.
I got back to England on Monday and spent a couple of days with Natalie, my old rowing friend-turned-nutritional therapist, in Emsworth. I popped down to the Dolphin Quay Boatyard to catch up with the guys and let Richard Uttley, boatbuilder extraordinary, know just how well Sedna had performed.
Now I’m back in London for a few days before I cross the Atlantic yet again to give a speech in New York. While I’m not recognised in the street here the way I was in Antigua, there is enough media interest to make life interesting. In the last week there have been various newspaper and magazine interviews, and I’ve been on BBC South and Channel Five News – the latter fortunately was on the day of the fundraising party on HMS President (courtesy of Cdr Mike Pearey and the Royal Navy) so I was able to turn up still wearing my studio makeup, i.e. looking significantly more glamorous than usual.
The party was a great success, raising more than ?5000 for the Prince’s Trust, thanks largely to the magnificent efforts of our guest auctioneer Mr Nick Bonham from the famous auction house.
In the midst of all this activity I’m struggling to keep that little kernel of serenity and strength that I tried to nurture in the latter stages of the row. When I was in Antigua I looked back on the race and wondered which was the dream and which was the reality, and similarly I now find myself wondering which was the real Roz – the one I finally found out there on the ocean, or the one who seems to be re-emerging now I’m back on dry land. I’m desperate not to forget all that I learned out there, but this will be at least as big a challenge as the row itself. But if I do forget, then what was the point of it all?
(Apologies for lack of photo – for some reason the dispatch interface won’t accept my photo selection. Technology – pah!)
Roz is very kindly allowing me to do another dispatch! When I went out on the RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat) we met up with Roz 4 miles out of English Harbour, and her first words were “We did it!” The hug had to wait until she was ashore; until we had tied up the rib and forced a way through the crowd of people, with the lighted flare. What I really aim to say is how much we appreciate the welcome and help which we received on Antigua: local Antiguans, English people now living on Antigua, and people we met aboard yachts just visiting Antigua. From beginning to end they have been so enthusiastic and generous that it has been an amazing and wonderful experience. We could not have managed without their homes, phones, computers, hands, advice, knowledge, generosity, interest, fenders, buckets, boats, cars etc etc. Just saying thank you is hardly adequate, they all deserve medals! Both Roz and I have also been overwhelmed by the messages of congratulation by email, and also people who live on the island recognizing us as we gone about our business, stopping to have a word and shake our hands. Some of my earlier dispatches were full of ‘thankyou’s, and here we go again, but we are SO grateful for the comments and interest shown by so many people. It has been a fascinating experience for me – when I wasn’t worrying about Roz!
PS Just a reminder about the Party/Charity Auction on Thursday 23rd: it would be great to see you there, but please remember that we are not issuing tickets: WE NEED TO KNOW if you are coming, and YOU need to bring photo ID because of the Royal Navy security rulings. Do use Roz’ home page to send messages and/or payment. Thanks, Rita Savage.
Just outside English Harbour, Antigua, the welcome begins.
15th March
It’s been less than 48 hours since I arrived in Antigua, and my feet have barely touched the ground, and after all this time yearning to get my feet back on solid ground too.
Right now I feel like I’m dreaming and that I’m going to wake up and find that I’ve got yet another day of rowing to do, but maybe I’ll soon start to feel that this is the reality and it was the rowing that was a dream.
I still get occasional bouts of groundsway, but they’re becoming less frequent. I’ve also still got the driving rowing rhythm going through my head – the beat that helped me get through the final days of my row, a constant repetition of affirmative mantras in time with my oarstrokes. It worked well in the boat but on dry land it’s driving me crazy. It’s over, I keep telling my brain, you don’t have to row any more.
I’ve been on a constant high since I arrived in Antigua, overwhelmed by the warm hospitality of the people here, and flattered by the attention of media here and in the UK. There has been a constant stream of people wanting to come and shake my (still very sore) hand, and to congratulate me on my achievement.
If you didn’t see the photo of my arrival added belatedly to yesterday’s dispatch, check it out now. How big is that grin?! And it’s weird to see how skinny I look – like a smile on a stick. I was able to weigh myself yesterday – 102lb or 7st 4lb or about 46kg – so I’ve lost about 30lb or 14kg on the way across. The Atlantic Diet – effective, but a toughie.
