Sedna now all stickered up and ready to go. Photo by June Barnard.

Since I last wrote, launch day has been pushed back again, by 24 hours, but is now holding steady and looking good for early Wednesday morning Fremantle time, which will be Tuesday night Pacific time.

This seemed a good time to let you know how you can follow along with my adventure over the coming few months, and point out a few new features of my website.

Conspicuous by its absence will be the RozTracker (aka EpicTracker). Due to increasing pirate activity in the Indian Ocean, we have deemed it prudent not to post my position online. So the map of my route will not be revealed until I am safely back on dry land, but there will be many other ways to follow my progress.

Blog: as always, I will be blogging daily on this website. Technology permitting (as it didn’t last year!) I will also be posting photos of me, my boat, sea, and sky. And anything more interesting that crosses my path and hangs around long enough to be photographed. You can sign up to get my blogs via email, if you prefer, by entering your email address in the box to the right —-> where it says “receive blog via email”.

Twitter: whenever I feel inspired.

Podcast: I’ll be checking in weekly with Vic Phillipson to continue the Roz Roams podcast.

Facebook: Tweets and blog alerts will also be posted to my personal and public pages on Facebook.

Live webcast of departure: we’re planning to livestream my departure on Wednesday morning via Ustream. I’ll post the details as soon as I get them, including the URL where you can watch live as I launch myself on an unsuspecting Indian Ocean. Stay tuned.

Nomaddica: this is a brand new app, generously developed for me by Nick Jaffe of Arktisma, to help me raise the funds to pay for satellite phone airtime, without which there can be no blogs, tweets, or podcasts. I am inviting people to sponsor a mile (or more!) of my voyage for the bargain price of $10. $10 can buy:
- about half of a blog upload
- or a photo upload
- or half a phone call to my shore manager (aka my mother).

Check it out – click on “show interactive map” to get the full experience!

P.S. Mum sends her apologies if she hasn’t yet written to thank you for sponsoring a mile. We’ve had a great response over the last few days, and she is struggling to keep up with her thank you emails. I thank you for keeping her so busy – it gives her less time to worry….!

Other Stuff:

Our campaign for a plastic-bag free Olympics runs on…. We had hoped to have a definite ban in place by now, but we still have some work to do. We are seeking to get as many signatures as possible on our petition in order to convince the powers-that-be to do the right thing.

As you probably know, more than 7 million tons of plastic trash reaches the marine environment every year. Even more goes into landfill. Most plastic is not biodegradable, and the chemicals it emits have been linked to human symptoms such as hormone disruption, breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism, Type 2 diabetes and decreased fertility. It has also been estimated that ocean plastics are responsible for the deaths of around 1.5 million marine mammals per year.

Please add your signature, and ask everybody in your network to do so too. I would love to see 100,000 signatures on there. Then they will HAVE to take notice!

I am in hiding – from the sun. This might sound a bit pathetic for an intrepid adventurer – but there again I’ve never made any particular pretence at being intrepid, and when it becomes simply too painful to have the sun shining on me, I’m not too proud to hide out in my cabin until sunset. Like a vampire.

I got caught out this morning. There had been a lot of rain overnight (with steady drips from a small leak in my cabin, the source of which I cannot locate) and this morning was still heavily overcast and grey.

Silly me – I know it’s still possible to get sunburned through cloud. But it seemed such substantial cloud. Anyway, by the time I realised what was happening it was too late. I hadn’t put on my lovely organic Green People sunscreen and now I am paying the price. At times like this I curse having had a ginger-haired father. I have many things to thank him for, but my tendency to turn lobster-red in the tropics is not one of them.

Even though it is now nearly 5.30pm and the sun sets in just over an hour, there is still enough strength in it to make my skin feel like red-hot needles are being poked into it. So it seemed a good time to take cover and write a blog.

I’ve thought about going totally nocturnal. Now I have a fan in my cabin, this could in theory work quite well. During the day I have plenty enough solar power to keep the fan going nonstop, so the cabin is comparatively tolerable. And the nights are cooler – with no risk of sunburn.

Trouble is, I am whatever the opposite of a night owl might be. Come the darkness, comes the doziness. My body just wants to shut down and go to sleep. I can stay up all night when sufficiently stimulated by good company and good wine – but neither are available out here.

