I am delighted to pass along a message from my friends at Bag It, a movie about the ubiquitous plastic bag. What Supersize Me did for McDonalds, and The Age of Stupid did for CO2, Bag It does for plastic bags. They have organised a “Month of Sundays” to highlight this issue at a time of year when we are doing more than our usual amount of shopping – so this festive season, please remember to JUST SAY NO! to the bag!

Jack Johnson - catch him today!

From Michelle Hill, producer of Bag It:

“I am writing to let you know about an exciting new way to share Bag It with friends, family and colleagues coming up in just a few weeks.  It is kind of like a digital “sneak peak” of the film – 5 screenings, each hosted by some VIPs in the world of plastic pollution who will do a live skype-type Q&A after each screening.  Our hosts are  singer/songwriter Jack Johnson and his wife Kim, actor, Ed Begley, Jr. hosts with Dianna Cohen of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Rebecca Sutton from the EWG, Jim Moriarity, Founder and CEO of Surfrider Foundation and Anna Cummins & Marcus Erickson from 5 GYRES.  Come April 2012, the film will also be coming available everywhere in the digital world with the help of New Video Company.

“Gripping, funny, intelligent and sure to change your life.”

-Louie Psihoyos, Director of The Cove

“That was one of the most confronting, thought-provoking and enjoyable movies my partner and I have seen for a long time.  It has definitely changed my priorities and perspective on life.”

-Patron, Melbourne Environmental Film Festival

Constellation TV, The Fledgling Fund & Docudrama are pleased to announce 4 special screenings of the documentary, Bag It.  Beginning November 20th for 4 weeks, a special Sunday series of event screenings will take place on Constellation, a new online movie theater platform.

“The Fledgling Fund is proud to work at the intersection of independent documentary film and social change.  Bag It is a great example of a film that cannot only entertain an audience, but also changes hearts and minds.  We are honored to support this film and this special screening series on Constellation.”

-Emily Verellen, Director of Programs and Communications, Fledgling Fund.

Tickets are $4.99 at www.constellation.tv/bagit

On November 20^th at 8:30 PM EST, Ed Begley Jr., actor and founding member of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, along with Dianna Cohen, Creative Director and co-founder of the Plastic Pollution Coalition will host a live Q&A about Bag It. Plastic Pollution Coalition is a global alliance of individuals, organizations and businesses working together to stop plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals and the environment. Ticket proceeds will support The Plastic Pollution Coalition. (Roz’s note: sorry I didn’t let you know about this one in time!)

On November 27^th at 8:30 PM EST, world-renowned musician and co-founders of the Kōkua Hawaii Foundation Jack Johnson along with his wife Kim Johnson will host a live Q&A about Bag It. Jack & Kim Johnson, founded the Kokua Hawaii Foundation in 2003 to support environmental education in their home state of Hawaii.  Spreading awareness about going plastic free has been a core message of the Johnson’s music tours and philanthropic work. Ticket proceeds will support Kōkua Hawai’i Foundation.

Roz with Marcus Eriksen of 5Gyres (Hawaii, 2008)

On December 4^th at 8 PM EST, the Surfrider Foundation Founder & CEO, Jim Moriarty will host a live Q&A of Bag It. Surfrider’s mission is the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network. Ticket proceeds will support The Surfrider Foundation.

On December 11^th at 8:30 PM EST Rebecca Sutton of the Environmental Working Group will host a live Q&A about Bag it and how they are utilizing the powerful information in the film to protect public health and the environment. Ticket proceeds will support The Environmental Working Group.

On December 18^th at 8:30 PM EST Anna Cummins & Marcus Erickson of 5 Gyres will host a live Q&A. 5 Gyres is a non-profit organization dedicated to stopping the flow of plastic to our oceans through research, education, and actionable solutions.  Ticket proceeds will support 5 Gyres.

These five events are being hosted by Constellation TV – a new online movie theater platform, The Fledgling Fund & Docudrama  and will begin on Sunday November 20th for 5 weeks.  Tickets are $4.99 at  www.constellation.tv/bagit and a portion of each sale will go back to the VIP hosting organizations.

Other Stuff:

If you are one of those super-organized people that is already getting ready for Christmas, you might be interested to see these Christmas cards from Seaweed Art. 10% of the proceeds will go to O’Neill Sea Odyssey (OSO), because of their great work educating school aged children about our oceans, marine habitats and our urgent need to protect them.

And finally, back to me! Here is a trailer for a forthcoming film called “Plastic Shores”. You might just recognise one of the talking heads….!

I got back to Britain a few days ago, and have spent the last few days staying with another alumna of the Big Ben to Brussels hike, Jane Hornsby. She and her husband live in Steventon, a small village outside Oxford, that boasts more than its fair share of lovely old houses. Jane’s house dates back to the 1500s.

I had a great time walking around the village with my new Sony NEX-5N, rediscovering the joys of photography. Wherever I am in the world (or at least, the land-based parts of it), I like to get out for a morning walk. It gets the blood flowing and allows a gentle transition from sleep into wakefulness. The challenge I face is that my brain cranks into top gear very soon after waking, and my walk has all too often been punctuated by pauses while I punch another item into the To Do list on my iPhone. I finish my walk and realise I don’t even know where I’ve been, because all my focus has been on what I have to do that day.

Photography cures this. It takes me into a different mindset, and quietens my chattering brain. I look around me and take notice of my surroundings, searching out interesting or quirky things to photograph. There is plenty of time later on in the day for my brain to get busy, so this hiatus of calm is much appreciated. I arrive back after my walk feeling refreshed rather than stressed before the day has even begun. It’s my walking/photographing meditation.

Here are some of the results – my pictures of Steventon. Enjoy!

The ancient causeway that runs through Steventon. Historians estimate it was built in the mid 13th century.

Moss between the cobbles of the causeway

An ancient ivy

It's the houses that are tilting, not the photographer - honestly!

Jane's house, where I was staying, overlooks the mile-long causeway

On Thursday night I will be in San Francisco for an ocean rowing event. My friends Mick Dawson and Andrew Morris first rowed together in the Atlantic Rowing Race 2005 – the same race that I did.

Mick completing his Pacific row in San Francisco last year, with Chris Martin

Andrew’s crossing got off to a rocky start (literally) when he fell and banged his head within the first few days. He was brought back to shore with a concussion. While Andrew was recovering in hospital, his French crewmate decided their bid was over, and returned to France. Andrew emerged from hospital still raring to go, but now lacking a partner. Over a beer or several, he managed to persuade Mick, who was then working for the race organizers Woodvale, to give up the next couple of months of his life to hop in the boat with him and row the Atlantic.

They set out about 10 days behind the rest of the pack. I was most disgruntled as they rapidly gained ground on me and cruised on past. Only kidding – they are great guys. And big and fast.

So if you are in San Francisco and want to come and support them as they raise funds to row the North Atlantic in 2012 (the voyage that I had penciled in, but then thought better of it) then join us for a reception at the Golden Gate Yacht Club at 7pm this Thursday. Andrew will be there, but Mick has had to return to the Indian Ocean to fight pirates. (!)

Then this weekend I will be at the Making Waves event in Boulder. If you are in the area, come and join us at Boulder Public Library between 1pm and 5pm.

Alison Gannett en route to Brussels - carrying skis to gather signatures

My presentation is at 3pm, with Alison Gannett, extreme skier and climate campaigner and veteran of the Big Ben To Brussels walk. Other speakers include Marcus and Anna of the 5 Gyres Institute, Dianna Cohen of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Margo Pellegrino of Seattle to San Diego paddling fame, Dr Sylvia Earle, Jim Toomey and David Helvarg of Blue Frontier Campaign.

Speaking of Blue Frontier, if you care about our oceans and would like to support their worthwhile work, for TODAY ONLY they are having a fundraiser on Give To The Max. Check it out on their Twitter page!

Phewee. And that’s about all for now. Hope to see you at one of these events sometime soon – or right back here on my website.

Jumping Dorado

In haste once again, as it’s a bouncy old night here on the big blue ocean, and I’m keen to get safely horizontal and strapped in. But I wanted to check in and let you know that all is well on board the good ship Sedna.

It has been a challenging but productive day – sunny and windy and mountainous waves once again giving me fine views across the ocean. The chaps downstairs have been keeping me company, with clusters of 5 or 6 yellowfins frequently visible in the crest of a wave, lining up like surfers and whizzing down the front face as it rolls past me.

And I’ve figured out why the dorados jump so often. It’s so they can take a peek above the surface to check where their favourite FAD is and come back to me!

Other Stuff:

Today I finished one good book and started another, both of which have contributed to my good mood. The first was Straight Man by Richard Russo, one of my favourite authors since Leo Laporte introduced me to his books. A great read, and laugh-out-loud funny. The fish must have wondered what was causing such hilarity on board!

And the second recommendation is Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe, the actor. Although I am not at all sure that the “Only” is in the right position in the title (Stories I Tell Only To My Friends, surely?) it is a great book so far. I’ve only listened to the first 3 or 4 hours, and already we’ve met Liza Minnelli, Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Janet Jackson and all three of Charlie’s Angels. The author is surprisingly self-effacing and likeable.

In fact, the book is so good that when my third and last set of Aquapac earbuds gave up the ghost this evening, I really had no choice but to retrieve my dry-land earbuds from the fore cabin – and this was no trivial task in 20-foot waves, believe me. It is simply the audio equivalent of a book that I can’t put down!

Quote: The trick is growing up without growing old. (Casey Stengel)

Sponsored Miles: Thanks go to Richard Hyman, Lars Rabbe and Carl Jones – all of them have sponsored a number of miles.

(Why Roz’s progress is not shown)

I’m back on a boat. I’ve got used to spending around 100 sea days each year, so it seems that the mere 46 days it took me to get from Tarawa to Papua New Guinea has left me wanting more. Fortunately this boat is a lot more comfortable than the Brocade (soon to be renamed to her original name of Sedna Solo, now that the Brocade-sponsored Pacific Ocean epic is over).

I am on board the Moksha, a 54 foot Hanse sailboat which is on loan to Oceanswatch, a marine conservation organisation specialising in reef monitoring and liaison with coastal communities to ensure responsible marine stewardship. I met them in Rabaul a couple of days ago (my luggage following on close behind, but not before several nerve-wracking hours had elapsed), and we sailed for about 36 hours across the Bismarck Sea to our current mooring in Walinda.

Gallery of underwater photos at the Walindi Resort

As I write this I am sitting in the breakfast room at the Walindi Resort, goosebumpy from over-enthusiastic aircon, admiring the huge library of diving books and magazines and a gallery of fabulous underwater photographs adorning the walls. For the sparkling Kimbe Bay outside the windows off to my right offers one of the most diverse marine environments in the world. A leading reef scientist, Professor Charlie Vernon, is quoted in the resort brochure as saying: “The coral reefs of Kimbe Bay take me back forty years, to a time when corals grew in lush profusion, untroubled by the problems that beset them today… I am hard pressed to think of anywhere on earth that has this combination of vibrant health, diversity and beauty”. Apparently half the coral species in the world are represented here.

So I’m just itching to get into the water. Hopefully this afternoon, if only for a snorkel, and hopefully again tomorrow for a dive with the local dive centre. It would seem that this year I have truly fallen in love with the sea. It has been a slow-developing relationship, like an arranged marriage, but we’re getting there…

Other Stuff:

There’s a good poster in the reception area of the resort, which at a glance looks like the usual chart of marine creatures, but on closer inspection actually shows the various kinds of trash that end up on reefs, and the damage that they cause. For example:

The Most Dangerous Species of our Coasts and Lagoons

The plastic bottle:

Origin – streets, streams, beaches and boats

Behaviour – can cause fatal intestinal blockages in marine animals that swallow it

Average lifespan – 300 to 500 years

The plastic bag:

Origin – streets, streams, beaches and boats

Behaviour – often mistaken for jellyfish, the favourite food of turtles. It causes severe, potentially fatal, intestinal blockages in marine animals that eat it

Average lifespan – 35 to 60 years

Other, Other Stuff:

I’ve been enjoying some fascinating conversations with Chris Bone, founder of Oceanswatch, during my time aboard. He is a member of an “intentional community” – a small settlement of 6 families living on 160 acres on New Zealand’s North Island. Each family has 2 acres to themselves, and the rest is communal and used for keeping livestock. He showed me photographs of their home, and it looks absolutely idyllic. I can imagine the potential issues that can arise in such communities, but theirs has found a modus operandi that is exceptionally stable. As I understand it, the only rules are around the introduction of new members to the community, and the absolute rule that no non-organic chemicals may be used on the land. Definitely a mode of living that I could contemplate at some point in the future, when I stop being a wandering nomad.

I’ve started reading a book I found on board, “The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology”, edited by Alan Drengson & Yuichi Inoue. Some of it is pretty heavy going with too much academic philosophical terminology, but generally I’m finding it fascinating. If you haven’t come across the concept of deep ecology before, check out the Wikipedia page.

Arriving in DC at the end of last year's Climate Ride

This September I’ll be taking part in the California Climate Ride from Eureka to San Francisco. I did the East Coast version last year, and it was absolutely brilliant. We covered 300 miles from New York City to Washington, DC, through Amish country and some of the best landscapes the East Coast can offer.

It was an meticulously well-organised event. Each day we were given detailed and accurate directions, and an advance party would have also set out route markers along the way. Combined with the fact that I was rarely out of sight of the riders ahead, there was no chance that even a navigationally-challenged ocean rower could get lost!

The food was also excellent, with generous and tasty breakfasts and dinners, and regular snack stops along the way to top up the calorie count. Each evening we were entertained and edified by a broad range of speakers – including yours truly – before toddling off to our tents, cabins, or hotel rooms (the accommodations seemed to get more comfortable as the ride progressed) for a well-deserved sleep.

Come and join Team Roz!

But best of all was the chance to meet and mingle with 150 like-minded individuals, many of them working full-time in conservation and climate professions. After 5 days I felt like I had made some real friends, and have seen many of them again since – including Alison Gannett, the extreme skier who was part of my Big Ben to Brussels team that walked 250 miles towards Copenhagen last year.

So this year I was delighted to hear that the proposed West Coast version was going ahead. At the suggestion of Caeli and Geraldine, creators and organisers of the Climate Ride, we’re putting together a “Team Roz” and it would be fantastic if you could join us.

To register, go to the Team Roz page and fill out the form.

I’ll be making a cross-country dash to join the Ride on Day 2, coming straight from the Ocean Champions reception in DC. I wish I could be there for the start – those redwoods look just incredible, as does the scenery all the days. If it is anything like the East Coast version, the organisers will have planned the route to be as scenic as possible.

I hope that some of you come and join us – I’d be over the moon if you could find the time to ride with Team Roz!

Thanks to everybody who chipped in on the debate about cargo ship vs flying from Hong Kong to Long Beach. I was absolutely gobsmacked at the response – I had no idea it would prove to be such an emotive and discussion-provoking question. It was especially interesting to get the facts and figures – thank you, Christopher and Doug. (Some more interesting facts and figures on cargo ships from Wikipedia.)