I’ve been catching up on some of the emails that Mum received during what I’m calling my Space Oddity period – the three and a half weeks between my satphone dying and my arrival in Antigua. Clearly there was a lot of speculation about what was happening, both with my comms and with my erratic progress across the ocean. There was a lot going on, too much to put into one dispatch, but I’ll give a quick summary here.
17th Feb: satphone stops working. Suspect the connection between the handset and the antenna is shorting out. Peter Beardow at 7E had told me that ocean rower Dom Mee had this problem and they suggested he use a chocolate wrapper to fix it, but didn’t say what sort of chocolate wrapper (foil or paper?) or what to do with it. Attempt all kinds of creative things with both paper and foil but no success.
Initially rather pleased to have total peace and quiet and solitude, an opportunity to find out who I am when I’m not being someone’s daughter or friend or blogger, but as time wears on and the last miles prove to be fraught with problems, there are times when I wished I had at least access to weather and eddy information.
27th Feb: being pushed NE by eddy – ever further from Antigua
1st March: discover that I’d mis-plotted the location of finish line by 1?, so instead of having 197 nautical miles to go I still have nearly 250. Faintly depressing.
2nd March: make VHF contact with USS Pomeroy. Manage to get message to Mum and Woodvale to let them know that it’s only the satphone that’s died, not me.
4th – 6th March: at the mercy of wind and eddies, being pushed the wrong way. More yell therapy.
6th – 9thMarch: sea like a mirror, and hot, hot, hot. Rowing hard, feel like my brain is boiling in my skull. Ocean seems enormous, feel like I will never get to Antigua.
10th March: disaster. Had put out Sid the sea anchor to try and halt south drift. It doesn’t work, and when I try to retrieve him the tripline fails – for some reason it’s not deflating the parachute. Spend an hour hauling on the dead weight of a ton of seawater, tying a slipknot and securing it into a karabiner to preserve progress made. Get Sid within 20 feet of boat but now trying to pull upwards as well as across, strength failing. See passing ship and dash into cabin to get on VHF radio. While in cabin the tripline breaks altogether. More yell therapy. No way I can now retrieve Sid, as his main line is too thick to be secured into karabiner. During VHF contact asked the ship (the Boston) to summon Aurora.
11th March: stuck on Sid, waiting for Aurora. Finally have fantastic surfing conditions (albeit still pushing me south) but can’t go anywhere anyway. Frustration. Aurora had given ETA lunchtime. Spend afternoon issuing increasingly forlorn pleas on VHF trying to contact them. Decide to take matters into my own hands – set up safety line across roof of forward cabin by lassoing the bow cleat and resolve to cut Sid’s line first thing in the morning if still no sign of Aurora.
12th March: psyched up to go out across the cabin roof despite rough seas. Emerge from cabin to see Aurora nearby. I ask them to keep an eye on me and be ready to save me if safety line fails, then wait until first light and clamber out onto cabin roof, knife clenched between my teeth. Get halfway across then slide off curved roof into the sea. Safety line holds and I clamber back on. Succeed in cutting the line. Retreat to safety of the cockpit and start rowing.
13th March: up at 0400 to start rowing. By 0700 Antigua is in sight. Survive on caffeine and slurps of sugar syrup to fuel 10 hours of non-stop rowing to make it into English Harbour to an incredible welcome. I don’t stop grinning for about 24 hours. I’ve done it.
“Roz has spent an unbelievable 103 days in a 24-foot boat, on her own. This is an incredible adventure. I admire her stamina and determination… This must have tested her resources to their limit.”
Sir Steve Redgrave, quintuple Olympic gold medal winner
In 2005, Roz Savage became the first woman to complete the Atlantic Rowing Race – solo.
She set out from the Canary Islands with 3,000 miles of empty ocean ahead of her, carrying nothing more could be squeezed in her boat. Alone and with no support, Roz fought storms that broke every one of her oars before she had reached halfway, and also claimed her camping stove, stereo, and cockpit navigation instruments.
As the Atlantic Ocean gradually reduced her boat to the bare essentials, Roz’s voyage captured the attention of people all over the world. Despite her testing circumstances, Roz managed to keep a blog that she updated by satellite phone.