Any tips from nightshift workers on how to turn my body clock upside down?

Other Stuff:

Today’s audiobook – not so good. Called Blackout. By Connie Wills. I can’t wait for it to end, in fact. Seems like forever the 3 time travellers have been running around trying to figure out how to get back from World War II to 2060. The book could have been a third of the length. And should have been. As one book critic once wrote of another book, “The main problem with this book is that its covers are too far apart.”

And the narrator isn’t much better. She has the most peculiarly affected English accent, so that passengers is pronounced “parsengers”, passages as “parsages”, and she generally sounds like a cross between Sybil Fawlty and a particularly priggish schoolmarm.

But as perseverance is the name of the game, I will grit my teeth and see it through.

Its one redeeming feature is that I am learning a bit more about London during the Blitz – the sustained aerial bombing campaign waged by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Solidarity in the face of adversity became the “spirit of the Blitz” – when Londoners of all social strata united in their determination not to let the ongoing bombardment dent their morale.

Makes me think that environmental issues would be a lot more easily tackled if we had an identifiable enemy to unite against. If my enemy’s enemy is my friend, humanity needs a shared enemy so we can stop pointing fingers at each other and get on with tackling the REAL problem.

Oh but hang on, the problem is us.

Enjoyed this morning’s podcast with Dr Kiki Sanford, with special guest Marcus Eriksen. We enjoyed uninterrupted satphone connection, and a really interesting conversation about plastic pollution. Check it out. Oh, and Marcus, I forgot to ask you to pass along my thanks to Anna’s mum for the cookies. They were yummy!

Amongst other things, we discussed what can be done to clean up the North Pacific Garbage Patch. Probably not much. But we can avoid making it worse. If you’re still using bottled drinking water and accepting plastic bags at the grocery store, please rethink. Add up how many bottles or how many bags you use in a year. Or a lifetime. And then think how much plastic you could save if you invest in a few reusable bags, a water bottle, and a water filter system you keep in your refrigerator. Just because plastic bags don’t cost you anything, doesn’t mean they don’t cost anything at all.

And while you’re at it, sign up for Eco Heroes at ecoheroes.me, and join our merry band of heroes all doing their bit for a greener, cleaner future. Thank you!

And finally – see that button in the top right of my website? Check it out for our fun contest to bet on when I make landfall. Don’t wait – we are only running the contest for a few more weeks. After that it will get too easy so we’ll end it long before the end of my voyage. Carpe diem!

At the end of today, after a hard day's rowing, I am further away from
my goal than I was at the start. This does not make for a happy rower.

This morning I was in fine fettle. I had come to a decision on Tuvalu vs
Tarawa. Tuvalu would undoubtedly put me in a better position to get to
Australia next year, and was starting to look increasingly do-able. I
did some calculations based on my progress through the northern
hemisphere trade winds, and reckoned that if I could cross the Equator
between 175 and 176 degrees West, then I had a pretty fair chance at
being able to reach Tuvalu if the southern hemisphere trade winds were
roughly the same strength.

And I am already between 175 and 176 degrees West, so all I needed to do
was row due south, and we'd be golden. Right? Wrong.

This morning was no problem. The wind was light, allowing me to make
some useful southerly progress. I was being pushed east, but that was
okay – all the better to line up for Tuvalu. But then a series of
squalls around lunchtime changed everything, and the rest of the
afternoon was very frustrating.

Part of the problem was that the wind was coming from the wrong
directions – anywhere between due south and due west, neither of which
were good. I can row with the wind. I can row across the wind. But I
can't row into the wind. This boat is too bulky and I just can't make
any headway.

And the wind speed kept changing, so I had to keep adjusting the rudder
just to stay pointing in the same direction. It made it very hard to get
any rhythm going, and as you'll know if you've tried running in a big
city marathon where for the first few miles you're having to duck around
people, speeding up, slowing down, it's far more tiring to exert
yourself when you can't find your rhythm.

So I got pretty cranky. I've definitely been spoiled. So far this stage
my progress had unusually predictable – a pretty consistent 30+ miles a
day. On the Atlantic, and Stage 1 of the Pacific, were very different
stories. I was often blown backwards, despite use of the sea anchor to
mitigate the effect of adverse winds. In fact, on Stage 1 of the Pacific
it took me 6 weeks and 3 attempts to break free of the California coast.
I kept crossing 124 degrees West, only to get blown back again. Out,
back, out, back, and then finally out and free. So today should be no
big deal for me really. But it's amazing how soon I'd started to think
of favorable conditions as a right rather than a privilege.

