Last night I returned from the 5th International Marine Debris Conference. The conference isn’t over yet, but I have an ocean to row (12 days and counting!) so I had to get back to Fremantle in Australia for final preparations. The conference was eye-opening, in the same uncomfortable and disillusioning way that Copenhagen/COP15 was.

Kamilo Beach, Hawaii

I had thought that plastic pollution was much less contentious than, say, climate change, but it seems that there is no limit to humankind’s ability to find grounds for division rather than cooperation. I was shocked to witness a hostile encounter between two individuals partaking in the conference, culminating in a rather personal attack on academic credentials. Come on, people, let’s focus on the issues!

“Disposable” plastics were also much in evidence at the conference, despite a statement that the use of such items had been minimised. I guess I have a different definition of “minimal”.

And the three main sponsors of the conference were Coca Cola, the American Chemistry Council, and the Ocean Conservancy. This made me raise my eyebrows, and a few questions too.

I don’t know what the final outcome will be, but the draft strategy was not a promising start. It focused mostly on cleanups and recycling, rather than reducing the supply of plastic at source. I had hoped that it would make some bold policy recommendations, but it looks like it will still be down to us, the average consumers, to show the way. If industry and government won’t do it, we will.

If you are interested to know the scale of the problem, here are some interesting figures (mostly gleaned from the Plastic Oceans website):

Chris Jordan states that 1.1 million kgs (2.4 million pounds) of plastic enter our worlds oceans every hour of every day. (This could be a conservative estimate. The Plastic Oceans site suggests that the figure could be closer to 5 million kgs.) In terms of sheer weight, that ends up equal to 3-5 times the hourly flow rate of the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. (Thanks to Doug McLean of WWF-Australia for his calculations.)

Over the last 10 years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.

Plastic production uses 8% of the world’s oil.  4% of this is actually used in energy consumption to make the plastic.

More than one million plastic bags are used, worldwide, every minute.

We are currently producing 300 million tonnes of plastic per year – about half of this will be used just once and thrown away.

To read about the tragic impact this is having on marine wildlife, see this article by Dr Wallace J Nicholls. Or if turtles aren’t your thing, how about the impact it is having on us?

So that’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. With ever more plastic flowing into the oceans every day, we all have the opportunity to step up and take responsibility. For starters, I would take it as a huge personal favour if you would please never again use a “disposable” plastic item. I now have quite an arsenal of non-plastic items in my bag that enable me to avoid most “disposable” plastics:

Stainless Steel Drinking Straw

Water bottle

Grocery bag

Coffee mug

Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your colleagues. Write to your supermarket and your city mayor and your state governor. Support city bans on plastic bags. If we all pull together, we can make a world of difference!

And if, after all of this, you need a smile, I highly recommend this short video on recycling – Flashmob style. You might not get this kind of reaction every time you do the right thing, but on the inside you’ll know you have done your bit to help save our planet.

Other Stuff:

Another smile: check out the Wipe Out Waste song.

Tomorrow it’s Earth Hour – please turn off your lights at 8pm for an hour, enjoy a candlelit dinner of organic yumminess, and thank your lucky stars that we live on such an amazing planet. You can see my Earth Hour video message here.

Fancy an adventure combined with an eco mission? You don’t have to spend 4 months alone in a rowboat. There are still a couple of crew spots available on OceansWatch sailing expeditions to Melanesia. Contact [email protected] to find out more details. I sailed with them in Papua New Guinea last year. Highly recommended!

I am presently in Hawaii for the 5th International Marine Debris Conference. Last night I keynoted at the opening reception at the Marriott in Waikiki. I thought you might be interested to hear what I said – or rather, what I intended to say. I don’t speak from notes, so it always comes out a bit differently from what I drafted, but hopefully bears some resemblance!

It sums up a few themes that are going on in my head right now at this interesting point in time. Personally, I am trying to make sense of everything that has been happening so far this year – in terms of the political and physical upheavals around the world. And I am now less than 2 weeks away from the launch of my next row. I wonder how different the world will be by the time I get back to dry land.

Okay, over to that speech….

With Marcus Eriksen on board the JUNK Raft

“On 13^th August, 2008, I attended one of the world’s more unusual dinner parties. A few hundred miles east of here, in the middle of the ocean, I boarded the JUNK Raft, a vessel made out of 15,000 empty water bottles, crewed by Joel Paschal and Marcus Erikesn of the Algalita Foundation. Like me, they were on the ocean to raise awareness of the North Pacific Garbage Patch.

We had spoken briefly before we set out on our respective voyages, me from San Francisco and them from Long Beach, and agreed that we really should collaborate with our campaigns. But life had got busy and we hadn’t got around to coming up with a strategy. Fortunately fate intervened.

My watermaker had broken and I was running out of reserves. Their voyage was taking much longer than expected and they were running out of food. Suddenly a mid-ocean rendezvous became more than a nice-to-have. It became a matter of life and death.

