Ferocious tropical sun, roaring wind, steep breaking waves. Today was
not an unusual day, but nor was it my favorite kind of day for rowing.
It was too windy to put up the sun canopy, which in wind speeds over 20
knots flaps around and biffs me around the head. So without the canopy I
was exposed to the full force of the sun. And the steep contours of the
waves made it difficult to get a good connection between oar and water,
exacerbated by a strange phenomenon: The sound of the wind and waves
seem to send a message to my limbs, saying – bad rowing conditions,
hence bad rowing.

I've found from experience that on days like this the best way to avoid
rowing like a moron is to insulate myself from the elements as much as
possible, ignore what the conditions are doing, and put my body on
autopilot. It rows much better without my brain interfering.

I do this by making like a teenager. I pull my baseball cap down low and
stick the earbuds in and plug myself into my iPod. Apologies to those
purists who would have me commune with nature in all her moods, but in
present circumstances I feel justified in doing whatever gets me through
the day.

Today, my choice inspired by podcast partner Leo Laporte's vacation
destination, I chose the audiobook of "Lost on Planet China" by J
Maarten Troost. And he has thoroughly put me to shame. I absolutely take
my hat off to him as the champion of intrepid eating. He succeeded where
I wimped out and failed. When faced with a potential squid dinner oozing
to death on my deck, I discarded the notion as too gross to contemplate.
Not Troost.

Throughout his travels in China he struggled with the language barrier,
especially in restaurants. On one occasion he finds himself presented
with a bowl full of 10 live squid. He contemplates his lively dinner. He
asks the waitress what he is supposed to do. She tells him. He braces
himself, wondering if he can do it. Yes, he can. One by one, he takes
the live squid out of the bowl of water and pulls their heads off, then
dips their bodies in vinegar and eats them. Every last one. Leaving just
a pile of squid heads on the side of his plate.

Wuuuhhhuuuuu. Eeeewwwww. Eeeeessssshhhh. I thought I was a brave eater,
pickled jellyfish being probably the weirdest thing I've ever eaten. But
raw live squid absolutely trumps that.

He also packs a lot of interesting facts into the book. Such as:
- 1 in 40 Chinese have a car, vs 1 in 1.25 Americans
- The Chinese burn as much coal as the USA, Japan and the whole of
Europe combined
- In 2005 they built enough new power stations to power the whole
of the UK. In 2006 they built enough new power stations to power France
- One third of the particulates polluting the air in California's
Central Valley comes from China.

This makes for sobering reading. It's clearly essential that any global
initiative on CO2 emissions needs the buy-in of China and the other
rising industrial superpowers. But that is going to require some
seriously impressive feats of diplomacy in Copenhagen this winter. Can
it be done? I think it can, but will need an approach that shows empathy
with China's economic goals. I am no diplomat or politician, but it
seems to me that all countries need to find a vision of a sustainable
long-term prosperity based on sustainable long-term energy sources. It
would be challenging, but very impressive, if the developed countries
can hold hands with those still developing, and move together towards
that vision of the future, working with them to solve the problems that
affect us all.

An afterthought on J Maarten Troost. Now there is a man I'd like to get
on the end of the phone right now. He knows all about the islands of the
Pacific, having lived on several of them, including Tarawa and Tuvalu
(presumably Funafuti). If anybody in the world can tell me which of my
potential destinations has the best beer, I'm sure it would be him – and
probably a wealth of other more essential information besides. One of
his earlier books was called "Getting Stoned With Savages". I wonder if
he'd be amenable to Getting Phoned By Savages …

[photo - earbuds in, and the "ocean feral" look]

Other Stuff:

Today I was rowing straight down the pink line – the line on my
chartplotter that leads from where I am now to Tuvalu. But as I get ever
closer to the ITCZ and the NECC, things could still change. We're busy
researching all aspects of our options right now.

Sandy – thanks for the mention in the blog roll. Not often I find myself
in a list alongside Demi Moore and Angelina Jolie!