By tonight I was fed up with the whole charade, so I cheered myself up
by having my first hot meal of the crossing. I haven't wanted hot foot –
the temperatures have been sweltering. But today has been overcast and
almost cool by comparison, and I decided some comfort food was in order.
So I dug out the cook stove and kettle and boiled up some water to mix
with my freeze-dried chilli con carne. It may not be consistent with my
rawfood detox diet, but I have to say, it absolutely hit the spot. Funny
how much better life can seem with a bellyful of hot food.

[photo: another pic of yesterday's visitor, with his little entourage.]

Other Stuff:

Do you see the thin fish that has attached itself to the top right of
the turtle's shell in the photo? I think that's the same creature that
latched onto my bottom a few weeks ago when I was cleaning barnacles off
the hull. I'm not sure I'd pick him out in an identity parade, but I'm
pretty sure. Any idea what he is?

Nicole and I recorded our last podcast together today, before Leo
returns from his trip to China next week and we resume our usual
Thursday format. Nicole and I had a good chat about all kinds of stuff,
particularly the challenges of trying to land on a tiny dot in a very
big ocean. You can find the podcast (30 mins approx) via the RozTracker.

Speaking of the RozTracker, I gather it has a load of cool new features,
including latitude and longitude, and a streamlined way of presenting
the tweets, blogs etc. Thanks, Evan! I just wish I could see it too!
Can't wait to get back to dry land and get a decent internet connection.

You might be interested to learn (and Naomi in NY, I'm thinking of you
in particular, and your walk across England) that we are planning to
market the Tracker product to people who are planning their own
adventures, to enable them to share the experience through social media.
It's too early to be specific, but we hope it will be available from
early next year. I'll keep you posted.

Due to a technical hitch I haven't received the comments from
yesterday's blog. So I'm sorry I can't respond to any of them here – but
I'll try to catch up tomorrow. So I'll sign off for now, get an early
night, and hope that the weather has come to its senses by morning…

Weather report (I don't really want to talk about it, but if you really
want to know):

Position at 2100 HST: 05 06.243N, 175 44.780W
Wind: S-W, 3-12kts
Seas: 2-5ft
Weather: mostly overcast, some squally showers

Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com

As of Thursday, 15 July 2009. Wind predictions will be with an added
level of uncertainty due to the naturally occurring variable conditions
in the equatorial regions. From satellite data, it appears enhanced
convective activity was centered along 170W extending past the dateline
to 170E. Winds mostly NEerly direction shift to Serly by 18 Jul
noontime, then back to Nerly by 19Jul0900HST. Speeds should be in the
5-10kt range with periods of calm. Seas 1-4ft.

Sky conditions: Mostly cloudy to overcast with low level clouds.
Scattered rainshowers, squalls, and possible thunderstorms. Wind speeds
in these systems 40kts.

ITCZ: The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) has once again become
more active over your rowing area. Southern edge of the ITCZ axis trails
off at 180E/W and 00 30S.

Ocean Current: North Equatorial Counter Current (NECC). No change from
earlier discussions. You are approaching the northern boundary of the E
flowing current. Northern boundary is about 05 00N extending to the
southern boundary near 00 30S. Current speeds increases to Eerly 0.1 to
0.2, then builds to a maximum near 0.6 to 0.8kts from 02 30N to 01 00N
then fades to 0.1 to 0.2 near the southern boundary. There are periodic
fluctuations in these dimensions.

Forecast
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft) est
16/1800-17/0600 NE-E 5-15 2-4
17/0600-18/1200 E-S 0-10 1-3
18/1200-20/0600 S-N 5-10 2-4
20/0600-21/1800 N-S 0-7 1-3

Next Update: Monday, 20 July

Today I was listening to the audiobook of "Left For Dead" by Beck
Weathers, an amateur climber who was caught up in the infamous storm on
Everest in May 1996 when many climbers lost their lives. He was given up
for dead, but later staggered into camp alone, horrendously frostbitten.
He survived, although he lost both hands and his nose. Even as he was
being med-evacced from the mountain he'd quipped, "I knew this trip was
going to cost me an arm and a leg…"

What I found most interesting about the book was not the main drama
itself, but his motivation for adventuring. He'd always battled with
depression, and found an escape in the mountains – partly because of the
need for total focus, and partly because it gave him an external
standard by which he could measure himself successful.