We met at around sunset that day, and they showed me a sample that they had collected. Even here, on the edge of the North Pacific Garbage Patch, they were finding that plastic outweighed plankton by a ratio of six to one.

A fish full of plastic - the mahi mahi caught by Joel

Then Joel the navigator harpooned a lovely big mahi-mahi for our dinner. Luckily it was in better shape than one he had caught a couple of weeks earlier. When they opened that one, they found that its stomach was full of bits of plastic. They knew enough to realize that this fish would not be good for eating, because of all the hormone disruptors and toxins that come out of plastic. So it went back in the ocean.

This is a story that I often tell in my presentations. It has a bit of everything – a bit of drama in real life, ocean adventure, alas no romance with the hunks on the junk, no time for that – and it also has a message. It illustrates that plastic pollution is not just an issue out there on the ocean. It is a problem right here on our dinner plates.

At the joint press conference that the Junk guys and I did at the Waikiki Aquarium after I arrived here, we issued a plea that people should stop and think before using a “disposable” plastic item. It makes no sense to make a disposable object out of an indestructible substance.

Preparing for the Indian Ocean

I am currently based in Australia, preparing to row solo across the Indian Ocean, to complete my trilogy of Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Down there, in particular, 2011 so far has been a hell of a year. With the emphasis on hell. Australia has been clobbered every which way by flood and fire. Then there was the earthquake in New Zealand. Then, on a whole higher level of disaster, Japan. More earthquakes. Tsunamis. Nuclear meltdowns.

We live in interesting times. From conversations that I’ve had, it seems that there is a rising consciousness that we have not been good stewards of this planet, and that it is starting to rebound on us.

This is a good time to be talking about marine pollution. It is not necessarily the biggest issue facing our world today, but it is one of the most visible. It is difficult for many people to get their heads around climate change, or ocean acidification, or collapsing fish stocks.

Bring your own bottle!

But ask them to picture how many plastic bottles, or bags, or coffee cup lids they personally generate in a year, and get them to multiply it by a lifetime, and by every member of their family, or by everybody in their city, or by everybody in the world, and you can see them start to wonder where it all goes. How come we’re not all up to our eyes in plastic?

And this is how we can start to drive home this concept that on a finite Earth, there is no “away”. What goes around, comes around. I find it abhorrent that something that is in use for 20 minutes will be around for a hundred years or more.

For me, personally, it has to do with the way that I came to environmental awareness. 7 years ago, in February 2004, I had my environmental awakening. Reading about the Hopi tribe of North America, I finally had my eyes opened to the blindingly obvious truth that we have to look after this planet if we want it to look after us. They believe that if we lose touch with our spirituality, with our connection to Nature, then we are flirting with disaster. Or more than flirting, we’re a dead cert.

When I had this epiphany, I was shocked and horrified that I had been so oblivious. And so I took to ocean rowing as a rather extreme way to get a platform, to raise awareness, to inspire action and wake people up to the fact that if we don’t start recognizing the interconnectedness of everything, our complete and utter reliance on the Earth and all its systems, then we are, not to put too fine a point on it, completely up the creek.

During my long spells on the ocean, I have grown to understand a few things about this planet.

One of the trawls I will be taking with me this year to collect samples from the Indian Ocean

First, it is not as big as we think it is. What goes around, comes around. Since I had my epiphany, the US alone has generated 700 billion plastic bags, 150 billion plastic bottles, and lord only knows how much plastic silverware or coffee cup lids or bleach bottles. On my boat I am very aware of my inputs and outputs.

Second, mother nature rules. There is nothing like facing 20 foot waves in a 23 foot boat to remind you who is in charge. We can flout laws of nature for a while, but ultimately, she runs the show.

Third, we have to take responsibility. Every action counts. Every time we buy something, use something, or throw something away, we are casting a vote for the kind of future that we want.

We’ve all been doing what we can, in our small ways. Personally, I’ve been involved in a campaign to make the 2012 Olympics plastic bag free. This year I’ll be gathering samples in the Indian Ocean to assess the amount of pollution. At this conference we have the opportunity to take that up a level, and to spread the ripples of change much further. We have a chance to influence policy, and set an agenda for the world.

This is more than a quest to end the plastic peril. This is a spiritual quest. We have an opportunity to decide what kind of future do we want. This comes down to what we believe about the kind of future that we deserve. Are we amazing creatures, evolving towards our highest selves? We have been blessed with this thing called free will. Are we going to use it to save ourselves?

And it’s about more than just plastic. We are going to face a multitude of such challenges. Plastic is a useful testing ground for a new, more collaborative approach, which we will need in order to tackle the bigger issues.