Who would have thought that anything could emit as much CO2 as air travel? But it seems it’s true – which should make us all think twice about what is inside all those containers – and whether we are buying those things that are being shipped halfway around the world. If we are, we should be factoring that into our carbon footprint calculations as well as our transport choices – and, ideally, avoiding buying imported items whenever possible.

As to my decision, I was discussing my dilemma with a friend on the dive boat today. She remarked that when I talked about the cargo ship, I lit up with enthusiasm. The plane, not so much. I realized that I was actually looking forward to a couple of weeks of “vacation” to spend on writing my book and preparing my presentation. I always think best when I travel, and two weeks of time for blue-sky-thinking (or blue-sea-thinking) would be a welcome break between my speaking engagements in Asia and the start of the tour of North America.

Also, having discussed cargo ship schedules with a local businessman last night, I am now better informed about how this world works. Captains have a powerful incentive to stick to schedule, because if they miss their berth in one port then their whole itinerary is disrupted. So I am reasonably reassured that I would not be late for Asheville.

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to ask this question online, because I am bound to disappoint at least some of those who express an opinion. There again, it has been an eye-opening experience for me, and hopefully for some of you, too.

On a less contentious issue, here are some photos from my dive today on the wreck of the Henry Lee here in Madang. I’m just starting out in underwater photography, using a Canon G9 given to me by a very kind friend, but I’m really enjoying it. It brings a whole new dimension to my diving, making me look more carefully at this amazing underwater seascape. Aren’t ocean creatures beautiful!

But I’m ashamed to say I don’t know the names of most of the fish. The little red and white fella is a long-nosed hawkfish, and the orange and white stripey ones are anemonefish – but kudos to anybody who can help me identify the other chappies!

PS from Rita Savage:

Grateful  thanks for donations sent in recently by Stanley Miller, Doug Grandt, Malcolm Brookes, Lisa Gegner, Richard Magahiz, Ian Baker, Cristof Bals, Ethem Erginöz, Ian Hamaby, Gigi Brisson, Robert, Rebecca Schwartz and one or two others not named here – you know who you are.

Also extremely grateful to those who signed up to make regular monthly payments to Roz and continue to do so, faithfully, month after month. Very much appreciated.

May I also add my thanks for the support and gratitude expressed to me during the time that I was transcribing Roz’s blogs. Very best wishes to all Rozlings!

This is my favourite photo!

Anemonefish

You know what an omnivore is – it eats anything and, in some cases, everything. Well, I’ve just coined a new word – the omniviviphile. (Latin scholars, please do not throw up your hands in horror. Just go with it and forgive my poor Latin – my one grade C amidst a happy cloud of As and Bs.)

It means All + Life + Love. More or less, loving everything about life – and wanting to do it all. Usually all at once. And this presents me with dilemmas such as the one that I need to resolve by the end of today.

The question at stake is: how best to travel from Asia to North America for the start of my speaking tour in September?

I was fascinated a year or so ago to hear about a friend-of-a-friend who never flies any more, but hitches ride on container ships as they ply the world’s oceans. It is not a particularly cheap alternative to flying, although when you factor in the cost of food for the duration of the voyage, it’s not bad value either. And of course its main attraction to this green-at-heart ocean rower, yours truly, is its lower carbon footprint. It is claimed that flying produces 36 times more carbon dioxide per passenger-mile than sea travel (presumably excluding oar-powered sea travel, which produces infinitely less carbon dioxide).

A bit of research threw up a number of websites with more information – notably The Traveler’s Notebook, which led me to Cruise People in London.

The Hatsu Courage

As a result, I now have sitting in my email inbox an invitation to join the Hatsu Courage from Hong Kong to Long Beach, sailing on August 19 and due to arrive 16 days later on Sept 3. I really want to do this. But my speaking tour is due to start in Asheville, NC, on Sept 8. In my experience nothing involving boats and oceans ever goes according to schedule – although this year, after my anticipated 100-day voyage took  a mere 46 days, schedule variations don’t always involve being late. Just usually.

In fact, the container ship that was due to take my rowboat from Madang to Melbourne has just been postponed by a month. In that context, 5 days is not a very comfortable margin of safety.

So here are my thought processes so far, in weighing up the pros and cons of sailing versus flying:

Pro
- makes a statement that there ARE alternatives to flying that DON’T involve rowing!
- good opportunity to work offline and start work on the Pacific book
- unusual experience – and I’m all about experiences
- find out what actually happens on the bridge of container ship – may be useful for future safety when I am back in my rowboat

Con
- could miss the start of US speaking tour, and only refunded if the sailing is cancelled – no refund if delayed
- 2 weeks out of the loop at a crucial stage of tour planning (the ship may have internet, but I have not received a response to this question. I can, of course, take my satphone, and send/receive SMS messages on that, so I won’t be totally incommunicado)
- 2 weeks that I could spend doing interesting things in Asia
- more expensive than flying (about $2,100 vs $900, although it does of course include 16 days of board and lodging)

The first pro and the first con are the biggest factors as far as I’m concerned. I really want to show that a lower-carbon lifestyle can actually be fun and feasible. But I don’t want to cause my amazing team of volunteer event organisers to have nervous breakdowns if I am delayed on the ocean. Our plans for Asheville are already well formed, largely thanks to the energetic response of Laurey Masterton, and it would be a tragedy if I was late for my own speaking tour.

It’s a terrible dilemma. So I decided to share it, in the hopes that the Rozling community might come up with some input that would help me make up my mind – or even information about some other low-carbon alternative.

So… over to you! What do you think I should do? Let me know as soon as you can, as I need to decide today!

with the Governor of Madang

It is now a week since I arrived in Madang. Which means it is a week since I became the first woman to row solo all the way across the Pacific. Which you would have thought would be a pretty amazing feeling. Maybe I could even be forgiven for being just a little bit proud of myself.

But to be honest, this is not really so. I have a number of theories about this lack of self-congratulation, and it’s probably a combination of all of the following:

- The Indian Ocean: I am already busy planning for the next adventure – the Indian Ocean, pencilled in to start in March 2011. So I have to get the boat ready for shipping, decide what goes with her and what I ship back to the US, get her all cleaned up and shipshape. There is equipment to be replaced, supplies to be sponsored, and money to raise. This doesn’t leave much time for resting on my laurels.

- Comparison with the Atlantic Ocean: now THAT was a feeling of accomplishment. My first ocean, and the hardest thing I had ever done. The highs and lows (mostly lows) of crossing the Atlantic in officially the worst year ever since weather records began pushed me to and beyond my limits, and the feeling of relief when I arrived in Antigua was immense. Imagine finishing a marathon, winning an Oscar, and getting out of jail, all rolled into one. Since then I have found ways to make my ocean life more comfortable, and of course there is the greater confidence that comes from having done it before. So arrival no longer has that same level of euphoria.

- I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member: hey, if I can manage to row the Pacific, just how hard can it be? I suffered the same sense of anticlimax when I got my place at Oxford. Oxford went from being the pinnacle of my aspirations to something I had achieved – and duly dropped several notches in my opinion. This probably says something bad about my self esteem or excessive natural modesty. Ah well.

- The eco mission continues: Rowing is only half the story. I can’t sit back and congratulate myself on a job well done while there is oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and weak legislation staggering its way to enactment while the daily assaults on our Earth continue. This is no time to be patting myself on the back – there is much work still to be done, and as ever, I am trying to figure out how I can be most effective in making a difference.

- If I ever get too impressed with myself…. then it will all go horribly wrong, I am sure. This must be the Yorkshire side of me – thanks, Dad – where self-effacement is seen as just good manners. So my feet are most definitely still firmly on the ground (so to speak), and I am still just the same person I ever was – just a bit more weatherbeaten and with a few new experiences under my belt.

So although it is very nice to bask a little in the afterglow when accosted around town by people wanting to shake my hand, or to do interviews, I’m in no danger of getting too big for my boots anytime soon. But lest this all sound rather subdued, rest assured – I am happy. Content, without being complacent. Smiling, without being smug.

Other Stuff:

Papua New Guinea is celebrating the Queen’s Birthday this weekend. I am being treated to a trip to the island of Karkar on board Sir Peter Barter’s beautiful cruise ship, the Kalibobo Spirit, along with a group of friends. It will be a delicious contrast to be on board a boat with hot showers and comfortable beds and a fully stocked bar. Just like mine – NOT!

Banner made by students from Madang Technical College

Children in traditional costume - part of my welcoming party

Note the 350.org t-shirt!

I have just a few minutes before I head out to dinner with some new friends, but I just wanted to share these pictures from Madang. Today I spoke at the Tusbab High School, and my presentation was followed by a cleanup along the beach road. I promised the students that I would share these pictures with the world, as a good example of something that anybody can do to make the world a better, healthier place for all its residents. As you can see from the big smiles, making the world a greener, cleaner place can be fun!

All photos by Sir Peter Barter – thanks to him and his staff for supporting the cleanup – and me! And thanks to the students for their enthusiasm and energy, and for doing their bit for the planet.

(Oops – sorry about the sideways pic, but no time to correct it just now!)

Tranquil waters - closing in on Madang (credit Jan Messersmith)

Happy Oceans Day!

Although in reality our oceans are not happy – in fact, they are in a seriously sorry state. Forgive me if I get sentimental for a few moments here. Over the last couple of months I have had something of an epiphany, and I feel the need to share.

Until this year, I felt uncomfortable when people tried to label me as an “advocate for the oceans”. It wasn’t a label I had chosen, and I felt it didn’t fit me. The Atlantic Ocean beat me up pretty badly in 2005-6, and I was still bearing a grudge. My relationship with the ocean could best be described as ambivalent. I regarded her as a tough taskmaster, who occasionally tried to kill me. Not the best basis for a happy relationship.

But this year two things have happened that have softened my attitude towards the vast blue bits of our planet.

First, there was TED Mission Blue. For two days I received a concentrated dose of all the bad news that I had heard about the oceans over the last few years, and it shocked me.

- There is a 6:1 ratio of plastic to plankton in the ocean. This cannot be good.

- Consuming blue fin tuna is like barbecuing pandas.

- Ocean plants produce half of the world’s oxygen.

- In 40 years, seafood could be a thing of the past.

- Ocean acidification is seriously affecting its ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

Sure, I already knew about plastic pollution, collapsing fish stocks, ocean acidification, dead zones and coastal habitat destruction. But like so many environmental messages, the drip-drip-drip of bad news hadn’t really hit me with the sense of urgency that I got at TED. Here were world-respected experts telling us that we need to take urgent action before the oceans are too damaged to recover.

Given that the oceans cover 70% of our planet, it suddenly made sense to me that if our oceans are in trouble, then so are we.

My favourite arrival photo - credit Jan Messersmith

Second, there was this third and final stage of my row. I actually almost enjoyed it. Although I didn’t see as much marine wildlife as last year, I felt a sense of companionship with the little entourage of fish that wiggled alongside my boat. I relished the sunrises and sunsets. I enjoyed the solitude and magnificence of the oceanic wilderness. So it was all the more upsetting when I saw plastic pollution and raw sewage out at sea. My perception of the ocean changed: I no longer perceived her as an enemy, but rather as a mistreated environment in need of love and restoration.

So it hurt all the more to hear about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. My heart ached. We had already assaulted the ocean in so many smaller ways – and now here was the big one. The ultimate insult.

So on this Oceans Day, even if you have never spent a day at sea in your life, I beg you to do a blue deed for the day. Do something to help. Join an ocean conservation organisation. Make a donation. Post a tweet. Just do something. And then tell us about it at http://ecoheroes.me. Log a “water” deed and tell us what you did.

The ocean thanks you. And so do I.

No rest for the wicked. Before my calluses have even started to peel off, I am already starting to plan for the Indian Ocean row, due to start in March 2011. And I need your help.

I am not asking you for money. No, I intend to earn the funds that I need, but I hope you might be able to help me to do so. I would love to organise a series of speaking engagements in the US and Canada for September/October this year, to further my environmental mission and hopefully earn a few dollars along the way. But I can’t possibly handle the logistics for a tour entirely on my own. I need to turn to my Rozlings for help with booking venues, liaising with local media, spreading the word and generally being my local point of contact.

So if you have a company, a club, an organisation, school, society, or even just a bunch of interested friends who would like to hear me speak, please get in touch via the contact form on this website. You’re not committing to anything at this stage. I’m just looking for expressions of interest.

Depending on the kinds of responses I get, I plan to put together a set of packaged options, including financial arrangements, publicity materials, and a step-by-step guide to organising an event. I will make sure that we find a way to make it work financially, regardless of the kind of event, provided that we can cover my travel and accommodation costs and raise a few bucks for my next expedition.

And hopefully have an interesting, informative and entertaining time into the bargain!

(If you’re in Europe, I’m planning a speaking tour there for next year, so watch out for more details nearer the time.)

Other Stuff:

As promised, here are some photos from my awesome diving trip on Saturday. Dive and photos courtesy of Jan Messersmith. Thanks, Jan, for a day to remember. And check out Jan’s blog too – he got some fantastic photos of my arrival in Madang!

Cuttlefish - check out those amazing colours!

Bigeye Trevally

And me!

I’ve just got back from one of the best day’s diving I have ever experienced. The water was clear, the corals were prolific and colourful, in every shape you can imagine. But best of all were the enormous sea anemones – I swear one was as large across as I am tall – with their cute little resident clownfish squiggling around between their tentacles. If it’s possible to grin broadly while sucking on a scuba regulator, then that’s what I was doing.

Today served to remind me, more than ever, how wonderful our oceans are when you get beneath the surface. During the crossing I was all too aware that 99.9% of the interesting stuff was going on invisibly beneath me. If only more people could see what I’ve seen today, I think we would all cherish the oceans so much more.

I don’t have time to write more now – I’ve been invited to dinner to meet some new people – but will share some underwater wildlife photos in a couple of days when I receive them from Jan Messersmith, my host for today’s dive. Thanks to Jan for a wonderful day.

Gotta run!

Was I really ever worried that there would be nobody to greet me in Madang? Did I really think I was going to skulk quietly into town and then go and buy myself a solitary beer of celebration?

Really? Really??!!

Nothing could have been further from what actually happened here this morning. An estimated five thousand people came down to the harbour to greet me to Madang. About twenty canoes, paddled by people in traditional costume, escorted me the last half mile to the dock. A helicopter buzzed overhead, shooting video and photos. Once on dry land I must have shaken about 1000 hands, everybody wanting to touch me and congratulate me. It was phenomenal. I feel like I have 5000 new friends.

After officially finishing my row around 11pm last night, I spent the night on board the Kalibobo Spirit. I wasn’t allowed to step onto dry land until customs officials could be on hand to clear my paperwork, but spending another night at sea was no hardship – the Kalibobo is a luxurious cruiser. I walked into my cabin and felt like I’d died and gone to heaven. After a very long, hot and exhausting day, it was sheer luxury to have a hot shower and then sink gratefully into bed – quite possibly the most comfortable bed that I have ever slept in.

Not that I had much time to appreciate it – I was asleep within about 2.3 seconds, and the next thing I knew it was 5.30am and time to get up for my ceremonial arrival.