Her determination to never surrender in the face of almost overwhelming conditions struck a chord with thousands around the globe. People stayed tuned as she repaired her oars, was blown backwards by adverse winds, and hit the wall – both physically and mentally. Roz’s blog entertained and, more importantly, inspired readers worldwide.
Roz wasn’t just showing that she had what it took to make the change from city worker to transatlantic rower. She was showing that we all have the strength within us to be the people we truly want to be. It also enlightened people about the state of the world’s oceans, a resource that is all too often taken for granted.
When, on the 17th of February, Roz’s satellite phone, too, succumbed to the harsh conditions onboard, Roz was presented with the toughest challenge of the entire row – total isolation from the world, with nearly four weeks of the race still to go.
But she persevered, and twenty-four days later, at twelve minutes to six in the evening GMT, Roz crossed the finish line and rowed into the history books.
Arriving to an amazing welcome in Antigua yesterday - see the size of that grin!
14th March
Hello from one very happy ocean rower, now chilling out in Antigua, enjoying good food and warm hospitality… and wishing the ground would stop swaying.
Yesterday I got up at 4am to start rowing. With the finish line finally in sight I rowed nonstop for 10 hours to make sure I got to Antigua before sunset. If only I’d realised earlier I was capable of such rowing feats I might have got here weeks ago!
I had no idea what kind of a welcome awaited me. I’d envisaged pulling in at a jetty, giving my mum a hug, and then pottering off for a bite to eat. I certainly hadn’t expected a flotilla of boats coming out to greet me, hundreds of people standing on the quayside, a choir of schoolchildren singing to me, and presentations from a series of local dignitaries. After months of solitude and silence it was pretty overwhelming. And really, really good.
There’s so much to catch up on since I last wrote, but my laptop battery is about to go flat, so it will have to wait. I’ll try to post some photos later today – I’ve never been so skinny or so brown so I’m going to show it off while it lasts!
Thank you for all the messages of congratulations that I’ve received so far, and thanks also for all the messages of support that were sent to my mother, especially during my ‘Space Oddity’ phase since the satphone packed up. All very much appreciated.
Oar repairs with Sikaflex, flattened boat hook and cable ties.
28th Feb.
No, not referring to Roz’state of undress. Each day I hear about new people logging onto Roz’ website – most welcome, but they don’t know half the story! I am therefore going to give some quotes from earlier dispatches to summarise what Roz has been through:
(Day 47) Roz did suffer a knock-down today, worse than the previous one on Thursday 5th January, but came upright again. She has great confidence in her boat and its ability to self-right. The para anchor and drogue both went overboard but she struggled and got them back on again. Roz does not expect to sleep much tonight, and is also concerned about salt-water sores due to sleeping in a wet bed.
(Day 49) When I told my mother about the latest casualties she commented, ‘The ocean is really stripping you down, isn’t it?’. And this is true, metaphorically as well as literally. As I’m left with less and less, it makes me realise how little I actually need, how little is actually important.
Updated Casualty List
New entries:
4th and final oar now damaged – so I have: Magic bendy oar – irreparable Oar with no spoon – irreparable Oar with spoon almost broken off – Sikaflexed and splinted Oar with shaft broken close to gate (rowlock) – splinted
I’m amazed and rather indignant about the two broken spoons. These oars were properly stowed alongside the guardrail oars, i.e. with the spoons 4ft clear of the water, and supposedly protected by the guardrail spoons – yet one broke clean off and the other nearly so. For this sort of pressure to be exerted, 4ft above the waterline, on both sides of the boat… That must have been some knockdown.
And more losses overboard: Thermos mug #2 (1 remaining) with dinner inside Drinks bottle #2 (1 remaining) Lip salve #2 (2 remaining) Bag for para-anchor line 2 buckets (1 remaining) Alpaca skin seat cover #2 (1 remaining)
Plus flooded lockers: #5 – beneath aft cabin. Relatively empty, fortunately, but cosy dry alpaca socks as special treat (courtesy of Alpaca Centre near Penrith) are cosy and dry no more #7 – grab bags and lifejacket are swimming #13 – jerrycans and cleaning materials. Deliberately left flooded for added ballast.
Plus previous casualties: Petzl head torch (contacts rusted) Camping stove – plunger jammed Navigation instruments Stereo Thermos mug Lid off thermos flask Spoon Drinks bottle Storage jar Alpaca skin seat cover Lip salve Milton fluid …and a comfy foam cushion for sitting on.