A plastic pollution publicity shot taken in Britain last year

Plastic has become a symbol of our throwaway society. Let’s move away from our emphasis on materialism, and instead place the emphasis on happiness. I wouldn’t mind so much if trashing the Earth even made us happy, but it doesn’t. Let’s return to simpler, more authentic values, the things that really make us happy, like good relationships, a sense of self-worth, a sense of peace.

In these turbulent times we have an opportunity for change. Let’s seize that opportunity, and change course for a better future. We could be at a tipping point, as people see that the old paradigm isn’t working. A few tiny actions on our part could make all the difference.

It took me 2.5 million oarstrokes to row the Pacific Ocean. Each stroke only took me a few feet, but added all together, they added up to something truly significant. Every action counts. Let’s pull together, and together, we can save the world.

Thank you.”

Roz leaves Honolulu under a beautiful Hawaiian sunset!

Image by rozsavage via Flickr

It is now less than 4 days before I launch, and it’s all happening. There is still so much to do, and I know it WILL all happen – just not quite sure HOW. But if I’ve learned anything through the last few years, it’s that if you keep the faith, and work your butt off, you can make almost anything happen.

Oh, and it also helps to have a band of angels, aka extremely good friends. We’ve made some amazing friends here in Hawaii – and tomorrow Team California arrives. Six or seven friends are arriving from the mainland to help with final preparations and to see me off on Sunday. They will all be put to work (I hope they know this!) to run around for final provisions, fix up the boat, and help get me packed. The team includes Nicole’s granny and brother, my friends Aenor and Melinda (veterans of the post-airlift salvage mission of 2007), Nancy our hostess in Sausalito, and Ellen of Google fame.

I truly could not do what I do (or at least, not with any shred of sanity) without the assistance and support of these incredibly dedicated friends. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able (being British and all) to let them know just how much I appreciate them.

So while I’m in this rather emotional, un-British kind of mood, I’d just like to say how amazing it has been to work with Nicole over the last 3 months. Working alone was…. well, I managed. But working with Nicole has been so much more effective, and so much fun. There have been some amazing comedy moments that I wish I could share with you, but unfortunately we didn’t know they were about to happen so we didn’t have the cameras rolling. But there has been a lot of hilarity, interspersed with serious, profound, how-are-we-going-to-save-the-world kind of moments that will stay in my (very unreliable) memory forever.

When I get to meet incredible people like this, who are prepared to give so much in return for so little, it makes me feel that I must be doing something right – or at least doing the right things for the right reasons.

And on that note I will hand over to our latest RozCast – recorded by Nicole and me in Waikiki last night at sunset.

This is a digest of today’s Twitter postings.

• 00:15 Roz’s Day – Postings from Twitter ff.im/2FBdS #
• 08:50 Apparently Kanaloa, god of ocean and death, might be nice to me if I take nothing from Hawaii. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaloa #
• 10:24 Yayyy! Have just bought audio of Monty Python’s Life of Brian! Essential listening for days when I need a good laugh! #
• 11:26 Nicole close to tears – of happiness. New MacBook on its way. Her days of techno-frustration are nearly over! #
• 14:26 Stressing about boat. So much to be done, and so little time. Can we do it? Sure we will, just not sure how! #
• 16:25 Have just updated To Do list for boat on our Basecamp page. Feeling marginally calmer. Always look on the bright side of life, do do, do… #
• 19:14 Plans taking shape for launch day- just hoping boat will be ready in time! #
• 19:16 Now at book launch for Stuart Coleman’s "Fierce Heart". At Oceans 808. Very cool bar but very loud. Maybe I’m getting old… #

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First, a quick brag:
Voted #3 in Top Ten Adventure Twitters by Outside Magazine – woohoo!

Now, on to the news…

The Brocade is now comfortably ensconced in her new home at Pacific Shipyards International on Pier 41. I had spent much of the last 8 months, almost ever since I landed in Hawaii, trying to find somewhere suitable to store her – with absolutely no luck. But like London buses, after none for ages, two come along at once…

Yesterday afternoon I was holding the fort in our “downtown office” at Waikiki Yacht Club while Nicole and Joel took the truck to tow Brocade from Pier 21 to Pier 41 so she could be repainted. Pier 21 was supposed to be for storage only, and we had already been pushing our luck by doing so much boatwork there. I had just received a rather terse note from the owner, asking me to move all my “crap” (his word) from the area around my boat. So painting there was definitely out of the question – and besides, the warehouse was so filthy that her pristine post-painting appearance would not have lasted for long. No point making her all pretty if she was just going to metaphorically roll in the mud. So as I Tweeted yesterday, a new location was urgently needed.

As I was catching up on my emails I came across a suggestion from Sindy Davis, blog reader, supporter, and now an in-person “real” friend as well, who suggested aircraft hangars. We had already tried a few such leads, but she sent me a link to Air Service Hawaii, which we hadn’t tried before. Not an immediate win, but a relatively short trail (only 4 phone calls) led me to Dan Espiritu, who immediately offered me space near Honolulu Airport at a huge discount.