Michelle – thanks for the offer of the house in Hood River. It might be
a bit too tempting to socialize instead of write, but otherwise that
would be perfect. Can I let you know nearer the time?

Special hello to Sandra and Ian Williamson in Oxford – glad to hear
you're well and Facebooking! Ahhh, happy memories of college days,
especially the beer cellar!

Quick answers to quick questions:

Q: What brand electric watermaker would you recommend on an ocean
crossing?
A: I use the Spectra Ventura 150 – still the same one I used for the
Atlantic voyage. I run it for about 45 mins a day and it produces enough
to fill a 10 liter jerrycan and a bucket. Works great.

Q: Why are you a Mac on land and a PC at sea?
A: I prefer the Mac, but when I did the Pacific Stage 1 I needed a PC to
interface to the Iridium satphone so I could upload blogs. There is now
a product called OCENS that allows a Mac to talk to Iridium, but I'd
still rather trash a PC than risk my precious Macbook!

Q: Do you see many airplanes overhead?
A: No, none at all.

Q: If you had a can or bottle of beer couldn't you attach it to a line
and sink it a 100 feet or so to chill it? Would the water temp 100 feet
down or more be much colder than the surface water temp?
A: Oh, I'll just go hop over the side and check….

Weather Report:

Position at 2110 HST: 07 49.416N, 174 03.477W
Wind: 20+ knots E
Seas: 6-9ft E, choppy
Weather: rough night last night – probably roughest yet. Hot and windy
day.

Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com:

As of Monday, 06 July 2009. The easterly trade winds have turned more
northerly still around the 15-20 kts range with periods of lighter
winds. Wind speed gradually abates beginning 08July to become 5-12kts by
10July. As the winds abate they shift to ESE-SEerly direction, which may
make it harder to row southwards in headwinds. Seas abate to 3-5ft.

Sky conditions: Mostly cloudy with low level clouds. Isolated
rainshowers.

ITCZ: The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) has quieted since last
report so maybe the passage through will be less dramatic. Convective
clouds have become fewer. The northern ITCZ edge has become diffuse but
the axis is along 170W to 180W between 03 00N and 04 00N. As of this
morning, winds south of 08 30N to the Equator between 170-177W were from
5-17kts with only isolated rainshowers of moderate strength.

Ocean Current: Still looking for the current to become Eerly flowing at
about 06 00N in the North Equatorial Counter Current. We will see how
this can aid your passage across the Equator.

Forecast below is for a SWerly course.
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft)
06/1800-07/1800 ENE 15-20 6-8
07/1800-08/1800 NE 15-20 6-8
08/1800-09/1800 NE-E 10-15 5-7
09/1800-10/1800 E-SE 7-12 4-6
10/1800-11/1800 SE-E 5-10 3-5

Next Update: Thursday, 09July

Mileage for Day 2: 26
Mileage for Day 3: 13
Mileage for Day 4: -6

Yet I've rowed the same number of hours each day. That's just the way it
goes. Reward is rarely proportionate to effort. Today I've had to row
just for the workout rather than for the progress.

The problem has been the headwind coming out of the south-southeast -
not a strong one, but enough to grab hold of my big bulky boat and push
her the wrong way. The trade winds are supposed to blow from the
northeast, and weatherguy.com assures me that normal business will be
resumed shortly, but meanwhile my track on the chartplotter is a
complicated squiggle. I row forwards for a while until I get too
tired/hot/sunburned/hungry – so I take a break, and get unceremoniously
dumped back to where I was before.

I can't remember how long Sisyphus was pushing his rock up the mountain
(and my onboard bandwidth doesn't allow me to Google from here, alas)
but it was probably 7 years, or eternity, both being favored periods in
Greek mythology. Either way, I'm hoping my Sisyphean struggle will be
considerably shorter.

Other stuff:

Nicole and I have been having some communication problems. We rented a
satellite phone for her because it's much cheaper to call from Iridium
to Iridium than to a landline or mobile. But whenever I try to call her
I get put through to the Iridium messaging service. And ditto she hasn't
been able to call me.