We towed Brocade back out to sea and after a quick phone call to Mum I took up my oars again, and re-rowed the last segment of my row. The first local people to congratulate me were a few fishermen, out early in their outrigger canoes, who formed an orderly line to pass close to my boat and shake my hand.

They were just the first of many. As I neared the harbour a flotilla of about twenty canoes, all decked out in traditional garlands of leaves, came out to join me and escort me to the dock. I hope you’ve seen the photos that Mum posted earlier, and seen how splendid the boats and their paddlers looked. Everybody was smiling, especially me. I kept stopping to wave to the crowds, who waved back enthusiastically. I wish I could find a way to row and wave at the same time, but I’m still working on it.

As I got closer to the dock the crowds on the shoreline thickened. Schoolchildren in uniform created blocks of colour. As I rounded the corner towards the Madang Resort the harbour wall was absolutely packed. The estimated number is five thousand people, and I don’t think that is any exaggeration.

We completed the formalities on the dock, and then I was free to step ashore. I was met by the Governor of PNG, who explained the meaning of the traditional garlands and string bags that various well-wishers placed around my neck. As we moved through the crowd everyone was reaching out to shake my hand or touch me. It could have been overwhelming to be surrounded by such a crush of humanity after 46 days at sea, but in fact it felt great.

Sir Peter Barter, former PNG Governor and my new guardian angel, guided me to a PA system and I said a few words. A group from the Technical College, standing beneath a very impressive banner depicting me, my boat, and words of congratulations on my environmental mission, sang a song about PNG – possibly the national anthem. There was more handshaking and gift-giving, and then Sir Peter extricated me and showed me to my room at the Madang Resort, from where I can see my boat, now moored in the lagoon. There has been a steady procession of people all day, coming down to see the boat, and as I’ve walked around the resort yet more people have shaken my hand and congratulated me.

Tonight I’m having dinner with the Governor and Sir Peter, and the diary is already filling up fast for the rest of my month here. There’s a lot I plan to do – diving, exploring, meeting people and giving talks about my adventures and environmental mission.

It has been a day to remember, for sure. Spectacular. Thank you to everybody who has played a part – everybody here in Madang, the Governor Sir Arnold Amet, Sir Peter Barter, the staff at the Madang Resort, Alan Murray at Murray PR, and of course my wonderful, indefatigable invisible crewmate – my mother.

And thank you also for all the messages of congratulations that have been rolling in from all over the world. Thank you for your love, empathy, kindness and support during this third and final stage of my voyage. I feel very lucky that you are there for me through the highs and the lows, the trials and tribulations, and at last the final joyous celebrations at the successful conclusion of this 4-year/250-day, 8,000-mile, 2.5 million oarstroke epic adventure. It’s been… special.

Picture: [email protected]

On Friday June 4th 2010 Roz rowed into the harbour at Madang, Papua New Guinea, to a rapturous welcome by 5000 people.

Jan Messersmith writes about his encounter with Roz: http://www.messersmith.name/wordpress/2010/06/03/the-soaring-spirit-roz-savage/

Sir Peter Barter wrote:

Roz Savage arrived in Madang this morning at 0800.

The former Governor of Madang Province, Sir Peter Barter, said she was escorted in by a flotilla of 100 traditional canoes from all the villages around: “They had leis and flowers and guided her into the harbour.”

More than 5000 men, women and children, many in traditional dress, lined the entrance of Dallman Passage and Kalibobo Village, waving as she moved slowly into the dock at the Madang Resort, where Roz will stay as a guest for four weeks.

On arrival she was met by customs, immigration, quarantine and officially cleared and then welcomed by the Governor Sir Arnold Amet. Literally hundreds of people shook hands with Roz, and had pictures taken.

Sir Peter welcomed her, explained the purpose of her visit, and Roz then spoke saying she chose Madang on the advice of Jean Michel Cousteau who visited Madang in the 80′s with his father, Jacques Cousteau, the famous family known for their underwater research and filming, both of whom spent several months at the Madang Resort with their famous vessels making a film.

Picture: Peter Barter.

Roz spoke of the millions of strokes and together she had crossed an ocean; she went on to tell the people that they too could make a contribution by many people doing small things to look after the environment.

She told the crowd that during her stay she would visit schools, meet the students and talk to them about protecting the planet, our only planet!

Numerous people presented bilum bags, yabob pots and other gifts as an appreciation and the formal welcome was done by children from Milne Bay and students of Krangket Island.

Posted by Rita Savage.

Position at 18.14 Thursday June 3rd Madang time: -05.28783S  145.92007E

More visitors: aboard Sir Peter Barter’s motor yacht Kalibobo Spirit. A number of people from Madang arrived to give Roz a tremendous message of welcome – and a basket of fruit! They are looking forward to welcoming her to Madang in the morning.

Announcement: The name drawn from those who paid $100 or more in Nova’s recent contest is Joan Sherwood.

Latest position: -05.32717S 146.04131E

Posted by Rita Savage on Thursday June 3rd.

Following the visit by Sir Peter Barter on his helicopter, Roz has had another visitor.

On Thursday morning Jan Messersmith, a resident of Madang, went out on his boat “Faded Glory” to make contact with Roz.  This is part of the message he later sent to me: “I went out at about 09:00 and found Roz a little less than 20 miles out a little before 11:00. I approached her slowly and introduced myself. At the time, there was virtually no wind. After a brief chat she got back to rowing. I think that her intention was to see if she could get in before dark. After a while, she signalled me over and we agreed that the numbers just weren’t there – she would arrive, provided conditions did not change, between 19:00 and 21:00. She told me that she would rather just take it easy and hold off so that she can arrive in the morning. She asked me to meet her out at the entrance to Dallmann Passage (right at the entrance to Madang Harbour) at 08:00.

She seemed in excellent spirits, despite the wind problem earlier. It took me about an hour to get back to Madang. The ocean was a beautiful indigo mirror with no wind and flying fish all around.”

So, Friday June 4^th it will be. Before long we will be able to announce the winner of the competition to guess when Roz would arrive at her destination. Thanks to all who took part. We are grateful too to those who have recently made contributions: David Tangye, Karen Morss, Richard Cort, Jessica Switzer, Susan Bartlett, Claus Anbergen, Eric Lehmann, Joan Sherwood, Doug Grandt, Diane Freeman, Oliver Thompson, Suwin Chan and Elizabeth Duke.

Now we eagerly await Roz’s arrival at Madang! And celebrate wherever we are, at all that Roz has achieved, by rowing solo across the mighty Pacific.

Update byRita, after speaking to Roz at 7.15am Madang time.

Roz has reported that a headwind is making her progress extremely slow and she cannot possibly reach Madang by 2pm Thursday. This has been reported to those who are organising the welcome for her in Madang, rearranged for 6pm.

About midday Roz will be contacted again to see how she is progressing. She only has twenty miles to go, but is really battling against that headwind, achieving a speed of less than 1 knot.

Latest known position:  -05.45S, 146.26E

Dictated by Roz at 21:32 local (Madang) time and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -05.47589  146.30901

Photograph from Helicopter

I had visitors this afternoon. I had spoken earlier today with Sir Peter Barter, former Governor of Papua New Guinea, who has been so helpful in arranging local arrival logistics for me. He warned me that he would be dropping in this afternoon in his helicopter to make a delivery. So about 4.30 I was on the alert and listening out for it when the small helicopter loomed into view from the blue sky. They lowered a bucket, just out of reach of my boat hook. I know that I promised never to go more than an arm’s length from my boat ever again but this one was important – there were beers at stake, so I quickly dived in and made my way over to the bucket while they hovered overhead, in confidence that  they would not let me drown having come this far. I got to the bucket and with a few strokes managed to make it back to the boat safely.

I waved goodbye to Sir Peter, and I am looking forward to seeing him again tomorrow.  Inside the bucket was an assortment of goodies: mobile phone with a local SIM card in it, so that we can liaise on final arrangements; three beers as promised; a ham and cheese sandwich, made by Sir Peter himself, I believe; and some information about the Madang Resort which is going to be my home for the next four weeks. There was also an assortment of local information, a newspaper announcing my arrival, and a letter from Sir Peter himself. It was a bit like Christmas, opening up my stocking-full of goodies and everything in it was extremely welcome, especially the beers which had been very thoughtfully packed in ice, so they were still nice and cold.

While I sipped my beer I read through all the information, including the stuff about the Madang resort which looks absolutely gorgeous and I am very much looking forward to making its acquaintance. So, now all I have to do is get there. A slight hitch there is that the conditions here have really calmed down. The winds and the currents have died away since yesterday, so far from having to drag my oars metaphorically to delay my arrival until Thursday afternoon, I am now actually having to row through the night in order to get there in time! But from what I’ve seen of the Madang Resort, it is going to well worth the extra effort.  I am stoking myself with chocolate-coffee-flavoured Larabars, the only form of caffeine I have on board, and in for the long haul.  Now 33 miles away from Madang, and will keep rowing until I get to about 20 or so miles away, and if there is any time between then and the time I have to get up I will have a quick kip at that point.

Now I am well and truly into the home stretch, and apparently a great welcome awaits me in Papua New Guinea, with Jan Messersmith, a photographer, and local canoeists due to come out, and hopefully a few people coming down to wave to me as I approach the Medang Resort.  Am now really looking forward to making landfall and after a full night of rowing it is going to be a very welcome sight.

For more pictures see: http://malumnalu.blogspot.com/

PS Request from Roz: As she does not have voicemail set up for the satphone, please do not try to leave messages for her – she won’t receive them.

Nova’s News:

Check on the GoRozGo button for latest details.

Day 44 –  Too Fast!

Brief message from Roz’s mother, Rita Savage.

Tuesday evening Roz’s time – and she is planning to arrive in Madang on Friday. However, a strong wind has crept up on her, and is driving her along at 4 or 5 knots. Unless she keeps rowing she will be going towards land, so is out there now doing her best to keep on the right track.

She has asked me to do a quick message just to keep you informed. This speed would have been very acceptable out on the open ocean, but not now when she is trying to time her arrival in Madang.

Blog from Roz at 3am ship’s time.

Dictated by Roz and transcribed by Rita Savage.

When I went to bed Monday night, I set my alarm to go off every two hours. At one point, awaking from sleep, I opened one eye and squinted at the GPS and saw that I was heading straight for an island. I jumped out of bed in a hurry and started rowing.  I ended up in a load of trash and general flotsam and jetsam that had accumulated into a sort of gunge.  I had to try to row out of there as it is a bit difficult to row when you can’t actually get the oars in the water with so much stuff floating on the surface.  Plus it was dark.

So that was the start of the day, and for most of the morning it didn’t get much better. I’ve never seen standing waves on the ocean before, a bit like you get on white water rapids. It was really strange, the sound, and the look and the feel of everything was completely different from what I am used to on the ocean. Progress was really slow. I wasn’t even managing to make one knot for most of the morning. It took me just over six hours to do barely six miles and it was a real struggle.

But then, when I got out of the standing waves everything completely changed.  The wind picked up a bit and in the next six hours I did twenty miles. So all of this is making it difficult to come up with any kind of a sensible ETA for my arrival in Medang. Will I do six miles in six hours, or twenty miles in six hours?

It’s been generally quick for much of the day and the rest of the night, that is why I have been up so late to avoid a head-on collision with Long Island and if I carry on at this rate then I am looking at an ETA of 7am on Thursday morning local time. Unfortunately this is not good – the one day that I have been asked NOT to arrive is of course Thursday for local logistical reasons. But at the moment I can’t see how I can possibly avoid arriving on Thursday so I am not quite sure how we are going to get around this problem.

I did try putting out the sea anchor to slow myself down but that unfortunately just dragged me off course.  That was what caused the problem with Long Island. So it looks like I really don’t have much choice but to push on regardless and just hope that people in Madang can fit in around my schedule, or nature’s schedule as I career rather wildly across the ocean towards their harbour. Isn’t it always the way that if I was out in the middle of the ocean I would be thanking my lucky stars for these fantastic conditions but then when they strike I am surrounded by islands and it’s a rather different story.  I guess my priority has to be safety and at the moment it looks like the safest way for me to get to Madang is to carry on as I am and just hope that they can fit in around me or else we do a second ceremonial arrival after the actual event.

So watch out Madang, ready or not, here I come!

Nova’s News:

Arriving Antigua March 2006

As Roz approaches the final stretch of the race we are hoping to reach the 10,000 dollar bench mark in her fundraiser to help pay for the remaining costs of her epic adventure and future foundation. For this last week all who donate 100 dollars or more will be entered into a drawing to win a memorabilia of Roz’s final Pacific row, putting her in the history books as, “The first woman to row the Pacific solo.” The memorabilia will include a pair of her well worn gloves framed, with an autographed photo of her arrival in Madang, Papua New Guinea. Please chip in and let’s give her a surge of support as she rows the final strokes of a world record title. Go Roz Go!

Dictated by Roz at 22.48 Tarawa time and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.

Position:  -05.99745  147.96181

The Golden Shui

Today seems rather hectic by comparison with the calm of recent days. I was up and rowing before sunrise and as it got light I could see the outline of Papua New Guinea to the south west looming high on the horizon. As far as I can see it looks quite green and mountainous, a little like Hawaii.

As I got closer to the Straits of Vitiaz there was considerable marine traffic including the Golden Shui which got rather too close for comfort passing about 100 yards from my bow. A miss is as good as a mile, as the saying goes, but I would have preferred the mile thank you.

Then later there was a wild commotion among the fishy followers under my boat. A large shape lurked beneath. I got some fleeting footage on my video camera which might allow identification later on. I think it was a shark. As I was leaning over the side, filming, the critter made a sudden movement towards the bow of my boat, briefly breaking the surface of the water and making me jump about three feet in the air. It was like a scene from Jaws only smaller. Steven Spielberg has a lot to answer for.

Then this afternoon the wind picked up considerably resulting in the windiest day I have had so far. Probably only about 25 knots which is not that impressive but it was coming out of the south, and made for very choppy rowing conditions. The good news is that it helped to put me exactly where I wanted to be, to the north side of the straits and hopefully out of the main shipping route.

Tonight it is almost eerily quiet and dark. In daylight I could see land all around me, Papua New Guinea, New Britain, Umbai Island, and various low-lying rocks. Now it has all disappeared into the darkness. No lights, no ships, no moon yet, just the occasional flash of distant lightning, and my little boat, an oasis of light in the darkness.

As of tonight, 137 nautical miles to go.

Other Stuff: Steve Tomczyk asked if I had any comment about the oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico. We have discussed it a couple of times on the Podcast and I suppose my comment would be this: It is a shame that we have chosen to rely so heavily on a source of energy that is a) going to run out b) concentrated in certain geographical areas leading to scarcity and/or war c) causing ocean acidification d) increasing the amount of co2 in the atmosphere e) creates particulate pollution that is damaging to human health and f) lethal to wildlife when a sudden glut of it is released accidentally.

At the time that oil was discovered, maybe we didn’t have alternatives but now we do, and the sooner we move to them, the better. The disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is appalling but even that is minor in comparison with the bigger impact that carbon-based fuels and their combustion is having on our world. Let’s use this very visible symptom of the bigger problem to catalyse the change we so desperately need to the cleaner, greener fuels of the future.