My text to Nicole, celebrating the good news, crossed with a text from her saying that the guys at Pier 41, Pacific Boatyards, had welcomed the Brocade with open arms and offered her accommodation for as long as she needed – plus paint, under cover storage space, crane services, etc etc. This rather trumped the airport option, as the extra manpower and free paint would save us loads of $$$. Fantastic!

So now Joel is busy at work, prepping and painting the boat (see pictures), while Nicole and Conrad, local filmmaker and our new best friend, shoot footage of the works in progress. And I try to figure out if I have everything I need to sustain me for 100+ days at sea. Ocean rowing is almost unique amongst expeditions in that it is impossible to pop down to the corner store for anything that I have overlooked. I know of a crew of two guys who had to share a toothbrush the whole way across the Atlantic….

So here is my packing list so far – let me know if you see any omissions, but within reason, please. Every pound of weight is another pound I have to row across 2,600 miles of ocean!

Sawyers oars (4)
Rowing seat + spare wheels
Cushion pads and packtowel covers
Para anchor x 2
Leecloths for bunk
Manual bilge pump (in addition to fixed bilge pump)
Tripod mount
Handheld VHF radio x 2

Compass x 2
GPS x 3 (plus the one in my iPhone)
Toughbook PC x 2
Iridium satellite phone x 2
Tracking beacon
Aquapacs
iPod x 5
iPod headphones and waterproof bag
Pelicases
Spare batteries for everything
Inverter (US)
Pentax waterproof camera
Ricoh 500SE waterproof camera with geotagging

Foghorn
Axe (don’t ask – was required by Atlantic Rowing Race rules, and is now part of the furniture!)
Marine flares
EPIRB
Searchlight
Immersion suit
Liferaft
Lifejacket
Grab bag
Type-4 Coast Guard Approved Flotation Device

Vitamins, minerals, supplements
Nuts and seeds
Seeds for sprouting
Larabars
Freeze-dried food
Tinned fish

Pillows for bunk
Ocean Sleepwear sleeping bag
Silk inner sleeping bag
Pillowcase
Rowing shoes
Sun shades for hatches
Red ensign
Hawaiian flag

Charts
Scissors
Grease pencil (for marking up miles on whiteboard)
Sharpie
Pencils
Reading glasses & case
Log book
Knife and sharpening block

Knife, fork, spoon, teaspoon x 3
Mugs with lids
Water bottles
Seed sprouter
Measuring jug
Wooden spoons/spatulas
Hand pump for jerry cans x 2
Bungee cords
Assorted food storage jars
Jerry cans for water
Spare water bags for extra ballast
Thermos flask
Clips for sachets of food
Drybags for storing rubbish
Ziplock bags

Washing powder
Washing up liquid
Hospital-grade antibacterial cleanser
Funnel
Windproof lighter x 4
Matches
Brush and dustpan
Cloths and pot scourer
Bottle brush for water bottles
Clothespegs
Scrapers for scrubbing bottom of boat
Bedpan
Bucket x 3

Baseball caps
Fleece and long trousers for evening shift
T-shirts, shorts, sports bras
Rowing gloves
Anti-UV sunglasses & case

Cord (lots)
Headtorches
Sewing kit
Karabiners
Snorkelling mask
Waterproofs

Soap/shower gel
Moisturiser
Dental floss
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Alcohol/tea tree oil wipes
Cream to prevent chafing
Body lotion
Body scrubber/ chamois leather
Towel
Sun lotion by Green People

… and cuddly toys!

Grab Bag containing:
4 chocolate bars
4 small bottles water
Anti seasickness tablets
First aid kit
Fishing kit
Glucose sweets
Emergency rations
Grab bag
Knife
Lightsticks (6)
Personal EPIRB
Pocket strobe light
Red hand flares (2)
Signal mirror with whistle + float
Silva compass
Spare torch bulb
Thermal foil blanket
Tool kit
Waterproof torch
Foghorn
Handwarmers
Fishing line and weight
GPS

Toolkit comprising:
10″ mole grips
5 piece screwdriver set
6″ adjustable spanner
6″ pliers
Alum keys
Any specialised tools for equipment on board
combination spanners 94 – 10mm
glue
Hammer
junior hacksaw and blades
Stanley knife and blades
marine sealant
Amsoil Heavy Duty Metal Protector
epoxy repair kit
pack of metric drills
penetrating oil, WD40
reflective tape
self amalgamating tape
duct tape
small hand drill
set of metric drills
cable ties
Wet & Dry Sand Paper
Woodglue
Tape Measure
Alligator clamp, C-clamp
Leatherman
Electrical spares:
20 by 5mm 2 amp Fuses x 3
10mm nylon P clips x 4
10 amp fuse x 3
Twin pole plug ( cigar ) x 2
Nav light and bulb
Spare bulb for internal light
5 amp fuse x 3
Insulated Crimps x 5
Yellow Male Crimps x 6
20 by 5mm 1 amp Fuses x 3
Liquid Electrical Tape
20 by 5mm 3 amp Fuses x 3
20 by 5mm 5 amp Fuses x 3
Ties 3 sizes x 40
Mini Torch
Female Crimps x 4
Fuse wire 10m
spares for bilge pump
spares for watermaker
spares for steering system
spare seat
spare rowing gates
spare CO2 bottle for lifejacket
spare batteries
spare rudder pintles