And now since 17th February the satphone. I am not too concerned that she only achieved 18 miles yesterday, as she is very obviously having to work hard to get further north. One email that I had today was from Caroline who is clearly reading the signs in just the same way. Or maybe she had to repair an oar again? Another email messager suggested that I should take some flapjack to Antigua. This is already in hand, courtesy of the mother of a friend of Roz’ in the 1980s.
How would you feel with ONLY 330 more miles to row?
Sponsored mile: 2607 Mark Merritt, the numbers represent his son’s birthday! Happy birthday, and thank you.
In the groove – some disciplined rowing. 16 Feb, 06 – 20:36
I have received that rarest of things – a piece of unsolicited advice that is helpful. The text said,
‘When I was trying to stop smoking, a mate said just stop putting fags in your mouth, you big wuss.
So just stop letting your routine break down – let your non-emotional mind stay in charge, you big wuss.’
For some reason this message hit home where more sophisticated arguments had failed. I’d been failing to make that essential link between present actions and desired future outcome. I want to get to Antigua, and soon. How am I going to get there? Teleport? No, get rowing!
I was quite embarrassed that my outlook could be so revolutionised by such a painfully simple piece of advice, but when I thought about it I found some consolation in the fact that it seems to be a common human failing at all levels.
I want to lose weight. So stop eating so much, you big wuss!
I want a more exciting life. So do something exciting, you big wuss!
I want my children to know a planet with rainforests/glaciers/diversity of species. So start living a greener lifestyle/using energy from renewable sources/recycling your rubbish, you big wuss!
I want global peace. So stop starting wars, you big W! (or is that just hypocrisy?)
I now call this my Big Wuss principle.
Thank you to George from Atlantic4. That’s the second good piece of advice you’ve given me, the first being on Day 1 of the race: ‘your watermaker probably has air in it and needs priming’. Dammit, man, I may have to review my prejudice about unsolicited advice from men.
Note to non- British readers: ‘wuss’ is a mild term of abuse, implying weakness of some sort. A bit like ‘wimp’, but less harsh.
Other stuff:
In Eddy’s clutches again…
Great progress this morning due in part, I suspect, to an eddy. I saw clumps of green weed floating in the water, which Tiny tells me are a tell-tale sign. Just hoping Mr Eddy doesn’t now decide to do something naughty, like whisk me south after I’ve worked so hard to get back up close to 17?N… oh, just checked my position, and he already has. Swine.
Texts: thanks for messages from AJ, HSS, Derrick and Elizabeth Pitard, James O, DB, Firinne, Margaret and Bob, Kurt, K&T in Canada, Jeff, John T (I do have something in mind even more challenging… Just still trying to decide if it’s a challenge too far), Steve from the Vivaldi Atlantic 4 (respect!), Helen from Univ, Pascale and Terrence (anything I want in Antigua? What sort of thing did you have in mind? A good dinner and a comfy bed will do for starters!), Martin Chambers, H Briers.
Rita Savage’s PS: More sponsored miles looming: 2202 Phil Goodier; 2222 Yannis Niotis. Brief paragraph about Roz and HMS Southampton in today’s Guardian, Telegraph and Times. A party to welcome Roz back from her voyage is being planned for March 23rd in London. See her Home Page for details.
For GPS position, race position and miles from La Gomera, see http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk
Wind: E, 12kts (estimate) Weather: sunshine and cloud Sea state: moderate Hours rowing: 12
Today I hit the wall. Big time. By lunchtime I’d already abandoned two shifts early, stormed off in a sulk, procrastinated, petulated and generally behaved more like a spoiled child than an intrepid adventurer.
I’d tried every trick in my emotional toolbox but I just couldn’t find it in me to row another stroke. Routine and discipline had totally broken down.
How many times have I done this? I’ve lost count. Each time I recover and I think I’ve cracked it, but then a few weeks later it happens again. Maybe I just don’t have an ocean-rowing temperament.
I’d maybe put myself under impossible pressure by announcing my intention to reach Antigua by the end of the month. I’ve been putting in an extra rowing shift at the end of the day and reduced my sleep to 4 hours, but without the wholehearted co-operation of the weather this strategy has succeeded only in making me weary and teary, without achieving any extra mileage.