But I was dying to hear how things are going on land post-launch, so I
called her on her mobile, trying not to think about the $$$ rapidly
evaporating. She tells me that there has been a lot of excitement about
the RozTracker, created by Hawaiian R&D company Archinoetics, which has
received extensive coverage in the media.

Also that Ryan Ozawa (Twitter handle "hawaii" which may give you some
idea how much of an early adopter he is) has created a lovely montage of
scenes from the video-stream he broadcast live online on Sunday. I don't
know the full details, but hopefully a member of my shore team can add
some links at the bottom of this blog.

And finally, second in the new season of the Roz Rows The Pacific
podcast with Leo Laporte will go out at 1.30pm PST tomorrow.

And finally finally, even though my oar count on the RozTracker may not
have gone up much – as it's based on an average number of strokes per
mile – you can be assured that I've been putting in my 10,000 a day. So
if you haven't already, please take a look at pulltogether09.org and see
what it's all about. <sigh> At least when you walk 10,000 steps a day
you tend to actually get somewhere…

[photo: blisters not too bad yet - only 3 per hand. If any one can read
palms and tell me how much longer I'll be rowing hard to stand still,
let me know!]

Time: 2042 HST
Position: 20 48.608N, 158 19.796W
Wind: 5-8 kts SSE
Weather: hot, hot, hot, one brief rainshower
Sea: 4ft swell from SSE
Intentions: carry on trying to get S

It has been a busy 24 hours here in Hawaii – mostly boat-oriented, with internet sessions topping and tailing the day. I was up at 5am editing my latest podcast of Roz Rows The Pacific, featuring an interview with Lynne Cox, extreme swimmer and author of Swimming To Antarctica. Watch out for the podcast going live within the next week – I email it over to Leo Laporte and he and his trusty staff at TWiT.tv upload it to iTunes.

Then I swooped via a quick internet session at the Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa (and a much needed mug of java) to the Brocade’s current location on the North Shore. For today was the day that all hands were on deck and work started in earnest to get the Brocade ready for Stage 2 of my Pacific row, due to launch on May 15.

I had already tentatively decided on a new strategy of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). For past stages of the row I had the boat wired for GPS, sound and video – only for most of the equipment to fall victim to saltwater corrosion. Rolling the boat 3 times in 2007 and once in 2008 hadn’t helped. Water had got into all kinds of places it had no right to be. And every time I opened up the back of the control panel it made me want to have a nervous breakdown – it was such a nest of (electric) vipers that maintenance at sea would have been very challenging, to say the least.

So I had decided that it would be more sensible, less stressful and less wasteful to use more standalone items, which would be not attached to the boat but rechargeable via the onboard batteries. Only the bare minimum would be left as permanent installations.

But it still took a considerable amount of courage to rip out a large proportion of the existing electrics. Even things that hadn’t worked in years caused pangs of nostalgia. But once I got into the swing of it, I became quite ruthless. If in doubt, chuck it out! A lot less junk to lug across the ocean. All discarded items will be offered to others via Craigslist or boat jumbles, so they won’t go to waste, so it made me feel less guilty to remember that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

By the end of the day, the chaos of wires behind the control panel was reduced to manageable and less panic-inducing proportions. Brocade was looking stripped down and back to basics. Now we have a clean slate to bring in the new kit, partly donated by sponsors and partly funded by your recent very generous donations – thank you!

So in one sense there were 5 of us working on the boat today – Ian from San Francisco, Scott (pictured) and Morgan from Hawaii, while Morgan’s girlfriend Ali recorded our labours for posterity, and me of course – and in another sense you were all there too. I knew you’d be interested to hear how we are getting on, which is why I am sitting here in the internet cafe, posting this blog, even though I am zonked and looking forward to an urgent appointment with my pillow before we start work again tomorrow. But I wanted you to know that we are going great guns here, and hope to have the Brocade looking much more shipshape by the end of this week.

More photos coming soon, but sleepy now after a very constructive (or constructively destructive…) day.