First Aid kit:
Anti inflammatories
Dioralyte (for seasickness)
Ibuprofen gel
Micropore (tons!)
Painkillers
Seasickness patches
Biofreeze
Deep Heat
Ice packs
and a lot more besides – thanks to Expedition Doctor Aenor Sawyer!

Other stuff:

Happy Shiny Boat

Thanks to all who took part in a lively debate on Twitter and Facebook about what colour to repaint the Brocade. I took all these votes into consideration, but in the end had to come down on the conservative side and go with silver again because:

- it looks good with any colour sponsor stickers …
- it doesn’t get too hot to the touch
- if we have to do any creative editing with the video, using bits out of sequence, it will avoid having glaring continuity errors
- and, ultimately, I just couldn’t imagine her being any other colour!

But there will be little “accents” of colour (she says in her best camp-interior-designer voice) with sponsor logos, seat cushion (orange), and so on.

Pacific Paddler

I went paddling with the outrigger canoeists of the Waikiki Yacht Club last night – earning ourselves a beer or three (and WHOSE idea was the tequila?!) in the yacht club bar last night. And paddling is meant to be good for your health?!

About to dash out of WYC to go do a live interview with Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central – catch it here!

On certain Facebook pages you have to enter randomly-selected words to prove that you’re a human being. This morning I was faced with the stark words “LARGER” and “DEBT” – not a happy combination, and a reminder that with less than 4 months to go until launch date the expedition coffers are empty.

And today has continued to be, well, just one of those days when I feel like crawling back under the covers and waiting for better times to arrive.

Indulge me a moment while I share my pity party. Despite dozens of inquiries, I still have nowhere under cover to store my boat. I want to work on the boat today, but it’s pouring with rain here in Hawaii. Several projects are running behind schedule. Various technological questions are still to be answered. And there is no money to throw at the problem.

And then somebody posts an ill-informed comment suggesting that I should give it all up. I can’t blame them for being ill-informed – I haven’t yet announced my big, exciting environmental initiative for this year – but although I know that “it is not the critic who counts” it was unfortunate timing and it hurts to be kicked when I am already down.

So how to deal with these days of gloom and grey? I have retreated to the Kalapawei Café for some coffee shop therapy with my journal and a latte. I’ll share part of today’s entry:

“It’s one of those frustrating periods of stuckness when it seems nothing can possibly be finished in time…. Until the stuckness ends and is succeeded by a period of rapid progress and dizzying change. I haven’t yet figured out a way to trigger that transition, apart from just to keep plugging away until things start to flow again. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Keep doing the right things for the right reasons. Know that I feel a calling to do this – and that there is nothing else that I can do but to keep faith in the process, and know that it will all be worthwhile – eventually.”

And so I turn to my To Do list, and pick up the phone… (sigh).

Other stuff:

Today Oliver Hicks set out from Tasmania on his bid to be the first person to row solo around the world. His voyage around the Southern Ocean is slated to take 500 days. “New Zealand safety authorities said Hicks was exposing himself to extreme risk and the likelihood of a rescue being needed was significant.” Good luck, Ollie – you know more than most about rowing in the colder latitudes, and I wish you all the very best. You can follow Ollie’s adventure here.

Since arriving in Hawaii I have been busy networking, picking up contacts from previous visits, and making many new friends, notably at Sunday’s Ala Wai Challenge. Thanks to Jeff Apaka for inviting me to appear at the event, and thanks to all who showed such interest in my adventures both past and future. I am looking forward to working with all my Hawaiian friends in the run-up to my launch on May 15.

If you’d like to cheer me up, a few dollars would help brighten my day. Every $ counts – as does the knowledge that you care enough to share. Donations can be made here via PayPal.

A couple of new podcasts have gone live in the last few days, so by way of apology for not having blogged for a week, here is more than enough Savage Verbiage to keep you going! Me in conversation with my friend and Podcast Sister Anna Farmery…

The Engaging Brand – Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (Part 1)
The Engaging Brand – Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (Part 2)

Yesterday I hit a personal “tipping point” that may sounds trivial in the overall scheme of things, but it gave me some useful insights into human psychology. Ever since I arrived in Hawaii on Sept 1, my weight has been creeping up, little by little, pound by pound. Jeans got a bit tighter, my face got a bit rounder – but the change was never dramatic enough from one weigh-in to the next to give me cause for alarm.