So for now the Big Push is postponed, and I’m reverting to my 12-hour routine. I need to be gentler with myself. In my current state I’m worse than useless – I’m self-destructing.
I’m going to have a restorative nap – a brief journey to the Land of Nod to take a mental break from being an ocean rower – and then I’m going to try out a suggestion from ocean rower Westie. I’m going to stand stark naked on deck, hanging onto the roll bar and facing the bows, and I’m going to yell and scream and curse at the ocean until I’ve vented all my frustration. And then, hopefully, I can get down to some rowing.
Other stuff:
Correction to Team C2 information texted to me yesterday: they actually took 13 days to cover the last 1000 miles, not 23. So maybe my goal isn’t impossible, although it will require a) more help from the weather, and b) more rowing from me than was achieved today.
Thanks to Lucy from Woodvale for the messages. Nice to hear the whole of Antigua is waiting for me! Will try not to keep them waiting TOO much longer.
Messages: thanks to Mike & Izzy Urry (great to hear from you!), Mel and tribe, Bri, AJ, Sean Chapple, John T, HSS (forgiven!), Avelline, the Galls, Andy & Emer (you serious? Thank you! Hope rib now better), Kevin, Margaret and Bob, Kurt, Tanya, Lynne (lovely message – thanks), Anton, Mike M (will be good in your absence. Write a book? Think there are enough books about ocean rows already!), Susan Frederick.
For GPS position, race position and miles from La Gomera, see http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk
Wind: E, about 12-18 knots (estimate) Weather: overcast and humid in morning, hot sunshine in afternoon Sea state: moderate to rough Hours rowing: 6
Less than 1000 miles to Antigua. This is a major milestone for me – getting down into triple figures. The end may not be exactly in sight, but it soon will be.
There were times when Antigua seemed an impossible dream, inconceivably distant and unattainable. How many times in the first two months of my row did I wish that I could somehow be relieved of this challenge I’d taken on – that fate would intervene and allow me to unshoulder this burden without death or dishonour.
But now, having got this far, I will be forever disappointed if I don’t see it through. Most of the crews who have come to grief have suffered their mishap between here and the finish, so I’m certainly not taking it for granted that I will get there, but I now feel strong enough to claim that if I don’t make it to Antigua it won’t be for lack of will or determination on my part.
Last night I dreamed I was arriving in English Harbour… but I mustn’t get too excited, too soon. 1000 miles is still a long way to go, and anything could yet happen.
Other stuff:
Today has been a weary kind of day – humid and oppressive. Even the red ensign looked weary as it fluttered weakly from its mast. On days like this, when the wind and the waves are so silent, I get this awful feeling of being stuck in an eternal moment, as if I’ve been rowing this ocean for ever, and will be for evermore.
I was downcast for a while this morning, after getting a text saying Team C2 had taken 23 days to cover the last 1000 miles. If two big blokes rowing in shifts around the clock took that long, then surely my hopes of reaching Antigua by the end of the month were an impossible dream. But never say die. I can but try, and apart from anything else it cheers me up to think that dry land could be less than 3 weeks away. Still being at sea for longer than that I find unimaginable.
Yesterday I rang the Aurora, and asked them ever so nicely if they would mind please not coming to visit. It’s tough enough to keep going as it is, and I fear for the effect on my morale if my routine is disrupted and I see people who have easy access to hot food and company. Best I keep myself to myself for a while longer.
Texts: thanks for messages from Caroline, Nige M, Margaret and Bob, Kurt (Monty useless as a rower, unfortunately – arms and legs way too short!), Alasdair from Team Sevenoaks, HSS, Lizann, John T, DB, Natalie (do please give me your support in this push for home – need all the help I can get! Pics of myself when there’s a swell? There’s ALWAYS a swell!), Kevin from Tamarind (looking forward to that free lunch), Mar (oh, it would be so nice if the ‘right’ wind is just around the corner!), Oliver aged 9 (Monty says hello), COTB (?1000? Tell me more!), Pascale & Terrence (hope to see you in Antigua asap!), Tim Ratbag.
Rita Savage’s PS: Sponsored miles: 1972 Mar Alvarez; 1999 John Sugden and Henry Harris-Burland coming up soon.