Other stuff:

Ocean in Google Earth launched today. I was invited to the launch event in San Francisco, and would have loved to go – Al Gore was there! But I was here in Hawaii with important work to do, and just couldn’t justify the extra airmiles or cost of being there. But I am in ongoing talks with Google and hope to contribute some content to an expeditions part of the new Ocean functionality.

Check out these sources (and thanks to Ellen and Leye for these) – it all looks very cool!

YouTube video of What’s New In Google Earth 5.0

The Official Google Blog

Article in The Guardian

I’ll be watching with interest to see what new content goes on in Ocean – in the hope that Google will be contributing to the growing awareness that it is COOL TO BE BLUE!

“Enlightened debauchery” is the enticing tagline for the Mindshare events series in Los Angeles – and although (as far as I saw) the debauchery extended no further than an open bar and a few smokers out the back, the tagline fits the vibe. Enlightenment has surely never been so much fun.

Ten days ago I had given a talk at the Pacific-Union Club in San Francisco, organized by the redoutable Ed Osgood, 90 years old and world tennis champion in his age class (I find myself wondering how much higher the age classes go). Ed recently married the vivacious Josette (go, Ed!) and it was she who created this opportunity in LA – she rang up her son, Doug Campbell, latterly of Tuxedo Travels and now the originator and organizer of Mindshare – and told him he had to meet me.

So after the venerable audience of the P-UC, and an equally distinguished audience at the St Francis Yacht Club last Wednesday, it was a big change to find myself talking to 200+ hip young things assembled in a nightclub-ish Hangar 1018, around the corner from a strip club in downtown LA.

After an hour or so of mingling and making the most of the open bar, the presentations began. I was a last-minute addition to the program, so I had just 5 mins. And I wanted to show my video which lasts 4 mins. So I just said a few very carefully chosen words – something like this:

“It was the year 2000, and I was supposed to be happy. I had it all – the well-paid job as a management consultant, a big house in west London, a successful husband and a little red sports car. But there was something wrong with this picture. I didn’t feel fulfilled. I didn’t feel I was contributing anything to the greater good. I felt I was here for a purpose – as we all are – and I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure that management consultancy wasn’t it…

…Fast forward to March 2006. I am all alone, on a tiny rowboat, bobbing around somewhere in the western Atlantic. I am homeless, penniless, and divorced. All four of my oars have broken and I’ve had to fix them up. It’s been 3 months since my last hot meal. I’ve had no communications since my satellite phone broke 24 days ago. I’ve got saltwater sores on my backside and tendonitis in my shoulders. But I’ve never been happier – because at last, I have found my life purpose. I am rowing across oceans to raise environmental awareness. I am realizing my dream, one stroke at a time.”

And then I showed the DVD. And then a Q&A. It seemed to have made quite an impact. Many people came up to me for the rest of the evening – either with questions or just to say thanks for the inspiration.

What really seemed to have resonated was the search for purpose, connection, leaving a legacy. It reminded me that although raising environmental awareness is a key part of what I try to do, the message is so much more than that. It’s bringing awareness to EVERY aspect of living.

I regularly ask myself, am I living according to my values? Am I being true to my purpose? Am I heading in the right direction? Or am I spending too much time on those day-to-day details that, in the final reckoning, will be revealed as nothing but distractions and diversions?

And here endeth the sermon. Thursday night reminded me also that life is not to be taken too seriously – and that seeking enlightenment can be a great big enormous load of FUN!

Other stuff:

Various bits of equipment for the boat (VHF radio, GPS etc) have been delivered to Hawaii, awaiting my arrival there next week. I still haven’t found any under-cover storage on Oahu that I can afford – so do please contact me if you have any ideas.

Last Monday I met a fantastic bunch of women in Vallejo, at the home of Kathy Robinson. She and I rowed on the Greek Trireme in 1988. We watched the video of our crew slogging our way around the Aegean in a smelly, sweaty, ship – like Ben Hur but with frightening 80′s haircuts. How times have changed – from a crew of 170 to a crew of 1…

Had a great meeting in Palo Alto with Dr Margot Gerritsen of the Smart Energy Show to talk about how to reduce CO2 emissions and, ironically, the joys of travel.