Until yesterday.

I stood on the scales in the morning to find that my weight had leaped 4 pounds in 2 days, taking me over 130lb (plenty enough for a narrow-framed 5ft 3in) and bringing my total gain to 23lb in 4 months.

I had hit my tipping point. It was time to get this back under control.

This is not a plea for flattering reassurances that I look fine anyway, or suggestions that I am trying to force my body to be lighter than it wants to be, or recommendations that I stop worrying about such trivial matters and concern myself with the state of the planet instead.

No – this is my own little personal parable, about the part of human psychology that allows us to turn a blind eye to gradual changes – especially if they are unwelcome changes. We don’t see what is happening because we don’t want to see it. We tend to ignore the problem until it has grown into a crisis.

“A stitch in time saves nine”, as my mother used to say. In my trivial example, I now have undeniable evidence of my weight gain, and it will be some time before my jeans and I are seen together in public again. And of course I am wishing I had taken action when I had a 5lb weight issue rather than a 15lb weight issue.

In planetary terms, what has to happen before we take decisive action to reduce our environmental impact? How much evidence is “enough” evidence for us to reach our collective tipping point?

I am optimistic. My perception is that the scales are tipping (forget the bathroom scales now – picture Libra-type scales). The will for change is growing, and the defence of the old status quo is eroding. The question is becoming not so much “if and when”, but “how much and how soon”. And I believe that we, as a species, do have the ability to rise to this challenge, if we can only put aside our illusions of separateness and tackle this global problem together.

Today I turn 41 years young. It has taken me many years to forgive my parents for giving me a birthday so close to Christmas (really – what WERE they thinking back in March 1967? No – don’t answer that one – this IS my parents we’re talking about… ) – but now I’m quite reconciled to it, especially now that, thanks to the power of the internet, it no longer matters that there is nobody around to celebrate my birthday with me because they’ve all gone home to their parents for Christmas. In the e-world that I largely inhabit, we can party online. A huge thank you to everybody who has written to wish me a happy birthday – thanks to you, it has been!

I’ve had birthday e-cards, birthday wishes on my Facebook Wall (41 at the last count – one for every year of my life – and rising…), birthday Tweets, and some wonderful gifts too. Such as:

- Marcus Eriksen of the JUNK, made a gift of the $500 manual watermaker they loaned me several hundred miles east of Hawaii after I ran out of water

- my good friend and social media guru Ellen Leanse sponsored some Kiva micro-loans in my name – as a birthday gift that keeps on giving. She wrote, “I’ve used Kiva.org to help find two start-up businesses in the Pacific Islands and fund them with micro-loans. Both of the businesses are farms; I tried to find businesses as low on the production chain as possible in keeping with your vision for the environment.”

- Podcast Sister Anna Farmery sending me some fantastic quotes about growing older, errr, more mature – which I’d like to share with you here…

The best birthdays of all are those that haven’t arrived yet.
- Robert Orben

Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.
- Maurice Chevalier

I’m at an age when my back goes out more than I do.
- Phyllis Diller

You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime.
- John P. Grier

If I’d known I was going to live this long (100 years),
I’d have taken better care of myself.
- Ubie Blake

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.
- Tom Stoppard

And finally, for a big smile, major wanderlust, and some rather dodgy dancing, please check out this seriously feel-good video.

Well, folks, it’s goodbye from the birthday girl. I’m off on a Gaia retreat for the next 6 days, and laptops and mobile phones are strongly discouraged. How will I survive?! There may have to be the occasional Tweet sneaking its way out under the barricades….

But just in case – HAPPY HOLIDAYS/CHRISTMAS/WHATEVER MAKES YOU HAPPY! And I’ll be back on Dec 30th. Hasta luego….

I was walking back from the gym today on the lane that meanders across the Cookridge golf course, my hands shoved in my pockets and my shoulders hunched against the cold wind, when a car pulled up alongside me and the window rolled down. “Are you walking for pleasure, or would you like a ride?” the driver asked.

“Err, thank you,” I said, “but I’m walking for pleasure.” The window went up and the car drove on, leaving me pondering on this.

Up until that point I had just been walking home. Now I was walking “for pleasure”. It made all the difference. Immediately I felt warmer, and stopped hunching. My shoulders went back and I stepped out with renewed enjoyment of the exercise, my mundane little walk transformed.

It reminded me to be careful in the labels that I apply to things. When you attach the right words to an action, it can seem wonderful. Attach the wrong words and it becomes a drudge. I wonder if I can manage to think of enough good words to keep me going through another 100 days of rowing next year…

If you’d like to start supplying me with positive, life-enhancing words by posting a comment to this blog, I would be most grateful. Let’s see if we can come up with enough good words to get me from Hawaii to Samoa!