Roz’s Ebay Store:

Turn your used plastic bottles into unique solar powered light fixtures with the Hymini Solar Powered LED Lamp.  The HYmini Solar Powered LED Lamps are marked down by 15% and are available at the Roz Savage eBay Store.  The HYmini Deluxe Wind+miniSOLAR all-in-one green charger and the HYmini miniSOLAR panels are also marked down by 15%.

Dictated by Roz at 22.07 Tarawa time and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position:  -06.56893   148.59792

I have several management-type books on the iPod such as Blink, Switch, Drive, and various other one-syllable, one word, one verb titles that seem to be mandatory for the genre.

Half of them seem to be little more than a sales pitch for you to get the author to come and speak at the company conference, but today I have been listening to Switch by Dan Heath and Chip Heath and this has actually been very good and got me thinking about things we could do to create a culture that is anti-plastic in its disposable forms

The book talks some real sense about how to Switch away from poor habits and into good ones, a subject that fascinates me in its environmental applications.

A couple of case studies, particularly struck me. In the first the objective was to introduce the conference to the designated “driver”, originally a Scandinavian idea in order to reduce drunk driving. They recruited the help of various TV show screen writers and suddenly designated drivers were popping up all over TV land, including, appropriately, Cheers.  And now, ta-dah, it is a well established part of our culture.

The second case study took place in Tanzania where the spread of Aids was exacerbated  by the problem of “sugar-daddies”  who would bestow favours on young girls in exchange for sex, usually unprotected. To change the culture they created radio-ads in which the sugar-daddy was depicted as a rather sleazy character who was left looking foolish when a sympathetic waitress helped his young date to escape from his clutches.  The name of the sugar-daddy character entered the national language as synonymous with “pathetic old guy who has to pay girls to keep him company”, and the practice declined.

So this got me thinking about how to do something similar with plastic disposable items. It makes me wince when characters in books are portrayed using plastic bags. Maybe we could write to any authors who commit this sin to ask them to specify reusable bags in their next novel. Or maybe we could coax several soap opera screen writers to drop in a few scenes where people are using reusable bags for their groceries. I am not well up on American soaps but in the UK it would be a cinch to do so.

Any slogans to suggest? Don’t be trashy? Plastic fantastic? I’m sure you can do better than this – after “the save the whale, drink some ale”  suggestion – I have high expectations. Ideas please!

Other Stuff: Looks like my oars are nearing the end of their natural lives.  On one of them the spoon has started to split from the loom and the carbon fibre wrap on all of them is flaking and peeling. They’ve had a hard life with extensive exposure to salt water and intense UV, so it’s not really surprising.  Maybe I’ll cut the spoons off and save them, though.  They are rather beautiful with wood of different colours laid into a feather pattern. They would make nice gifts for some of my sponsors.

Lots more ships today. I’m getting quite used to them now. Tonight as I ate my dinner I divided my attention between some particularly beautiful pink glowing clouds to the north and a procession of three container ships. All part of the scenery.

Some odd conditions today, choppy seas and winds from a strange direction as local squalls passed through. Over all, another day of satisfactory progress.

As of tonight, 186 nautical miles to go.

Nova’s News:

Be on Roz’s Facebook Fan Page and Website:

By the end of this row Roz will have spent over a year alone at sea in a space smaller than a jail cell, more isolated than a Tibetan monk.

Why? Because we can no longer ignore the pollution and environmental damage to our planet.

How can you help? Send us a picture of yourself using a reusable shopping bag to [email protected] and we will post it to Roz’s Facebook Fan Page.

We are aiming for 365 photos symbolizing Roz’s year at sea to let Roz know that she is not alone, that her message is making a difference. Three of the best photos will be drawn and posted onto Roz’s website, so be creative!

Another way you can let Roz know that you are following her journey is by making a contribution in the dollar amount of the days she has been at sea, one month and counting so far. “The energy of your support does reach her out at sea.”

Also take advantage of Roz’s Ebay Store sale. We are offering 10% discount on Roz’s reusable shopping bags until the end of the month. Also available in UK – ask for details through Contact (top line of page)

Dictated by Roz at 22.24 Tarawa time on Saturday May 29^th and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage

Position: -06.92651  149.12079

I saw half a dozen ships today, but after watching another glorious orange moonrise I looked around the dark ocean and saw the lights of another three ships. All this traffic is making me rather nervous.

I am now about 90 miles, or roughly three days away from the straits of Vitiaz, a fifteen mile wide corridor between Papua New Guinea and New Britain. It looks  like these ships are heading to or from those said straits. I planned to try and shoot straight down the middle to keep a safe distance from the lands on either side but maybe that isn’t going to be such a great idea to be right in the middle of a major shipping lane.

Probably my best bet is to try and get through the straits in daylight and keep to the easterly, ie upwind side of the strait where I am unlikely to get swept ashore. Once through the straits, I guess that the ships will take the shortest route, so if I stay a bit further offshore I should be OK.

It would be spectacularly unlucky to get squished by a big ship at this stage. I know of only one incident of an ocean rower being hit by a vessel and that was by a relatively small fishing boat that hit a couple of guys rowing across the north Pacific back in 2001. It sliced their boat almost in half but did at least stop to pick them up and nobody was hurt.

I don’t think too much about these scenarios. I keep my Sea-me radar enhancer on all the time and put my lights on at night. If I see a ship heading straight for me I can let off a marine flare (note to self to re-read instructions on flares). Even through the straits there is plenty of space for everybody. I have just received a message from Mum to let me know that shipping in the channel has been asked to watch out for a small silver rowboat. This is very reassuring.

Realistically, my chances of getting hit are very small. It would be like being hit by lightning or meteorite or golf-ball-like hailstones. One of those unlucky freaky accidents that are statistically to improbable that you know it was just our time to go.

But it might still make for a couple of sleepless nights.

Other Stuff:  It was yet another baking hot day, with only a late developing breeze to cool me down and help me on my way. Mostly it was another slow slog across the Solomon Sea.

I am getting really rather fond of my little yellow fishy entourage. When I pause from rowing, it’s fun to watch them taking time out to swim flipping and flopping at the water’s surface. They are loyal little chaps who have kept me company for many hundreds of miles now. I wonder what they will do when I am finished?

As of tonight, 224 nautical miles to go to Madang.

Roz’s Ebay Store:

Turn your used plastic bottles into unique solar powered light fixtures with the Hymini Solar Powered LED Lamp.  The HYmini Solar Powered LED Lamps are marked down by 15% and are available at the Roz Savage eBay Store.  The HYmini Deluxe Wind+miniSOLAR all-in-one green charger and the HYmini miniSOLAR panels are also marked down by 15%.

Day 40 – Happy Days

Dictated by Roz at 22.03 on Friday 28^th May and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -07.08271   149.71378

Today was a day of good things.

It started well. I’d gone to bed a zombie but woke up a human being. A good night’s sleep aided by the calmest night I have ever spent at sea. As anyone who has ever stood on the deck of the Brocade when she has been on the water will testify, she is tippy. It only takes the slightest ripple to set her rocking and rolling. Last night I barely knew I was on a boat. The ocean must have been like glass but I was too crashed out to see it.

After watching a fine sunrise I decided that the best way to keep up my salt intake (as per Joan’s advice) would be to have some porridge. I like my oats the Scottish way, made with water and salt. So I plugged in my kettle, but after half an hour had water that was still only warm and had turned an unappetising shade of brown. Not good.

Already half reconciled to no more hot meals for the duration of this voyage, I decided to try out the other kettle – the one that went for a swim a few weeks ago hotly pursued by me. Miraculously it worked and the salty porridge with cashew nuts and freeze-dried cherries went down very well.

At noon I phoned in with the weekly podcast with Dr Kiki at Twit.tv/roz and was delighted to find that our special guest for the show was Steve Palumbi whom I had last seen at TED Mission Blue at the Galapagos in April. Even if you don’t usually listen to the podcast, if you only listen to one, then please listen to this one. Loads of good stuff from Steve about the ocean and what needs to be done. To sum up: do something, don’t just stand by while our world goes to wrack and ruin. Do something, say something, and make something happen.

(If you haven’t yet watched the video of my TED presentation, you can find it on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXqPaHQp4Xw, and Steve’s presentation is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wNzm9v31sI.

This afternoon was hot and sweaty but I plodded along enjoying 50 Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson, my new favourite author.

Sunset was nothing special but I felt more than compensated by the spectacular moonrise. There was a bank of cloud which merged with the night sky so when the first sliver of the glowing orange moon became visible, it was some distance above the horizon, making the moon look like some kind of flying saucer. Nature’s light show was rounded off by some equally spectacular lightning crackling through the opalescent clouds and making them glow from within like hot air balloons seen after dark.

So, over all, a very satisfactory day, with a bit of technical triumph, bit of inspiration, bit of natural beauty, and a decent bit of progress. During the podcast I crossed 150 degrees east, the last major meridian before Madang. In a few days time I should enter the straits between New Britain and Papua New Guinea. The home stretch.

As of tonight, 260 nautical miles to go to Madang.

Nova’s News:

Be on Roz’s Facebook Fan Page and Website:

By the end of this row Roz will have spent over a year alone at sea in a space smaller than a jail cell, more isolated than a Tibetan monk.

Why? Because we can no longer ignore the pollution and environmental damage to our planet.

How can you help? Send us a picture of yourself using a reusable shopping bag to [email protected] and we will post it to Roz’s Facebook Fan Page.

We are aiming for 365 photos symbolizing Roz’s year at sea to let Roz know that she is not alone, that her message is making a difference. Three of the best photos will be drawn and posted onto Roz’s website, so be creative!

Another way you can let Roz know that you are following her journey is by making a contribution in the dollar amount of the days she has been at sea, one month and counting so far. “The energy of your support does reach her out at sea.”

Also take advantage of Roz’s Ebay Store sale. We are offering 10% discount on Roz’s reusable shopping bags until the end of the month. Also available in UK – ask for details through Contact (top line of page)

Dictated by Roz at 21.22 Tarawa time and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.

Position: -07.30892S   150.22197E

Tonight I am an absolute zombie. It has nothing to do with the full moon and everything to do with the sun.

Today it was just relentless. Despite my usual heat-mitigation measures (bimini, sun-hat, bucket of water, fan) I have never sweated as much as I did today.

It might have been the humidity, or the lack of breeze, as even before the sun has risen, I felt the first trickles of sweat running down my back. Whatever the cause, the heat has left me feeling absolutely drained.

Don’t even have the energy to have my bucket and sponge bath. I just want to crawl back into my cabin and rest.

Rita: A temporary problem with receiving emails sent to Roz’s email address. If you have sent a message today or yesterday, I am sorry that you have to wait for a reply. Making plans for Roz’s arrival in Madang, to make sure that she has the facilities that she needs. Some great people there, offering help. Much appreciated, as none of her own team can make it to Papua New Guinea.

Recent contributors: Mijnbedrijf , Abbigale McCarthy and Roy Dixon. And thanks to those who pay a regular monthly subscription.  Many thanks for the comments and ideas, especially those with knowledge of alternative technologies for sewage disposal. Nova continues her work for Roz – do check the GoRozGo button; and Carina at the Ebay Store is making the following offers at present.

LED lamps

Turn your used plastic bottles into unique solar powered light fixtures with the Hymini Solar Powered LED Lamp.  The HYmini Solar Powered LED Lamps are marked down by 15% and are available at the Roz Savage eBay Store.  The HYmini Deluxe Wind+miniSOLAR all-in-one green charger and the HYmini miniSOLAR panels are also marked down by 15%.

Dictated by Roz at 22.16 Tarawa time and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -07.55791   150.80957

A river of rubbish being swept out to sea.

I have been trying to ignore it but the ocean around here has a serious hygiene problem. Please forgive me for speaking on an indelicate subject but I feel upset about this and feel the need to swear.

For the last couple of days there has been an intermittent procession of  . .  ahem . . . human excrement passing by my boat. Swimming is most definitely off the agenda. The worst experience was eating my dinner tonight while trying to ignore what was floating past, just inches from my elbow. I felt like I was eating my dinner in an open sewer.

Which is exactly how we seem to regard the ocean – as a sewer. I felt a need to apologise to my fishy entourage for what we have done to their habitat. Like the poor creatures in the Gulf of Mexico, they are unable to escape from the pollution. Water is their element and no matter how dirty and polluted it is they can’t get out of it. How selfish we have been to take all messy waste out of our homes and dump it into theirs.

I am not in a strong position to throw stones on this issue. I don’t have the space or facilities to hold “black water” on board my boat. So I have no choice but to use the “bucket and chuck it” method. But people on dry land do have a choice.

I am not an expert on this but I believe that there are now technologies available that can create “closed loops” so that waste of all kinds is reused close to its source. Anaerobic digesters and similar processes can turn organic waste into sources of energy.  I can’t Google this from here, but you can, so do a bit of quick research (this counts as a green deed at http://Ecoheroes.me) and find out more, and let me know.

Other Stuff: I’ve been rowing my little heart out today, not just in a bid to get into a cleaner bit of ocean, but to make sure that I don’t end up doing that extra lap of the Solomon Sea, which is what could happen if I get caught in the wrong lane when the current splits. Imagine a current as a clock-wise traffic circle – in other words, a British traffic circle – not an American one. I enter the circle in the top right; three quarters of the way around I want to take the exit for Madang. If I miss this exit by being in the wrong lane, I may have to go round the circle again. I think one lap of the Solomon Sea is more than enough.

So today would have looked rather odd if you had seen Brocade from above. She was pointed at 220 degrees to achieve a course of  2__. . . .(sorry, lost in the ether somewhere).

Given the currents, this  . . . .    angle was the only way I could get west without going too far north.

It was slow progress.

(Sorry again, probably a couple more paragraphs were lost, with only the occasional word getting through. I think Roz was talking about Shaklee Energy chews, which she uses when she really needs a burst of energy. The Shaklee Corporation has been very generous to Roz, giving her sponsorship as well as a good supply of the chews and Shaklee Nutriferon to boost her immune system. It would probably be about 20 hours from now before Roz would pick up any message from me to say that I could not complete  the transcribing of  her blog.)

Nova’s News:

Be on Roz’s Facebook Fan Page and Website:

By the end of this row Roz will have spent over a year alone at sea in a space smaller than a jail cell, more isolated than a Tibetan monk.

Why? Because we can no longer ignore the pollution and environmental damage to our planet.

How can you help? Send us a picture of yourself using a reusable shopping bag to [email protected] and we will post it to Roz’s Facebook Fan Page.

We are aiming for 365 photos symbolizing Roz’s year at sea to let Roz know that she is not alone, that her message is making a difference. Three of the best photos will be drawn and posted onto Roz’s website, so be creative!

Another way you can let Roz know that you are following her journey is by making a contribution in the dollar amount of the days she has been at sea, one month and counting so far. “The energy of your support does reach her out at sea.”