Also met with Meng at Google – Meng was one of the early Googleers, and is now their kind of brand evangelist. His wall of fame includes pictures with the Dalai Lama, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and countless others – a veritable who’s who of the 21st century. During a tour of the campus and lunch we pretty much covered the meaning of life, the universe and everything – and Copenhagen and the Nobel Peace Prize. I’ll be back at Google next month to speak – I can’t wait!

Plus various meetings in association with the short film of Limitless Horizon – being created for release in early October to coincide with my book of the same name, which is partly about my Atlantic row in 2005-6, but more about my transformation from office worker to ocean rower.

And, of course, I was reunited with my podcast guru Leo Laporte, at TWiT Cottage in Petaluma to record a new episode of Roz Rows The Pacific. It hasn’t appeared on the website yet, but hopefully will soon. Enjoy!

I almost wish I was on dry land, just so I could check out all the cool things that are happening around this website – I can’t see them from here!

When I get back to dry land, I’m especially looking forward to checking out the podcasts. If you’re following the blog but haven’t clued in to the podcasts, you might want to go to Twitlive.tv and take a look. I thoroughly enjoy my thrice-weekly chats with Leo Laporte, and you may enjoy adding another dimension to your Pacific-rowing-by-proxy experience.

I haven’t been able to watch them myself, but apparently if you check in while we are recording (10am PST, or 6pm BST on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays) you can actually see Leo sitting in his studio, talking to me, along with all the comments and questions coming in from the chatroom. My mother just discovered this a week ago, and she’s hooked!

Plus, you can get a FREE audiobook from audible.com, (I suspect that this only applies to people in the USA – Rita.) AND by downloading the podcasts you help me raise funds to finance the next stage of my row. See the bottom of this blog for details.

I was introduced to Leo last summer by his long-term friend Bill Chayes, who is the producer of our Pacific rowing/environmental documentary. We, and assorted others, were guests of Bill and his wife Michelle for dinner at their beautiful arts-and-crafts home in the rolling golden countryside outside of Petaluma, close to California’s wine country. We had a wonderful meal sitting outside at a table on the deck, eating and drinking and chatting. (Ahhhh, how I LONG for an evening like that right now – nothing I like better than a good dinner party.. But I’m 1300 miles and at least 40 days away from any opportunity..)

And Leo was sufficiently interested in what I was doing to offer to do a regular series of podcasts with me. I have to confess, I didn’t really know who Leo was at the time, but now I’ve been in North America for a bit longer I am starting to appreciate just what a lucky break this was. Leo has introduced me to a whole new audience via the podcasts and Twitter, as well as securing sponsorship from audible.com.

So what this means is that the more people that download the podcasts, the more audible.com pay as part of the sponsorship arrangement. And when you sign up, you can get a free audiobook. I listen nonstop to audiobooks while I row – Leo gave me an iPod loaded with 323 books that I’m steadily munching my way through – and during our podcasts he always asks me what I’m “reading”. So you can even listen to the same book I’m listening to, and share my experience in a whole new way!

Other stuff

Position at 2100 22nd July Pacific Time, 0400 23rd July UTC: 24 28.173′N, 135 24.224′W.

Conditions the same as for the last few days – grey, chilly, windy and rough. I shall say no more in case I lapse into grumbles. I should be pleased that I am making good progress, and not mind about being constantly wet, salty, and bounced around. But it’s sometimes easier said than done. Only those audiobooks are helping me through it – today, on Leo’s recommendation, I listened to The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennette – excellent!

It’s good to be past halfway, but last night I did feel a little bit lonely. My weatherguy was most insistent that I had to have a halfway party. I looked around my boat. No company. No treat foods left. No bottles of anything interesting. Not much to start a party with at all. I briefly considered making some party decorations out of the silver wrappers from my expedition meals, but then gave up and went to bed. I will make up for it by partying extra hard when I get to Hawaii.