[photo: a shorter-than-usual row, in a smaller-than-usual boat, courtesy of Leeds Rowing Club, Roundhay Park]

A few days ago I was in a state of mild despair. I was receiving reports back from the electrician in Hawaii about the state of my boat’s wiring – and the news was all bad. Chartplotter antenna – “corroded”. VHF radio – “damaged beyond repair”. Radio and amp – “I would change them out”. And so on… “a nightmare”… “a complete mess”… “really rough shape”. He ended with the rather puzzling question: “Did any of this equipment get exposed to lots of salt water???” Errr, well, yes. That’s what tends to happen when you roll your boat in 20-foot waves. Repeatedly.

Just when I most needed it, I received this email:

Hi Roz I contacted you just before stage 1 of your trip offering to fab anything you need in my machine shop, I am also a engineer and can help you solve any mech problems you might have…all I ask is a link to my web site www.back2sports.net.

thanks and good luck Tom

My knight in shining armour had arrived. Enter Tom Hernon, the latest recruit to Team Savage. I checked out his bio and read that at the age of 34 a dirt bike accident had left him paralysed from the waist down, but that he had gone on to compete at a high level on the mono ski and luge – hitting a top speed of 79mph on the luge (imagine it!).

And luckily for me, Tom is now bringing his incredible energy and problem-solving abilities to bear on the beleaguered Brocade.

Since that first email 4 days ago, he has visited his local university in Michigan to pick the brains of the professors of engineering and metallurgy, teamed up with a local rowing club to “find out what is fashionable”, produced sketches and designs, and peppered me with questions to get himself up to speed on the unique challenges facing equipment on board an ocean rowboat. As my friend Steve Roberts once quipped, “Water corrodes, and saltwater corrodes absolutely“.

My “job” occasionally seems tough and lonely, but it always seems that just when obstacles appear insurmountable, life gives me a break, the obstacles disappear, and my faith is restored. You might call it luck, or you might call it the law of attraction, or you might say that I worked blimmin’ hard to throw myself in the way of good fortune – but whatever you call it, it makes me glad to be alive. It is the biggest perk of my job – to have special people like Tom wanting to share in the adventure.

Speaking of which… thank you to the hordes of people who are sharing in my adventure by signing up to receive this blog by email through Feedblitz. It’s brilliant to know that you still care, even though I am deep in the off-season at the moment. Believe me, there is much in gestation, ready to burst into life next year – not only the new website, but the Atlantic book (now titled, finally, LIMITLESS HORIZON: My Unlikely Adventure From Office To Ocean), the accompanying short film, new merchandise, an iPhone application, an iGoogle Gadget, and a very important and exciting new challenge that I’ll be inviting you to join – I can guarantee you there won’t be a dull moment!

[Photo: Tom Hernon on his luge. He appears to have his eyes closed, but so would I if I was going at 79mph with my head 6 inches from the ground!]

Roz arrives in Hawaii after rowing 100 days across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco, becoming the first woman ever to accomplish this solo.

Today I passed the line of longitude of Hilo, which lies on the western side of the Big Island of Hawaii. This marks the start of the final countdown into Waikiki.

When I did the Atlantic Rowing Race, the race organizers decided to call it a valid Atlantic crossing as soon as a crew passed the line of longitude of Barbados – even though the finish line was quite a few miles further west in Antigua. So on that basis you could say I have already rowed from California to Hawaii. but for me it won’t be a successful row until I’ve made landfall on Oahu, my stated destination.

But it feels good to know I am this close to land. I can’t see the Big Island – I am too far north for me to see it from here – but it’s somehow reassuring to know it’s there.

Today I’ve been listening to Jules Verne’s classic, Around The World In Eighty Days – very enjoyable indeed, and it reminded me of yet another of the reasons I wanted to row oceans. I wanted to get a feel for the actual size of the planet. It’s so easy, when you can jet everywhere at 500mph, to not understand how big – or how small – is this finite globe we call home.

On the one hand it seems very small, when you think we have to cram 6 billion of us (and counting) onto the dry bits of it, and find space enough to grow our food – and dispose of our garbage.

On the other hand, it seems very big – when you’re rowing across one of the big blue bits of it at an extremely sedate pace.

And Phileas Fogg is my new hero and role model. No matter what disasters seem to threaten his adventure, he remains utterly imperturbable and calm, with a degree of stiff-upper-lipped-ness that I can only aspire to.

Other stuff:

Position at 2115 27th August HST, 0715 28th August UTC: 21 46.856′N, 155 20.407′W.

The JUNK was hoping to make landfall today. I haven’t heard the latest news, but I hope that they did arrive and that they are enjoying a few well-deserved bevvies! I’m looking forward to seeing them again, just as soon as I get to Waikiki. Good of them to be my warm-up act!