Also take advantage of Roz’s Ebay Store sale. We are offering 10% discount on Roz’s reusable shopping bags until the end of the month. Also available in UK – ask for details through Contact (top line of page)

Here is a sneak peek at one of our first entries hope it inspires you!

Dictated by Roz at 21.34 on 25^th May and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage

Position: -07.82018   151.47119

A real treat today, I washed my hair for the first time in five weeks. Bliss!

It took about 20 minutes to brush out all the tangles, but then it wasn’t much of a hassle at all to wash it. In the past I have knelt on deck leaning forward over the bucket which was very uncomfortable on the knees and shins. Now I found a better approach. I kept the watermaker running into a bucket and used a jug to pour the water over my head. I shampooed, rinsed, conditioned and gave a final rinse and thankfully the watermaker production kept pace with the proceedings.

It really didn’t take too long and it felt just wonderful to have clean hair. I might even make a habit of it.

Generally, when I am at sea, my standards of personal hygiene are pretty good. I bathe at least once a day, brush my teeth, floss etc. but these things are all necessary for health  – which is necessary for rowing. Dirty hair doesn’t make much difference one way or the other and washing it is time- and water-consuming, so it tends to get shoved under a hat and ignored.

I really appreciate the change from land-living. It is so nice to have a break from thinking about what I look like, or what to wear. Out here my body is just a rowing machine and its ability to perform that function is all that matters. I have a tiny mirror somewhere on board but I hardly ever use it.

I don’t think I am excessively self-conscious while I’m on dry land, but it has just recently struck me how much I try to second-guess what other people think of me, based on my appearance. Is my outfit appropriate? Will they notice my hair needs cutting? Am I shorter/fatter/older than they expect me to be? It’s not so much that I judge myself but that I expect others to judge me, based on my looks and I see myself through their eyes.

I doubt that I am alone in this. Our society generally makes superficial evaluation based on appearance, and it is hard to rise above that.

So it is a really welcome change to be in a place and a situation where there is nobody to see me, nobody to judge, where that insecure little voice in my head finally shuts up and lets me just get on with being me, no matter what I look like.

Other Stuff: I got a warning SMS from Lee my weather man to alert me to certain east-flowing currents. If I am not careful and get caught in them, I could end up doing another lap of the Solomon Sea which would be distinctly embarrassing .

I finished listening to Dies the Fire by S M Stirling. Very good. A thought-provoking story of what might happen if all of our technology stopped working: no communication, no computers, no motorized transport, no food deliveries – made me want to retire ASAP to a small-holding to grow my own food. Maybe one day.

Another solid forty mile day today despite time out for hair-washing. As of tonight I have 473 nautical miles to go to Madang.

Nova’s News:

Be on Roz’s Facebook Fan Page and Website:

By the end of this row Roz will have spent over a year alone at sea in a space smaller than a jail cell, more isolated than a Tibetan monk.

Why? Because we can no longer ignore the pollution and environmental damage to our planet.

How can you help? Send us a picture of yourself using a reusable shopping bag to [email protected] and we will post it to Roz’s Facebook Fan Page.

We are aiming for 365 photos symbolizing Roz’s year at sea to let Roz know that she is not alone, that her message is making a difference. Three of the best photos will be drawn and posted onto Roz’s website, so be creative!

Another way you can let Roz know that you are following her journey is by making a contribution in the dollar amount of the days she has been at sea, one month and counting so far. “The energy of your support does reach her out at sea.”

Also take advantage of Roz’s Ebay Store sale. We are offering 10% discount on Roz’s reusable shopping bags until the end of the month. Also available in UK – ask for details through Contact (top line of page)

Here is a sneak peek at one of our first entries hope it inspires you!

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 and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage a few hours later than usual.

Position: As of last night (23^rd May) at 21.22: -08.36666 152.78629

Ahh, if only every day of ocean rowing could be like today, flat ocean, fair weather, regular rhythm, good book, forward progress. Though of course, if every day was like this I wouldn’t appreciate it.

Usually days are more like this: wind coming from wrong direction, curse, row, just get the rudder set right for the conditions when the wind changes. Curse again, change rudder, winds and waves increase making it difficult to get both oars in the water at once; squally downpour, wind dies away. Curse again, change rudder, wind returns as headwind, put out sea anchor etc. etc.

So to have a clear day of good (though hot) weather with calm consistent conditions was very welcome. My mileage wasn’t spectacular with no wind and little current to help but it was very satisfying to set myself a goal (152.8 degrees of longitude) and to achieve it without being thwarted by changing conditions

I especially enjoyed this evening. Last night I was denied my usual daily treat of watching the sunset while eating my dinner when a prolonged downpour resulted in a grey-out and I was forced to eat dinner in the cabin. It was like being all set to watch your favourite TV show only to find that the show had been cancelled. Very disappointing.

So tonight, although the sunset was nothing special, I enjoyed being able to eat out on deck watching the colours changing in the sky, and the little ripples made by my fishy entourage as they sploshed about near the surface. They often do this when I am not rowing enjoying time out from their usual frantic swimming.  As I row I can see them wiggling alongside the Brocade as if their little fishy lives depended on it. Not that I move that fast, but they are very small fishes and have to work hard to keep up.  And then later, it was very peaceful rowing along  under a half moon on the surface of the calm ocean, the only sound the splash of my oars and the rhythm of the oarlocks. The perfect end to a perfect day.

Other Stuff:  apologies for the late appearance of this blog. It was actually an imperfect day. My satphone refused to work last night. SIM card error. I now have very little confidence in this phone. It is a useless piece of kit – or something that rhymes with kit.

Thanks for all the comments about plastic, its use and abuse. I hear there was a question about the worth of recycling plastic. Recycling is better than nothing but not much. Recycling itself has an environmental impact, and it is transported half way round the world to be recycled and the recycling itself also has an environmental cost.

I suppose we can put it this way: reduce, reuse, recycle are in order of preference. Reduction is best and recycling a last resort. Although there is even a fourth option, which should come first: REFUSE. Refuse to accept plastic when you have a choice. Find any way you can to use an alternative, and maybe when you say no to plastic, you say it just a little louder than you need to so that you can be overheard. Let’s spread the message and eventually we will make it socially unacceptable and embarrassing even to accept plastic.

If you want to take it further write a letter. Write to the manufacturer who uses excessive plastic packaging, to restaurants that use plastic take-out containers, to coffee shops that won’t let you bring your own mug. Let them know how you feel.  Then share it with us at http://ecoheroes.me so that others of the ecoheroes community can follow your own example.

Thanks for the suggestions on marine GPS systems. Mum is saving the details for me and I will research them when I get back to dry land.

And finally Happy Birthday to my sister. She is seventeen months younger than me, forty one today. (Eek my little sister is over 40!)  and spare a thought for my mother too, when most of her contemporaries are knitting baby cardigans, my mother has one daughter trekking 500 miles across Spain, and the other bobbing around on the Solomon Sea on a rowboat. Surely she must wonder what she ever did to deserve this  . . . .

Starting the final countdown; as of tonight I have 457 nautical miles to go to Madang.

(Note from Rita: Tanya reported today that she has walked 397 miles, another 86 to do to reach Santiago, then another 46.6 to Finisterre.  Some anxiety most of today when there was no word from Roz due to her phone difficulties.)

Grateful thanks to recent donors: Neil Cheshire and Sandra Dobson.

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!

Nova’s News:

Be on Roz’s Website & Fan Page:

“Day 36 today – and Roz has spent a total of 341 days alone at sea.

Starting young!

One year in a space smaller than a jail cell, more isolated than a Tibetan monk.

Why? Because we can no longer ignore the pollution and environmental damage to our planet.

How can you help? Send us a picture of yourself using a reusable shopping bag to [email protected] and we will post it to Roz’s Face book Fan Page.

365 photos would symbolize Roz’s year at sea to let Roz know that she is not alone, that her message is making a difference.

Three of the best photos will be drawn and posted onto Roz’s website, so be creative!

Let Roz know that you are following her journey – make a contribution in the dollar amount of the days she has been at sea, for today it would be $36. “The energy of your support encourages her on.”

Ebay Store: offering a 10% discount on Roz’s reusable shopping bags until the end of the month. Also available in UK – ask for details through Contact (top line of page)

Dictated by Roz at 20.42 and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position:  -08.44295S, 153.37978E

I seem to have chosen a lot of audio books about apocalypse and its aftermath. I don’t think that this was a conscious decision. Maybe it just means that there are a lot of post-apocalyptic books around at the moment.  Or maybe my subconscious was playing tricks. Either way, it has resulted in some very interesting listening.

What were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Was it war, famine, plague and something else – things have been pretty much covered in my listening programme anyway.

Plague was covered in Pat Murphy’s “The City, Not Long After.” Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Mars Trilogy” touched on over-population and flood which naturally led to war and famine. And today I started listening to “Dies the Fire” by S M Stirling in which everything electrical or mechanised suddenly stops working worldwide at a single moment in time which is very bad news for the people who happen to be in aeroplanes. Add in Cormack McCarthy’s “The Road” this rapidly leads to food shortages, anarchy and violence. But “Dies the Fire” is, so far at least, less bleak than “The Road”,  given that “The Road” is out there at the far edges of utter bleakness and despondency, this almost goes without saying.

There are many cultures that predict that some dramatic changes will occur in 2012 – some of them good, most of them bad. I don’t really want to comment on those one way or the other, many previous rumours about the end of the world having been greatly exaggerated.  But it is interesting that so many different schools of thought have homed in on that particular year. Why this preoccupation with the end of the world as we know it? Is there a general sense that something has got to give, that we can’t sustain so many exponential curves all at once: population, consumption, financial growth, CO2 levels and so on. That we are going up and up and up the wave, and unless it flattens out soon we are going to topple off it?

I don’t know any more than you do about what is going to happen. But I do know that no matter what happens to the world at large, one day (hopefully distant if I don’t go swimming again) my personal world is going to come to an end. It was partly this realisation that got me out of the office and onto the ocean – the knowledge that I did not have an infinite supply of tomorrows, and if I was going to do something worthwhile with my life, I had to get on with it.  I suppose that if the whole world does go to pieces a small rowboat in the middle of the ocean is probably one of the safest places to be; although it would be a bit miserable to come back to dry land and find that everybody was dead and the bar was shut.

Other Stuff: Today was hot and calm until a downpour just before sunset.  So I wriggled my hot, weary way west as much as I could.  I have been trying to make a bit of north as well to get away from Woodlark Island. Pretty name, but I am not keen to go there in a rowboat. Every time I stop rowing the current pushes me south again.  I don’t really want to go head to head with the current. In my experience current usually beats rower. So I am hoping that as I head west, the current will swing around in my favour, as predicted.

I was taking a short break between rowing shifts today when something large head-butted the bottom of my boat. I looked over the side and thought I caught a glimpse of a large grey shape in the water. A shark? I don’t know. Any suggestions about what kind of creature might behave this way.

The battery life of my GPS (Garmin 276 T) seems to be in a terminal decline. On a day like today as I inch my way across the ocean, I like to take the GPS out into the cockpit and watch the numbers clicking down. It is very motivating, but the battery which used to last for up to six hours now hits its limit at about two and a half, even if I turn the brightness down.  I’ll need to get a new one for the Indian Ocean anyway as they no longer sell the charts that are compatible with this one.  Any recommendations for a marine GPS? I like the Garmin for its size and low power consumption, so something similar would be good.

Nova’s News:

Check out the Roz Fundraiser Commercial :  :  http://ff.im/-kFNPZ Then watch for the new contest coming soon!

Roz’s Ebay Store: Roz Savage Shopping bag – price by 10% and the sale will be over by end of this month.

Time is Running Out: Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai. Many more votes needed!

Dictated by Roz at 21.07 on May 21^st and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -08.19040S  153.62320E

I had an interesting conversation this morning with Dr Kiki Sanford during our regular weekly podcast at twit.tv/roz and it got me thinking. We were talking about the evils of plastic but I found myself almost defending the horrible stuff. It seems to me the plastic itself is not the problem, but the ways we have chosen to use it.

Like so many other things plastic can be used or it can be abused. You can use your TV to watch fascinating documentaries, to visit places you would never otherwise see, to learn more about all kinds of things, or you can watch reality TV and soap operas. Likewise you can use the internet to connect with on-line communities, to collaborate with colleagues overseas, research any subject under the sun, or you can browse porn sites.

Similarly there are lots of good uses for plastic: for example on my boat I have many invaluable items that would not work so well if made from any other substance: waterproof cases, electronics, life jackets, buckets – but why use just toxic, non-biodegradable substances to make “disposable” items out of it, generating these items by the billion to be used for a few minutes and then dumped. It just doesn’t make sense.

There is a very short-term list of items like plastic bags and bottles. Then there are the longer-term items which are just as bad but harder to avoid: shampoo, conditioner, body lotions, toothbrushes, household cleaning products, food packaging. As no-impact man showed it is really hard to live in the twenty-first century without generating plastic trash.

As consumers we cast our vote every time we buy something. If you have found clever ways to reduce your plastic consumption, please log on at ecoheroes.me and share your tips with the rest of our ecohero community.

The good news, and the bad news:  if all we have to do is change the thinking. It is not the world we need to change, it is human behaviour.

Whale Shark - Roz 2009.

Other Stuff: I was very sad to hear that among the creatures most seriously impacted by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are turtles and whale sharks, my two favourite marine animals. Incidentally oil is used in the production of plastic so if we used less plastic we would need less oil.

And now enough about the environment. Back to me. Today I managed to make some progress west and now getting very close to that diagonal line dividing the Solomon Sea. See maps from a few days ago. In theory, once I cross that line, I should get out of this fast, south-flowing, current (between one and two knots) and into more neutral waters before finding the north west flowing current up the coast of Papua New Guinea.

But I am not getting much cooperation from the elements. The prevailing winds are supposed to be from the south east but I have experienced mostly light westerlies instead. Today I noted with concern that I am less than seventy miles from Woodlark Island, which more or less marks the start of that long chain of islands leading up into Papua New Guinea and I am heading straight for it.

In other words I need to turn the corner of this big hairpin and start heading north west. And soon! But the winds and the currents are not helping. A change in conditions would be very welcome. Any time now would be good. Hello, up there – is anybody listening?

Nova’s News:

Check out the Roz Fundraiser Commercial – find the link in the Twitter box. Then watch for the new contest coming soon!

Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai. Many more votes needed!

Dictated by Roz at 21.08 and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage

Position: -07.55639S  153.92323E

A good day for progress, after four days of trying I finally made it back across the line of longitude at 154 degrees east. Hopefully this time it is for keeps. But who knows?

This morning I woke to find that the wind had shifted to the east (good) so as quickly as I could I got the sea anchor back on board and got rowing. Soon after that the wind veered into the south which meant that it was pushing the waves against the current so it all got a bit choppy and messy.

I bludgeoned on regardless and although I don’t think I would have won any points for style, I don’t care. I only care about the numbers and they show that today I have made 0.3 . . . of a degree south and 0.25 of a degree west. Not spectacular by any means but given the present conditions, quite proud of my day’s work.