Thanks again for all the messages – especially to Margo, my East Coast enviro-sister! Looking forward to re-toasting with a glass of red wine next time I see you.

Thanks also to Jenny at KWMR – would love to get together for an interview once I’ve delivered the message in a bottle to the Hawaiian Islands Sanctuary. You’re on!

And to Jim, John, Chris, Rod, Currin (why is everybody telling me about what delicious wines they’re using to toast my progress?! Making me envious!!), Eric, Karyn, Rodli, Tim, Toni, Gene and Sindy.

Click here to view Day 59 of the Atlantic Crossing 28 january 2006: Fishy Business – flying fish, that is.

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Every day I fill out a quick questionnaire to record my psychological state, and email it to my mother for her to pass on to Dr Neil Weston at the University of Portsmouth. He has been studying various adventurers spending significant amounts of time alone at sea, to evaluate how the solitude affects them and the survival strategies that they develop to cope with it, and is now doing a case study about me.

There is a special question at the end of my questionnaire, that I specifically requested should be put there. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how accepting are you of the conditions?”

I wanted this there to remind me that things will not always be as I want them to be, but in most cases (and certainly where weather is concerned) there is no point expending valuable mental and emotional energy in wishing that things were other than as they are. I learned this on the Atlantic by doing it the wrong way – I got myself into a fine old state of indignation and frustration by constantly thinking that things OUGHT to be different. “This isn’t what I expected!”

Today the weather has once again been too rough, and the waves coming at me from the wrong direction, making it impossible to row. And it is likely to stay that way for at least the next five days. This is obviously far from ideal. If I was not being accepting of the conditions, I could be running around on this track in my mind:

– I came here to row, not sit around in the cabin – I’ll be losing all my fitness – I am getting swept east, losing the valuable miles I’d made to the west – This is boring

But, given that I can’t do anything about it, it’s really best to accept it and try to make the best of a bad situation. So I’m reminding myself of these unexpected benefits:

– this is giving my (now very swollen) finger a chance to recover – and that strained pec muscle from last week – at least I’m making some headway south, which is useful – hmm, I’m providing a useful illustration of the track that a piece of garbage might take on its way to the North Pacific Garbage Patch… – wow, it’s been years since I had this much time to lie around and just think.

So that’s how I am, and that’s how the weather is, and that’s just how life has got to be for the next few days. Ho hum.

Other stuff:

The watermaker continues on its slow path to recovery. I ran it again today, and it seemed to be doing ok. I shall persevere with the WD40/Bag Balm therapy and hope that the patient continues to improve.

I did venture out on deck to cook myself a hot dinner. But in the 20 minutes it took me to get out the Seacook stove and heat the water and boil-in-the-bag meal and then put the stove away again, I got 5 complete drenchings as huge waves swept across the deck. It is now 4 hours later and I am still trying to get my feet properly warmed through. They still have that damp, chilly feeling. So it is debatable that the warming effects of the hot food were more than cancelled out by the cold soakings. I may have to rethink my strategy.

I recorded another podcast with Leo Laporte this morning. If you haven’t done so already, do check them out. You can find them under the “Media” option in the menu bar above – but hopefully soon they will have their own feature box on the right of this Blog page. You can also listen to them live at twit.tv, or on iTunes. Sorry to be a bit vague on details, but I don’t have internet access from here – only email.

You may have noticed that there is sometimes a long interval (up to 16 hours in some cases) between updates to my position. Please do not be alarmed. This does not necessarily mean anything drastic has happened. In these rough conditions, with the boat tipping around in all directions, the Marinetrack unit is not always able to locate the satellites overhead for long enough to transmit its hourly position report. This can result in a number of updates being missed. Marinetrack have been very good at monitoring this situation – they email me if they are getting concerned so I can check the power supply to the tracking unit.

So no need to worry – just be patient. It’s not like I’m moving so fast that you might miss something!

[photo: pic from my cabin: the control panel of instruments, including chartplotter (not currently working), VHF radio, Sea-Me radar enhancer, stereo and switch panel]

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