Thanks for all the love and support – via messages, donations, and votes. I can sense the excitement building as I approach Hawaii. I know that some of you have followed my progress every single day, and I thank you for your interest, your loyalty and your words of encouragement. I have no idea what kind of welcome awaits me on dry land, but even if it’s quiet and low-key, I will get great satisfaction to think of my internet audience celebrating on my behalf all around the world.

Thank you!

Day 94 of the Atlantic Crossing – Rita on her way to Antigua in the Caribbean. Click here to view Day 95 of the Atlantic Crossing 6 March 2006: Antigua Calling – first blog from Antigua.

My sincere apologies to anyone sending a message from the Contact form on this website. While I was preparing to travel to the USA and on to Hawaii, the messages were piling up in the SPAM box. Having just found them, I do not have the time now to answer each one personally. Questions have been sent to Leo, and messages will be sent to Roz. Rita Savage.

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Sailors are notoriously superstitious. I try not to be, because it can lead to just another dimension of anxiety that I don’t need, but at the same time I try not to tempt fate by making assumptions.

Yesterday I made an exception, and started working out an estimate of how many days to Hawaii. The columns in my notebook are:

Line of longitude (starting at 130 degrees West) Date (that I crossed the line of longitude) Days (how many days it took me to get to that line of longitude from the previous one) Cumulative days (again, starting from 130 degrees West) Average days per degree of longitude (i.e. cumulative days divided by number of degrees since 130 degrees West)

Then I take this average and multiply it by the number of degrees still to go to Hawaii (at 158 degrees West) to give me my estimated number of days still to go. At the moment it stands at 40 days, for an arrival date in late August.

Of course, no sooner had I done that than my rate of progress slowed dramatically – for reasons unknown. Although wind conditions have been fairly constant the last few days, my rate of progress while rowing has slowed from approximately 2.5 knots, to 2 knots, to 1.5 knots. This is rather disheartening, and it’s tempting – although not very satisfying – to blame it on my premature ETA calculations. I would much prefer that it had a rational reason, like an adverse current or a contrary swell or the fallout from a tropical storm, which would at least reassure me that things will change.

I’m trying to keep a course due West in order to give myself the best possible chance of hitting Hawaii. Ideally I don’t want to get south of the islands (at 21 degrees N). But this has made it tough going on the rowing (I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!) because I’m fighting my way across the waves, It is difficult to get both oars in the water at the same time, and the boat has felt unbelievably heavy, every stroke like lifting a dead weight.

But, I tell myself, it’s better than the alternative – if I get too far south I could miss Hawaii altogether, which would be, errr, a real bummer!

[photo: still smiling - just!]

Other stuff:

Position at 2000 23rd July Pacific Time, 0300 24th July UTC: 24 22.240′N, 135 47.804′W.

Thanks and hellos to: Jennifer, Louise, Gene, Kirk, Erin, Pippa, Rod (fraid that pecan pie is going to be well burned by the time I get to Oz!), Brian (do let me know if you find any useful info on waterproofing marine electrics), Nevada Bev (thanks for doing my partying for me! Looking forward to my own glass of bubbly when I reach Hawaii.), Andrew in NYC (you’ll know the answer when it hits you – it took me a while), Caro (do have a word with Father Pacific if you have any influence!), John and Patricia (yes, I do log actual hours rowed), Ami (good luck in the marathon!), Andy (sorry about not always posting a photo – I do prefer to send one, but there are only so many things you can photograph on a 23-foot boat surrounded by sea and sky!), John H (way too rough for hull-scrubbing at the moment! last time I was overboard it was still smooth as a baby’s bottom.), Jamie (I have a HUGE medical kit, containing everything from aspirin to scalpels), Rochelle (body doing a bit less well at the moment – getting a lot of bruises in these rough conditions!), Buck, Mitch, Jacob, Barth, Michael, and Jan (so sorry to hear about your loss – my thoughts are with you).

And a special hello to Michelle Urquhart, with thanks for the inspiring message and the Maori encouragement: E tutaki ana nga kapua o te rangi, kei rung ate Mangoroa e kopae pu ana. Courage friend – The clouds in the sky close over, but above them spreads the Milky Way.

Also special thanks to Chris Martin, whose regular words of encouragement help keep me going – as does the memory of his own fantastic justdoitiveness during the Atlantic Rowing Race 2005. Chris – I refilled my empty water ballast containers today, in a tribute to you!

Click here to view Day 60 of the Atlantic Crossing 29 January 2006: The Longest Day – changing time zones.

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Barnes, UK

London, UK

Another good question received via email: “Where would it go if you didn’t row? I mean after you were clear of the West coast.”

The answer is that I would drift towards Hawaii – but very slowly. Last year I asked the experts to run the figures through OSCURS, the ocean currents modeling software, and this is what they came up with. This is the route that my boat would have taken if I had set out from San Francisco in 2005.

In the real world, I hope to get there significantly faster. I’ll be rowing 8-12 hours a day. After all, there’s not much else to do once I get out there!