This evening I am feeling rather reeky. I seem to have hit some kind of threshold of grime tolerance. Bucket and sponge baths are the best part of the evening but right now I would give almost anything for a proper shower and access to a washing machine. Suddenly I am feeling itchy and dirty and generally grotty. Maybe tomorrow I will treat myself and wash my hair. Always good for morale.

My feelings of disgust have been compounded by the grottiness of this patch of ocean. Today, as well as empty drinks bottles, I have been seeing hundreds of  little pieces suspended throughout the water. I can’t say with accuracy what they are pieces of, but they definitely don’t look organic, but I suspect that they are remnants of plastic bags and such like. Probably about a dozen pieces per cubic foot of water. Yuck!

I also saw a couple more yogurt pots. If I had a home, one of the first things I would buy would be a yogurt maker. One of my favourite breakfasts is yogurt with fresh fruit and nuts. But those empty yogurt pots really add up. I’ve got a friend in Flagstaff who makes his own yogurt and he says it is dead easy.

Can’t think of a catchy slogan for this one though. Is there a word in the English language which rhymes with yogurt?

Roz’s EBay Store:

Last few hours remaining to bid for the signed photograph of Roz on her boat. Find it in the Roz Savage items.

Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai. Many more votes needed!

Dictated by Roz, and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -06.88196S,  154.14308E

This voyage has now definitely reached the stage that can be described as character-building. Long gone are the days when I would sit relaxing and eating my dinner, watching the sun set and reflecting on my day of fair winds, sparkling seas, and record-breaking mileages.

Tonight’s dinner was late, long after sunset, if indeed the sunset had not been hidden by black storm clouds. As I sat eating my re-hydrated Thai curry, I was reflecting on a day of wildly swinging winds, a cut foot, and seriously entangled sea-anchor line. I put the sea anchor out this morning when the wind picked up from the south west, the direction I wanted to go, but it only remained out for about an hour after which the wind changed to the south east. After that I made quite good progress for a while watching the screen of my little Garmin GPS. I could see that it was taking me 50 – 60 strokes to cover 0.001 degree heading west, which meant I could cover 0.01 of a degree every half-hour.

This was all good. I got nearly back to the longitude of 154 degrees, where I was three days ago before the conditions started pushing me east.

But then the wind changed again, back to the south west. I scrutinised the black clouds overhead looking for any encouraging signs that this change might be temporary. I gave the wind about 45 minutes to see if it would start behaving, but it didn’t. In fact it increased in strength, causing me to cut my foot when I had to unexpectedly brace myself against an oncoming wave and my foot ended up on something sharp inside the galley locker.

It was definitely time to put the sea anchor out again, but somehow I managed to get it’s line into a right royal tangle. Normally I don’t have any problems with it, but I got impatient at having to put it out for the second time in a day and with one false move put it on the path to a horrible mess which took me over an hour to sort out, during which time a torrential downpour came along and dumped on me. Just to help matters! At times I wondered if I would ever get the rope disentangled, but there really wasn’t much choice. Eventually, and with an enormous sense of satisfaction, I saw it slither over the side and into the water, smooth and tangle-free.

At last I was able to turn my attention to more important matters, like dinner.

Now I am hunkered in my cabin while winds and waves batter the outside of my boat. These are certainly not the worst conditions I have ever been in, but considerably worse than anything I have encountered in the last month. The good news is that although I am being pushed east, I am also going south, and that way lie better currents.

And one day, surely, I will make it back across 154 degrees.

Other Stuff: Thank you to all the people who have been putting us in touch with people in Madang. The Rozling network is really doing us proud. Mum is following up with all contacts and I am very much looking forward to meeting them when (if) I get there.

“Save a whale, drink more ale” made me laugh, thanks for sending it in. I think it could become one of the most popular eco movements of all time.

Nova’s News: Do check Nova’s GoRozGo at the top of the page.

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 21.30 on May 18th and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.

Position: -06.46732   154.13231

At last a relatively uneventful day. Hallelujah.

Unfortunately the most notable thing about today was the amount of plastic trash I saw littering the ocean. Today was the worst I have ever seen it. I saw about 30 individual recognisable pieces:  plastic bottles, yogurt pots, bits of packaging. There is something deeply upsetting about seeing a beautiful blue ocean glinting in the sunshine marred by a plastic bottle bobbing along on the surface.

I would love to see a ban on all plastic drinks bottles. It is easy enough to avoid using plastic water bottles just buy a Brite water filter and keep refilling your own reusable water bottle. But what about the other drinks, even health drinks like  . . . .ies .  which come in plastic bottles?  I hate the hypocrisy of selling a drink that is supposedly good for your body packaged in a substance which is trashing the planet.

For decades, centuries even, we used glass bottles. They can be returned for a deposit or recycled. And even if they end up in landfill or the ocean they are at least inert and don’t leach out nasty chemicals into the environment.  I don’t know the cost benefit analysis of glass vs plastic but if you factor in the REAL cost of plastic, environmental as well as financial I am fairly certain it would sway the argument.

After all, beer comes in glass bottles, so why can’t everything else? Maybe we should

boycott all other drinks and just drink beer and wine. Do you think this would catch on as a campaign? SAVE THE WORLD DRINK BEER.

Other Stuff: conditions today have been very neutral, the slight SSE current and no breeze to speak of so I have been able to claw back some of the eastwards drift inflicted yesterday while I was on the sea anchor. Still a long way to go before I can get into favourable currents, but I’ll just keep taking it one day at a time.

I have an idea today that I would like to run past you. Given the unpredictability of arrival times, it’s impossible to organize any kind of celebration. How about if I organise something in Perth, Australia, before my departure there in March next year? If I can negotiate some kind of a package, say, to cover accommodation and flights from the west coast of the US would anybody be interested in coming out to help with final preparations and joining in with a Bon Voyage party? A few friends came out to Hawaii last year to do just that and we had a great time. Let me know if you might be interested. No commitment at this stage. Just wondering if there might be enough people to make it worthwhile.

I saw the crescent moon tonight at 07.40 UTC. I was at position -06.44647,  154.15331 and the moon was about 60 degrees above the horizon and about 15 degrees east of the setting sun.

Rita: Grateful thanks to recent donors to the Foundation appeal: Anne Monks, Anne-Marie Mills, Bonnie Sterngood, Ellen Smith, Bill Savage, Naomi Durkin, Sierra North, David Snyder, Kenneth Scott, Martin Mari, Brian Phelps.

Dictated by Roz at 19.48 local time on May 17^th 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.

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 and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.

Position: -05.97063S, 154.01878E

Spectra Watermaker in its Compartment

Today’s big news is that I have got my watermaker working again.  This is a huge relief.  Although I have now had ample experience of watermaker failure, it doesn’t get any easier. Once the watermaker goes I have a constant sense of being on a time limit, needing to reach my destination before my supplies run out, or else having to set aside a couple of hours a day to pump the manual watermaker.

And it deprives me of one of my favourite bits of the day, my bucket and sponge bath.  This happens after I finish rowing in the evening, after the sun has set. It feels so good to sponge the cool fresh water over my skin rinsing away the sweat, salt and suncream of the day

So today I made it a priority to get my water supply up and running again.  It took most of the morning. I tried a couple of other things before resigning myself to the fact that the feed pump was the source of the problem, and would have to be replaced. Ian Tuller had been on the phone to Spectra to identify a troubleshooting strategy (thank you Ian!). This was the third and final option, the last resort known between Ian and me as “Oh Shit” scenario.

The new feed pump was already set up as much as it could be to make it a plug and play operation, but it is never easy working inside a small compartment on the deck of a rolling boat, with hoses, wires and a heavy pump to manoeuvre into position.

It was a surprise and not a good one to find that the mounting plates of the pump were a different size from the old one so the bolt holes were in the wrong position. Getting the bolts in place was a nearly impossible task anyway as the heads of the bolts were in the next compartment over. So for me to hold the nut and turn the bolt was nigh on impossible. In the end I gave up and resorted to cable ties. Cable ties and duct tape, where would I be without them?

It was sweet music to my ears to hear the hum of a healthy feedpump after the anxiety-inducing erratic drone of its predecessor. I ran the watermaker long enough to replenish my depleted stocks relishing the sense of everything being shipshape once again.

Alas, that was the highlight of the day. It all went downhill once I started rowing. If yesterday’s course was a staircase today’s was a zigzag. I would slowly slog a feeble zig towards the south west, only for the current to send me on a speedy zag towards the south east. I crossed the line of longitude at 154 degrees east about seven (number indistinct in the voicemail) times today. I tried heading just due south to hasten my arrival in the more helpful current at 11 degrees. A testy little wind blew up unexpectedly from that direction, blocking it off as an option.

Stymied. I might as well have been on a rowing machine. Couldn’t  get south, couldn’t get west, and I didn’t want to go north or east.  As I write I am further away from Madang than I was at this time yesterday, and I was getting further still.

Sigh. Again. This too will pass , I remind myself.

Other Stuff:  Tonight I tried out the hot chocolate from Wilderness  Family Naturals. Fantastic! No transfats, unlike most hot chocolates.  A small consolation at the end of a trying day.

Only one big shift today compared with four yesterday.

I still owe you my confession, but today I wanted to share the good news about my watermaker. It will keep until tomorrow. Please don’t be cross with me, Joan.  It was a stupid thing rather than a bad thing. All will become clear.

Sorry Doug, still no glimpse of the crescent moon.  After a clear day the sun disappeared into a big dark cloud as it set.  I’ll keep looking.

Rita: Doug I did see the moon from my window here in Yorkshire, a very slim crescent, Saturday evening, not quite near the horizon. I discovered a couple of years ago that in midwinter the moon sets where the sun sets in midsummer.  As we are quite near to midsummer now, I was quite surprised to see it near where the sun was setting. I obviously don’t know all the facts. (We would never know from the chilly weather that midsummer is not far off.)

Looking forward to hearing about that confession  . . . . .

Grateful thanks for more information about contacts in Madang from Chris Bone, Aaron Hayes and David Lambourne.

Roz’s Ebay Store:

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.

Solio Charger

Solio Classic Charger – find it under the Eco-Friendly Items.

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 21.57 on May 15th and transcribed by Rita Savage.

Position: -05.65077S, 154.01086E

Ocean Currents - Lee Bruce

I spoke too soon when I said that I might make landfall within the next 2 or 3 weeks. I think it is going to take a lot longer than that. I am going to be messed around.

This morning I had a phone call with Lee Bruce my weatherman. As I suspected, it was not good news. I had already noticed that everything has changed since I passed Cape Henpan and not for the better. Lee is concerned that the currents in the Solomon Seas are not going to be my friends.

In his words “the most complicated rowing effort that I have been involved in.” Lee is a veteran of fourteen rowing expeditions. So although this makes me feel kind of special I would rather it wasn’t true.

I am going to pass on what Lee told me in the hope that someone with time and technical ability might be able to create a .jpeg to illustrate my plight and share this with the readers of this blog. This is where I miss having email, as it means that I can’t send the image myself.
1. Draw a line from zero degrees S 151 degrees 15’ E to 11 degrees S 156 degrees 15’ E.

2. East of that line the currents run to the SSE. West of that line it is light and variable, becoming SE to NW closer to the coast of Papua New Guinea.

3. Now draw a box bounded by lines from 05 degrees 45’ S to 07 degrees 00’ S; and from 151 degrees 30’E to 153 degrees 45’ E.

4. The current in the west half of this box is from W to E and in the E half of the box it runs from NW to SE.

I have just completed this exercise myself and this is not an encouraging sight. The good news is that I have a good chance of making it to Madang. The bad news is that the current might take me several hundred miles out of my way before I get there. Don’t be surprised to see me making a long looping detour to the south east, before I manage to get into the lighter or more north westerly current.
I can already see the truth of Lee’s prediction. My course for today looks like a staircase. Whenever I am rowing I am pushing west but whenever I take a break the current pushes me south south east.

Sigh.

Other Stuff: Another day that was rather more eventful than I would have liked. No fewer than four large ships passed within a mile of me, and one was within 100 yards. Only one of the vessels responded to my VHF radio call. I have a radio enhancer and my newly beefed-up nav lights, but suddenly I wish I had the resources to light up my boat like a Christmas tree.

Doug, I have been looking out for the crescent moon for the last couple of nights but it has been too overcast. I will report back as soon as I have seen it.

I have just finished listening to House Rules by Jodi Picoult. Very good. Great characters and a good mystery plot. Recommended.
And I have a confession to make, but this blog is long enough already, so I’ll save it until tomorrow.

Rita: if you are kind enough to create the .jpeg as Roz requests, please send it using the Contact form which you will find just below the search box at the top right hand corner of the website. Thank you.

Nova’s Newsletter:
This trip may be Roz’s fastest Row averaging 54 miles per day in 26 days. In order to accomplish this she sleeps in shifts on average totalling approximately 156 hours. Today we are asking people to donate 156 dollars, one dollar for every hour of rest Roz has gotten in the past 26 days. All who donate 156 will receive an autographed photo of her final Pacific voyage. Now with the anticipation of her rowing the Indian Ocean her days of rest are again numbered so lets support Roz. The energy of your support does find its way out to her at sea, let her know that she is not alone on her sleep deprived exertion and journey of environmental awareness and adventure.

Roz’s Ebay Store:

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.

Do check out the Energy Saver Strip – find it under the Eco-Friendly Items.

Power Saver Strip - An eco-friendly product.

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 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 and transcribed by her mother, due to demise of technology.

Position: -04.74758S 154.91690E

This is all so sudden, having been fully prepared to spend 100 or so days at sea, this time it looks as though I am on for a much faster crossing. In fact, even accounting for the necessary detour round the bottom of New Britain, it could all be over in two or three weeks from now.

Given the unpredictability of where I would end up, let alone when, we have been taken rather by surprise. For the last few days my mother and I have started to discuss arrival logistics, but there is a lot to do and a rapidly diminishing window of time in which to do it.

We are following up on offers of introductions from Jean-Michel Cousteau, who I met at TED Galapagos only last month (wow, seems like a lifetime ago!) and Andy Warner and Larry Davis. Thanks to them for offering up their contacts. We are also going to contact the local yacht club, and find out if the British Council has a presence in Madang. Hopefully these things will happen, and happen fast.

My personal logistics are relatively straightforward. It is the boat logistics that are more complicated. Besides a dock to arrive at, I need to find somewhere to store the boat, a way of getting her there, and a plan to get her shipped to Perth in readiness for the Indian Ocean next year.

Yes, I am going to try for the Indian. Assuming that nothing goes drastically wrong between here and Madang, and it ain’t over ‘til its over, I would really like to complete the big three oceans, and apart from anything else, I’ve got a ton of expedition food that I’ve barely dented on this crossing. I am still finishing up the leftovers from last year.

It is quite exciting to think that I could be sipping sundowners in Madang around the end of the month, but it has its downsides too. Tonight as I sat eating my dinner watching one of the more spectacular sunsets to grace the sky during this crossing, I couldn’t help but feel a bit melancholy at the thought of arriving in Madang. I doubt that there will be any familiar faces there to greet me; Nicole has important commitments in Hawaii and Mum isn’t really up to taking the long flight from the UK.