For GPS position, race position and miles from La Gomera, see http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk
Wind: E, about 12 knots (estimate) Weather: overcast, humid, occasional hot sunshine Sea state: moderate Hours rowing: 15
Weight The good news – I’ve lost about a stone without dieting The bad news – I put on a stone and a half before the race in eager anticipation of dramatic weight loss
Suntan The good news – best all-over suntan of my life The bad news – …. apart from forehead (hat), hands (rowing gloves), feet (trainers), and bum/backs of legs (always sitting down)
Complexion The good news – bracing, pollution- free sea air bringing glow to the cheeks The bad news – salt water bringing spots to the bum-cheeks
Fingernails The good news – sunshine and water make them grow faster The bad news – they then fall off your fingers
Hair The good news – an opportunity to recover from over-washing (twice in 2 months so far) The bad news – I daren’t even look. Why do you think I’m always wearing a hat?!
So, girls, if it’s good looks you’re after, forget about rowing an ocean. Take your ?15,000 race entry fee and spend it at Champney’s instead.
Other stuff:
Tiny – I think I may be caught in the grip of that eddy. Two days ago the boat suddenly seemed to double in weight, so much so that I hopped overboard to check I didn’t have anything caught on the rudder… like a submarine. How much longer can I expect this to last?
Texts: thanks to Jeff (your franglais is terrible!), whanna, Nathan (do you want me to try and talk you out of it?!), Natalie, John T (where ARE you going in April?), Sinead (thanks for getting the lottery ticket – can I leave it to you to check the results for me?), Alasdair, HSS, DB (don’t get and don’t want news, thanks, and yes – will be giving talks/lectures in UK – book early to avoid disappointment!), Tim (enjoy your drink with Tiny), Lizann, Guy.
For GPS position, race position and miles from La Gomera, see http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk
Wind: E, about 10 knots (estimate) Weather: sunshine and clouds Sea state: moderate Hours rowing: 12
Roz Savage is a British ocean rower and environmental campaigner. Coupled with her solo row across the Atlantic in 2005-6, she has rowed over 11,000 miles, taken 3.5 million oarstrokes, and spent cumulatively nearly a year of her life at sea in a 23-foot rowboat. Her personal creed of taking life 'one oarstroke at a time', and her promotion of the EcoHero movement, has inspired countless people around the world. In 2011 she will set out to complete the "Big Three" by rowing solo across the Indian Ocean.
Today has felt like rather an eventful day – which is a good thing. The ocean can be a very monotonous place, especially when seen from the surface on a slow-moving rowboat.
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There is a lot to do while I’m here in Tarawa, but – lazy cow that I am (?!) I grabbed the opportunity for a day off yesterday. By a “day off”, I mean an opportunity to stop, think, and clarify before hurtling on regardless. I suppose you’d think I’d had all the time in the world to think while I was rowing – and I did – but I always do my very best thinking when I have my pen in hand, blank page of my journal in front of me. And ocean thoughts don’t always make so much sense on dry land. It was time to get real.
I stepped ashore, setting foot on dry land for the first time in 105
days. This was now my third arrival after prolonged periods at sea, so
I wasn’t surprised when the ground seemed to lurch beneath my feet. My
brain had adapted to being on a constantly pitching boat, so now it
was over-compensating when I stood on terra firma. I looked up at the
crowd of several hundred people that had come to greet me, and
wondered if my first act on arriving in Tarawa would be to topple over
like a drunkard.
It seems to be my karma in this lifetime to be faced from time to time with tough decisions – and this one is up there in my Top Ten Tough Decisions Of All Time. I spent most of last night agonizing over it. The
Today would have been my father’s 80th birthday. But he died 5 years ago, so he will be forever 75. Given this special date, today seemed an appropriate day to post a guest blog by my mother. Those who have been following my blog since the Atlantic will be well acquainted with Mum, especially after she had to step in and update my blog after I lost all
Recently Marv H asked me if I am religious, or spiritual in any way. It is supposed to be taboo to discuss politics, religion or sex…but well, hey, what are blogs about if not to break taboos? So (taking a deep breath) after butts, boobies, bird poop and exploding squid, now we move onto The Meaning Of Life….
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late on Jun 4th or early June 5th. Winds to 40kts and seas steadily building to Force 10 conditions (for seas) on Jun 7th.”