So instead of a grand welcoming party it might just be me tootling up to the dock in Madang, getting my passport stamped and having a solitary beer in the yacht club bar, and then trying to rope in some local manpower to clean and pack the Brocade for her next voyage.
After a four year, 8000 mile adventure this would be, well, a bit on the pathetic side, but I suppose that is the price I pay for landing up half a world away from most of my friends. I’ll look at it this way: it will be great opportunity for me to get to know those news friends I haven’t met yet.

Other Stuff: Alf was sighted today! Of course, this is now a mixed blessing. Happy to know that he lives, but not sure what the heck to do with him if he survives to landfall.

I’ve made it safely past Carteret Island today and am now heading towards Cape Henpan. I should pass it tomorrow and pop out into the Solomon Sea. Does that mean that I have actually finished crossing the Pacific?

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

Roz EBay Store
Roz souvenirs, personalised items, gifts to give to people to let them know about Roz – visit her Roz Savage items on her EBay store.
Rita: Many thanks for the numerous guesses in the GoRozGo Contest, and other donations made recently. I am just sorry that I cannot thank you all individually, but as you can see from the above blog, life is getting rather busy!

Dictated by Roz on 12th May.
Position; -04.48150, 155.67511

Boobies - 2009

Friends, Rozlings, countrymen, lend me your ears, I’ll give them back, I promise.

Today was rather a quiet day for news here on the Brocade, so I’d like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to those who enable me to do what I do, so I want to focus on my wonderful, unpaid, volunteers who give their time, energy, commitment and often also money to support my endeavors. Thank you to you all, and I hope that I am making you proud .

The danger of this kind of thank you, of course, is that I cannot possibly list everybody who has helped me throughout my ocean-going career, so I will confine myself to a specific few, and try not to forget anybody. If I do, please forgive me and put it down to my general disconnection with life ashore.

I will be forever grateful to Ian Tuller of San Francisco, who over the last couple of years has ensured that I head out to sea in a ship-shape state, traveling at his own expense to Hawaii and Tarawa to work on Brocade. Ian wasn’t able to come to Tarawa this year, having only just recovered from a stomach complaint he picked up there last year, but nonetheless was very involved in preparations. As well as battling manfully to sort out my technology, he also drove from San Francisco to Santa Monica immediately before I left for Tarawa to deliver supplies of food, tech kit, water-maker parts, and essential miscellanea, all carefully packaged and labeled. Packaged for the most part, I should add, in greaseproof or brown paper, with as little plastic as possible, and packed in suitcases recycled by the charity store.

Hero of 2010 . . . . (no easy task) is Liz Fischer. She came out to Tarawa for ten busy days of final preparations. In a sense this was just the tip of an iceberg. She had already spent days packing Larabars and raw food crackers at her home in Honolulu, so that all we had to do when we got to Tarawa was to pack them into the boat. There are countless other little but important things that Liz brought with her which would have otherwise been forgotten but which turned out to be invaluable. Clothes pegs, towel and of course my champion, much-used sun hat.

Thanks also to Doug Grandt aka Unca Doug for being the tireless “uncle” of my on-line community. He manages my Facebook fanpage as well as being the lynchpin of the blogs comments and coordinates my contributions to the Nasa S’cool project. This summary doesn’t really do justice to what Doug has done for my on-line presence. He has helped to turn it from a collection of individuals into a community. So, although I also thank all the other key Rozlings, and you know who you are, we all know that Doug deserves special mention.

Busy behind the scenes is Alan Murray of Murray PR in London who has been working Pro Bono to help spread the word about my adventures since the walk from Big Ben to Copenhagen last October. Thank you Alan for your kindness, and also to Sue Lossen of Green People (providers of my sun lotion) for making the introduction.

And, of course, no roll of honor would be complete without mention of my good old Mum. (With the emphasis on the good rather than the old!) who this year saved the day when my technology went belly-up. As well as transcribing my blog every day from dodgy dictation from Satellite phone, she has sent emails on my behalf, shielded enquiries, managed my finances, liaised with shore-side contacts and generally kept the show on the road with her usual calmness, competence and thoroughness. We haven’t worked this closely together since my days on the Atlantic and it has been great to have the old mother and daughter team back together again. (Excuse my blushes – Editor)

Finally a word of thanks to this year’s key sponsors : Brocade, Shacklee, Sony Ericsson, Larabars, Wilderness Family Naturals, The Kine, Archinoetics and Aquapac for their kind support.

And finally, finally, thanks to you all. For being there. For supporting me. For spreading the word about what I do and why. For giving me your love, encouragement and positive energy. For being the wind beneath my wings or the currents beneath my craft. I couldn’t do it without you.

Other Stuff: My sister Tanya is well on her bid to walk the Way of St James, 500 miles across Spain. Footsore, apparently, but nothing she can’t handle.

There is one booby in residence tonight. Last year’s residents were masked boobies. This one is of the yellow-footed variety, but no more social graces than his last relatives, and his poop smells just as bad.

Rita: Good to see a number of last-minute guesses about time of arrival – too many to list – today is the last day for having a go. And thanks to those who made contributions: James Ferguson, James Beaver, Sam Miller, Jamie Marshall, Angela Hey and Noelle Sadinsky

Nova’s News: GoRozGo contest ENDS TODAY!

Position: -04.38057S, 156.59082E

Dictated by Roz at 21.48 Local time. Transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage

A peep inside the sleeping cabin.

Today I have had the ocean to myself, thank goodness, apart from an overnight visitor. I emerged from my sleeping cabin this morning to find a booby bird staring stupidly at me from the roof of the forward cabin. He had, needless to say, pooped liberally over the forward solar panels.

I had an inkling I might find a booby in residence. Last night I was in my cabin writing my blog when I heard something collide clumsily with the cabin roof with a sound somewhere between a slither and a skitter. It sounded, in fact, exactly like a booby bird making a crash landing. So to find a booby plus side-effects this morning was not a big surprise.

I sighed, and went about my business. Last year I fought the battle of the boobies and lost. I drove myself nearly crazy shooing them away, only for them to fly in a big circle and come straight back again. This year I am quietly resigning myself to whatever indignities they choose to inflict upon my vessel.

In keeping with my steady progress towards my state of zen calm, I now remind myself from the words of the prayer “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things that I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.” (Rheinhold Niebuhr) And the lavatory habits of the booby birds definitely fall into the category of things requiring serenity.

Other Stuff: David Tangye asked if an arrival in Papua New Guinea constitutes a valid crossing of the Pacific. Absolutely. I shan’t comment on the consistency and quality of the rules which are mostly defined by Kenneth Crutchlow of the Ocean Rowing Society in London, but a precedence has been set by Erden Eruk who crossed from California to Papua New Guinea in 2007. If you go to http://oceanrowing.com and click on the statistics link you will see that most of the Pacific rows have been from Peru to Australia or from Japan to North America. So I think that by crossing the Equator as well, I have done more than enough.

However, my voyage probably will not count as an official record. I believe that to get into the Guiness Book of Records the crossing has to be wholly “unsupported” and by having a sun canopy on my boat I lose my unsupported status. Yes, really! I suppose the idea is that the canopy could be said to offer some additional wind resistance like a sail. Although, as my canopy is a thin triangle, tapering from about four feet down to about six inches, and is horizontally above my rowing position rather than at any angle that could possibly catch the wind, its wind resistance is absolutely minimal. Hey, don’t ask me, I don’t make up the rules. I just weighed up getting an official record versus getting skin cancer, and decided I needed a canopy.

A record breaking day again today, 65 nautical miles to the good. Never before have I had a crossing to magnificently blessed by favorable winds and current. At the moment they are helping me achieve a near-perfect course of 260 degrees, which, if I can keep to it, will get me through the narrow straits between Bougainville Island and New Ireland within the next few days.

Another Alf-less day. I think I need to accept that he is no more, God bless his little spidery soul.

Rita: Roz says a tremendous thank you for the support, prayers, and comments of her followers, it cheers her on her way.
Grateful thanks to latest contributors: Kathleen Miritello, James Ford, Petr Simecek and Sally Phillips. Do note what Nova says below about the end of the guessing contest!

Nova’s News:
Roz is rowing faster than ever! Your cheering, your contributions to GoRozGo, encouragement and support have been working, as Roz is set to arrive in shorter time than her previous voyages. As a result we will be ending the contest for guessing her date and time of arrival early, on May 12th . . . . so hurry for your last chance to win a Skype conversation with Roz. So far we have 67 entries spread over a six and a half week span of time and dates. It is till anyone’s guess just when she will arrive. She is heading for Madang in Papua New Guinea. Enter now and be part of the adventure!

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

Blue Skies. Photo by Roz April 2010

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.

Day 20 No Ditheration
Dictated by Roz at 20:55 local time, position -03.91948 159 5329.

This morning I was woken by the sound of porpoises exhaling noisily near my boat. I popped out on deck to take a look, but despite the bright crescent moon it was too dark for me to see anything. Nice way to be woken up though, beats an alarm clock any day.

Later today I saw a pod of dolphins cruise past. I have mixed feelings about dolphins. They have such a reputation for being such friendly, even spiritual, creatures but in the open ocean I found them to be rather supercilious. Unlike whales and turtles, they take very little interest in me. They just shimmy on by with a superior air as if I am beneath their notice. It’s like they know they are the stars of the show and I am just a bit-part player, or even worse, the clown. I can’t help taking this rather personally, but maybe I project too much.
Fortunately there are no signs of human life today, although I am sure it won’t be long. Today I officially set course for Papua New Guinea.

Tonight I will pass about 35 miles north of Nuku Anuu island and will then head for the straits between Bouganville Island and New Ireland.
Last night I had a bit of a dither. I had made good progress south over the last couple of days, and I toyed with the idea of routing towards Australia. Then I remembered the agonies of last year’s ditheration over the Tuvalu/Tarawa question which hung over me for weeks. I am not going through that again.

I remember going to a talk by a couple of guys who had rowed the Atlantic. This was several years ago before I had ever rowed an ocean. One of them said “It is not the decisions you make, it’s the way you see them through.”

Last year I really learned what he meant. All the vacillating backwards and forwards really affected my motivation. While I was uncommitted it was difficult to push myself to row hard for Tuvalu, when I would suddenly be overtaken by doubt and wonder if I should be aiming for Tarawa instead. I was too hung up on aiming to make the right decision.

The older I get the more I suspect there is often little difference between a right decision and a wrong decision. The worst of all worlds is to make a weak decision and then constantly revisit it, worrying over it, and wondering if it was the right one and changing your mind. It almost never ends well.

In most cases it is better to make the best decision you can, face all the facts available at the time, and stick with it – only changing it if the passage of time reveals that it was completely misguided. Very few decisions are totally irrevocable, and most will succeed if you commit to making them succeed.

I am quite excited about Madang. Australia is a great country but I have been there before. Papua New Guinea will be something quite different, a new adventure. This will be a voyage of discovery.
Other stuff: Can anybody out there tell me what currency they use? What language do they speak? Will they allow me to bring food into the country? And do they have decent beer?

Thanks to latest donors to Foundation: David Saunders and DL Perry.

Fundraising Newsletter by Nova Lee
I was reading Roz’s recent blog on how she dove into the ocean to prevent a plastic stove from polluting the sea without any thought to her safety. Made me think of the times I was too lazy to chase after a piece of escaped plastic wrapper. That plastic wrapper that got away most likely joined the 14 billion pounds of trash that end up in our oceans annually. I have a few friends who regularly pick up trash and they serve as a good reminder of the ‘little more’ that I can do. I have yet to have the pleasure of meeting Roz but I get the feeling that she would be just this sort of friend.
Fans: Support Roz’s foundation today by sharing stories of things you have done to prevent the plastic pollution of our planet and donating so we can collectively catch all the plastic before it ends up in the ocean.
Thank-you.

To let us know how Roz has inspired you go to: http://rozsavage.com/contents/gorozgo/

To chip in click on Chip In button on side bar of page. To join our guess when Roz will land click on the Go Roz Go button top right corner of page.

Do you know what this is? Look in Roz's Ebay Store for the answer. Clue - look for T-shirts

Please help us win $50K to support our Ocean Explorers Roz Savage and Margo Pellegrino, two women effectively raising awareness on the threats the ocean faces and the need for conservation measures.
All you need to do is click here to vote: http://www.refresheverything.com/oceanexplorers”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”
You can vote every day!

Dictated by Roz and transcribed by her mother Rita Savage.
Position at local time 20.55 on 7th May: -03.64156S 160.18750E

Satellite view of Roz's position April 29

My jar of plum jam is speaking to me. No, this is not conclusive evidence that I have spent too much time alone on my rowboat. I mean that there are some words printed on the label that resonate with me. My lemon lady, Karen Morss, very kindly gave me several jars of homemade preserve and has handwritten an inspiring quote on the side of each For the last ten days I have been enjoying a dollop of plum jam with my food crackers and cheese (the cheese is suffering a bit in the extreme heat but I keep hacking the moldy bits off and the rest is fine) and while I munch my lunch contemplate the words of Gertrude Stein written on the label: “Let me listen to me, not to them.”

Wise words, and ones that Karen evidently lives by. She ran a software company for many years before embarking upon her second career as owner of a flying school. Now she has an orchard of lemon trees which she has named after women who have inspired her. Yes, there is a lemon tree called Rosalind of which I am very proud. This is a woman with little time for conventional career moves.

I hope that I too, now, live by Gertrude Stein’s advice. For most of my life I didn’t. I did what I thought I was expected to do, trying to win approval and it led me astray, doing a job I didn’t like to buy be stuff I didn’t need – all for the sake of “them”. Or, in fact, not what they actually wanted me to do, but what I THOUGHT they wanted me to do.

When I woke up and realized that I wasn’t getting any younger, and that if I wanted to do something worthwhile with my life, then I had better get on with it. It was one of the most liberating things I have ever done, to totally give up caring what other people think about what I am doing with my life. I respect my younger sister for having realized this at a much younger age than I did. She actually got a better degree that I did but rather than following me into the city of London, she chose to work anywhere where she could get into the great outdoors to indulge her love of hiking, climbing and caving. I really respect her for that.

After all, it really doesn’t matter what other people think. If they love me, they will support me. If they try to discourage me, that says more about them than it does about me. It is my life, not theirs.

Ultimately nobody is better at being me than I am. So I might as well take that unique talent of being me and do it to the best of my ability.

Other stuff: I saw a fishing vessel today. I think it is the same vessel that I could see last night. I would rather that they weren’t around. I haven’t even had three weeks of me-time yet and I definitely want some more.

Alf was spotted running across the life raft today. Conditions were very hot and still for most of the day. The upside was good progress south, the downside was trying to avoid heatstroke.

Recorded a podcast with Dr Kiki at Twit.tv today, and gave some more clues to help with guessing my arrival date and location. Check it out at Rozrows.tv. Enjoy! http://twit.tv/roz

Nova’s Newsletter:
Hello Roz Fans,
Nova Lee here, Roz’s Fundraising coordinator. Like you I have been inspired to support Roz in her epic adventure. In this piece I will be reflecting on the things that I have learned from Roz. It has been a pleasure knowing her in this way and perhaps in hearing these stories you will see how much Roz’s journey has made a positive impact on my life and others, understand the challenges we are facing and further understand why we are needing support for Roz Savage’s Ripple Effect Foundation.

I met Roz during what will hopefully be the most inactive period of my life, my recovery from knee surgery. Working with a person who is perhaps in the most active time of her life possessed an interesting combination of irony and purpose. I have now begun the physical therapy portion of my recovery. In the past a $50 gym membership was an expense that hindered me from joining but fundraising to cover the expenses of open ocean rowing has certainly given me a new perspective. Entering the gym I soon found myself at the rowing machine. The discomfort of the scar tissue and swelling was tempered by thoughts of Roz out in the middle of the Pacific ocean; I pushed a little harder. Fans today I am going to ask: Have any of you have been inspired to get in shape or take up rowing? Share your stories on this topic and please chip in to support Roz and others who have big oceans to cross and dreams to fulfill.
Share your stories of how Roz has inspired you here: http://rozsavage.com/contents/bet-on-roz/

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Grateful thanks to latest donors: Theresa Law and Charles Pell

Remember to vote for Roz and Margo every day!

http://www.refresheverything.com/oceanexplorers

“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”
(Request from Blue Frontier Campaign.)

Dictated at 21.40 on Thursday 6th May.
This blog was dictated by Roz and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.
Position: -3.12780S, 160.85564E

Barnacles under the boat, August 09

So far this voyage has been remarkably mellow. I was starting to feel that I was getting the hang of this ocean-rowing malarkey, enjoying the journey as much as the destination. My progress has been eased by generally favourable winds and currents so I have been taking time out to enjoy ocean life, admiring cloud formations, snorkeling around the boat and gazing up at the stars at night.

However, that all might be about to change. The harbinger of the new phase arrived tonight in the shape of a pinprick of light on the horizon. I tried to convince myself that it was just a low-lying star. But no, it was definitely a vessel on my ocean. Huh!
It doesn’t seem to be getting any closer so hopefully we will just be ships passing in the night, but it did make me get out my chart to see how far I am from land. The answer is: not far enough.

This morning I had called Lee Bruce, my weatherman, to discuss my route. We agreed that Australia is (and probably always was) out of the question, and that my best bet is to make for Madang in Papua New Guinea. The challenge is going to be the obstacle course of islands, atolls and reefs between here and there. My chart of this area, given to me by Captain Vince of the White Holly is rather old but hopefully not too many new features have sprung up in the last 50 years.

After 1961 (not clear what Roz said – any ideas, anyone?) I come to a scattering of small islands including Nuku Manu Frindsbury and Tauu islands. I need to try and weave my way through these and then pass through the straits between Bouganville Island and the southern tip of New Ireland. Then I want to skirt the bottom of New Britain before turning North West to follow the coast of New Guinea up to Madang.
All this is very much easier said than done. Ocean rowboats do not like land. They lack maneuverability and

There’s not much point in stressing about it yet because I don’t know from this far out what the weather conditions will be like by the time I get there. According to Lee the winds should be relatively light by the time I get in amongst the islands, improving my chances of slaloming my way through without running slap-bang into anything.

Its all part of the adventure.
Gulp.

Other stuff: Alf the spider has made a dangerous foray into the area around my feet today. I had to be careful not to tread on the little fellow. It would a shame for him to survive the hazards of an ocean voyage only to be trodden on by his ship’s captain.
Some larger fish with yellow fins and tails have joined the community of little yellow fish beneath my boat. I suspect that their arrival may lead to a reduction in the population of little yellow fish. It is turning into quite an eco-system down there.
Thank you for your comments both on this blog and on Facebook. Mum is passing on as many as she can in our phone calls and by SMS to my satphone. All much appreciated. Keep them coming.

Thanks to latest contributors to the Foundation: James Salzman, Grandad Larry Grandt and Steve Maskell.

Where Roz is now.

This blog was dictated by Roz and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.
Local time 21.32 on 5th May
Position: 02.70939S 161.71414E
I’d like to tell you about my master plan for a foundation, provisionally called The Ripple Effect. This is what we are currently fundraising for, so I hope everything will make a bit more sense after this blog of introduction.
This idea was born about 15 months ago, soon after Nicole came to work with me, and she and I have discussed it at length. At the moment it is still a pipe dream, but, hey, you have to dream something before you can make it real.
The inspiration for The Ripple Effect came from noticing the power of individuals to inspire, no matter what their field of expertise: a dancer, a speaker, a musician, an artist, a scientist, a thinker, an athlete. Any one of these can make me feel inspired, to see that anything is possible, to see that the world is ripe with potential
As a rising tide lifts a boat so when one person lives out the thing they were born to do the ripples of inspiration spread far and wide and lift everybody up to a higher plane.
Having stumbled onto something that others find inspiring and having figured a few things out along the way, about how to bring a future dream to fruition, I felt that this was a way that I could contribute to making the world a better place, even once my rowing days are over. I could nurture a future generation of individuals with the power to spread ripples of inspiration by providing them with support, logistical assistance, mentoring and a degree of financial support.
Grantees would have to show that they have a particular mission that they wish to pursue and would pledge to share their experience as they go about fulfilling that mission. This sharing would provide a kind of “how to” for other people wanting to achieve something similar, and of course, maximize those ripples of inspiration.
In other words, The Ripple Effect would be exactly the kind of foundation that I wish had existed 6 years ago when I decided to start rowing across oceans to promote a message of environment awareness and personal fulfillment. I have managed to muddle my way through by trial and error, but I would have loved to find a one-stop shop for advice on everything from fund-raising to website design, and a cash grant would have been a welcome bonus.
Over the last couple of years, I have been informally mentoring a few individuals who aspired to change their lives and/or embark on ambitious adventures. I have really enjoyed doing this and I hope that in the future I will have more time to work with such dynamic and purposeful people from the infrastructure to assist them more effectively
And of course I hope that the infrastrucutre will also benefit me to some extent as I pass through these final stages of my ocean rowing career and to other ways of communicating my message.
So there we have it. My grand plan. It is very unusual in that the concept is person-based rather than cause-based but it tallies with my belief in the power of the individual to make a difference.
If you have enjoyed following my adventures whether it be since the Atlantic in 2005 or since yesterday I hope my description of The Ripple Effect resonates with you, and if it does, I hope you will feel that can make a contribution no matter how small. The current fundraising drive is being organized by Nova Lee. She is creating a series of contests and sweepstakes to the “fun” into fundraising. Watch out on this blog for messages from Nova about new challenges and events over the coming weeks. To check out on events already under way, click on the GoRozGo button on the top right of my website and of course a huge thank you to all of you who have already contributed.

Thanks to recent donors: Kenny, Stanley Miller, Doug Grandt, Sam Miller, James van Remmel, Carol Lindsay, Ferit Findik, Cornerstone Fibres and Pauline Appleby.

Dark Clouds: Picture by Roz 29th April.

This blog was dictated by Roz and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.
Today was a little bit wet in the way that Siberia is a little bit chilly, or Everest is a little bit of a hill. It rained all day, varying only in its intensity.
Wet weather is inconvenient. It doesn’t really interfere with my rowing, unlike tennis, and more like rugby, one of those activities that you can do in almost any weather. It is just less pleasant.
Hands and feet shrivel and turn white, rowing cushion is perpetually sodden, cabin and bedding can’t be aired everything gets fusty, musty, and clammily damp.
In the absence of sunshine, how are my solar panels? I didn’t run the watermaker today, I didn’t want to overtax the batteries and I also wanted to make sure that I had enough power left to boil water to have a hot dinner. I hadn’t expected sunlight to be in short supply at this stage of the row, and it would be unfortunate if on the very day that I most need a hot dinner I don’t have enough power to run my electric kettle.
This too will pass, although it could last a long time. According to my weatherman, Lee Bruce, this patch of wet and stormy weather extends for hundreds of miles to the south and west of my current position, so it is unlikely that I will row my way out of it any time soon.
Other stuff: I have just finished listening to Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, a very interesting book, the first in a trilogy about the colonization of Mars. So far it is not a very optimistic view of human nature. The first one hundred colonists don’t do too badly, but by the time the population has grown to a few thousand humans have managed to replicate most of the worst aspects of life on earth and even worse, managed to stir up all kinds of envy and civil war amongst the overcrowded, overstressed billions left behind on the old planet.
It would be pretty amazing to have an opportunity like that, to start with a completely clean slate and try to build the best possible kind of society starting from first principles to optimize human happiness. It would be hugely challenging but I would hope that we would make a better job of it than the fictional characters in the book.
Speaking of places far from earth with of the loss of my email capabilities, I feel oddly detached out here like a fellow astronaut in my little space capsule. At the moment I am speaking with Mum every day while we get our new contingency procedures running smoothly but due to cost and time constraints, our phone calls have to be fairly businesslike and to the point with not much time for news. Given that Britain is in the grip of a general election I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies
I hear that we have over 2000 sign ups to Ecoheroes already. This is excellent news. It cheers me up immensely to think of all our Ecoheroes green-deeding away. Keep up the good work.
Position at 20:16 hours: -02.26883S, 162.62601E.

Grateful thanks to very recent donors to the Foundation Appeal: Cindy Bergmark, Georgi Tsolov, Stephanie Tobor, Charlotte Dixon and Richard Zwiep. My apologies to earlier donors that I did not have the opportunity to thank you on the blogs.

Roz may not have much sunshine at present, but if you have, do check out the solar-powered items listed under Eco-Friendly Items on her Ebay store.

Today I declared my email capabilities officially dead. Mentally I have already moved on. That’s just the way it is, and there is nothing to be done about it until I get back to dry land.
I think I had already resigned myself to this fact but out of a sense of duty I spent the whole morning on the phone to Rob at Remote Satellite (thank you Rob for being so generous with your time on a Sunday) and Paul at Vizada as we to try to solve the problem. My whole cabin was strewn with PCs, satellite phones and cables as we tried every possible permutation.
But is was not to be, and as the morning wore on I got more and more cranky at being cramped in my hot stuffy cabin while rowing conditions outside were relatively cool and pleasant.
So it was with a sense of relief that we finally declared the system to be beyond hope. I felt the need to purge my living quarters of techno-hassle so I removed every bit of defunct kit from my sleeping cabin and relegated it to the forward storage cabin. It left my control panel looking strangely denuded but I couldn’t stand having all that stuff lying around being pointless. So now it is out of the way and I can forget about it.
It could be worse. On the Atlantic I had no communications at all for the last 24 days, when my one and only satphone broke. My transponder was still working so my progress was still visible on the on-line map, but I was totally incommunicado apart from one occasion when I managed to make radio contact with a passing ship to let my mother know that I was OK.
I was actually quite content in my glorious isolation. I felt very lucky to be totally alone unto myself for those precious weeks. It was a rare privilege in this day and age when on one level we have so much communication, but on another level, so little connection. So much information, but so little understanding.
Other stuff: Despite my wasted morning conspired to give me my best day’s mileage ever – around 60 nautical miles including some good progress south. The breeze has helped to keep the conditions relatively comfortable too. Praise be to the weather gods and long may it continue.
No sign of Alf the spider today although maybe he took his morning exercise while I was confined to quarters dealing with text problems.
My new favourite lunch is the mock turkey crackers handmade for me by Marlene Depierre in Hawaii. The main ingredients of mock turkey are cashew nuts and cranberries with a few other savoury bits and bobs. Yummy cheese and plum jam
Position:02 07.254S 163 34.451E

Rita:
Please vote for Roz and Margo: http://www.refresheverything.com/oceanexplorers
Check where Roz is: http://www.facebook.com/RozSavageFan
Guess when she might arrive somewhere on dry land: Click on Go Roz Go.
Read more about what happened when her satphone broke during the Atlantic row in her e-book “Blogs from the Blue” available on her Ebay Store.
Thank you Doug for a further contribution to the Chip In appeal.
EcoHeroes is now live, and email messages will soon be going out to the thousands of people who have signed up.

Day 14: Hanging on by a Thread.
At the time of writing, my ability to communicate with dry land hangs by a thread. Despite having three satphones, three laptops and one transponder, currently my only way to communicate is by voicemails from my satphone.
The upshot of all this for you, dear reader, is that my blogs might be lacking their usual colour. I won’t be able to post photos, and I won’t be able to respond to your comments (which I would normally receive via email) But blogs should still be posted daily and my position will be updated twice daily, and hopefully once we’ve sorted out a couple of glitches I should be able to tweet.
Mum and I have been busy putting contingency plans in place. When all else fails thank heavens my good old mom is there for me. Unless we manage to get some solutions (but at the moment I am not optimistic) all blogs from now on will be dictated by me and transcribed by my mother. Laborious, but provided I get a strong enough signal so that Mum can understand my dictation it should work.
Important though blogging and tweeting are to my, my primary concern is safety. Unfortunately my tech problems are compounded by the failure of my location transponder which normally should ping by position lat and long totally independent of my satphone but stopped working a few days into this voyage and the problem seems permanent
So unless . . . . reports my position, nobody knows where I am . From the safety point of view this is not good. My weatherman needs to know my position too. Weather systems can be very localized even on the ocean.
Our provisional plan is that I will let my mother know my position twice a day: once when I dictate my blog, and once by SMS from my satphone.
Apologies for all this. A couple of things could have been remedied by more extensive testing before I left land, but the main issues arose after the start of the voyage, so nothing more could have been done.
It is all very inconvenient. I am less than happy for the – less than – optimal service, but when you think about it, it is pretty amazing that I am able to communicate from the middle of the ocean at all. So I hope you will be patient with these minor shortcomings and will continue to follow along with my adventure. We’ll just have to look forward to a major photo-fest once I get back to dry land, wherever and whenever that may be!
Other Stuff: Amidst all this kit becoming dead or defunct I am happy to report that Alf is fine and lives and proved the point by running over my hand earlier today.
Today was a fine day for rowing. After a wet start the clouds lightened and parted, the wind rose and it turned into a bright and breezy, fine and beautiful day and I made excellent progress in more or less the right direction, around 53 miles in the last 24 hours.
OK this is already more than enough for poor old Mum to transcribe. So I will sign off and leave it to Mum to add updates on our Go Roz Go Contest and Ecoheroes.
Position report: 1 38.009S 164 30.625E

Rita: Apologies for a row of little dots in one part of the blog – the voicemail signal broke up a bit and I could not make out the few words. This may well happen in future transcriptions as well.
This present situation is reminiscent of Roz’s Atlantic crossing. On Day 78 her satphone stopped working, and for the remainder of the voyage there was no communication with her at all. In her e-book: Blogs from the Blue, available through Roz’s Ebay Store, you can read how I had to cope with that situation.
Go Roz Go: Nova has been hard at work ironing out a few glitches with PayPal, but all is well now and ready to receive your guesses about when and where Roz might reach land.
Roz is very keen that friends should sign up to be Ecoheroes – http://ecoheroes.me
To be an Ecohero we promise to do “green” deeds each day. There is still a bit more to be done before this launches in its full glory – but there is no need to delay signing up.