But it came at a price – he neglected his family terribly. His wife had
been pushed beyond even her quite exceptional levels of patience, and
was going to give him an ultimatum when he returned from Everest. He
would have had to choose between her, or the mountains. As it was, the
choice was taken out of his hands (so to speak). Ironically, the
catastrophe probably saved his marriage.

This got me thinking about why people go adventuring. Some people, like
Beck, go to lose themselves. Others go to find themselves. Some
onlookers might think that adventure is all very well, but it's not real
life, is it? Others would say that adventure is as real and intense as
life ever gets.

I suppose, like any other kind of experience, an adventure is what you
choose to make it. Depending on your natural tendency, everything you do
can be a learning experience. If you're always on the lookout for ways
to be a better person, every little thing that life offers you can be an
opportunity. Or, if you're not so open to change, you could be climbing
mountains or rowing oceans and still not really learning anything about
yourself. .

Having adventures doesn't make you a better person. It's not the
experiences you have, but what you choose to do with them.

And here endeth the sermon!

[Editorial note: It's not my fault. Both my parents were preachers. I'm
now at that rather frightening age when not only do you realize that
you're turning into your parents, but you actually don't mind that you
are... With all due respect to my lovely mum!]

[photo: The Booby is Back. This guy has been making a nuisance of
himself the last couple of days. Landed on my fore cabin yesterday and
noisily resisted my attempts to shoo him away before he started pooping.
He also keeps landing on the water just where I'm about to put my oar
in. As Chris Myles commented, they really have to be the stupidest birds
on the planet - birdbrains indeed!]

Other Stuff:

Today has been rather discombobulating. It got off to a good start. I
woke early and started rowing under a bright moon and a sprinkling of
stars, then watched the sun rise in a blush of pinks. But the rowing was
hard going – a lot of work for little reward. My first 3 hours of rowing
netted me just 3 miles to the good. It was going to be a long day. The
situation wasn't helped by a couple of squalls. Both created strong
winds and downpours that had me diving for cover. In their wake they
left an unnatural calm, when the ocean felt more than ever like
molasses.

So this is the ITCZ. I'd better just get used to it, and win my
southerly miles where and when I can. Meanwhile, I've crossed over 175
degrees west. Just 5 degrees, or a tad under 300 nautical miles, before
I get to the International Date Line. Got to keep pushing south though,
through the labyrinth of currents, winds, and squalls that awaits me.

I recorded a new podcast with Nicole this morning. You can find it via
the RozTracker. We have a good old natter about the huge human impact of
rising sea levels. This is affecting all the Pacific islands – including
Tuvalu and Tarawa – as well as many other parts of the world.

Thanks for all the fantastic comments on the blog and Facebook – and for
the offers of accommodation during my writer's retreat next Jan-Feb.
I've had some very tempting offers, and of course I want to accept them
all, but in the interests of actually getting some work done had better
try and control my enthusiasm for travel. I will ponder as I row and
respond soon to all my wonderful would-be hosts very soon.

I'm also grateful for the updates on the G8 summit. I wish there was
better news on China and India. Hmmmm….

Thanks, Tawita, for extending a welcome to Tarawa. If/when I end up
there I very much look forward to meeting you and your compatriots!
Fraid I won't be much use as a lawyer, though – my degree didn't include
anything of any practical use. Happy to barter day trips on a rowboat
though!

Doug Grandt on FriendFeed – thank you for the Bimini Bobbity Boobity
Moon. Love it!!!

Quick answers to quick questions:

Q: Roz, do you ever see any passing boats or ships of any kind?
A: I haven't seen any for many weeks now. The last boat I saw was a
fishing vessel about 500 miles from Hawaii. Since then I've had the
ocean all to myself. Excellent!

Weather report:

Position at 2120 HST: 06 47.032N, 175 04.677W
Wind: 5-20+ knots, E-ESE
Seas: 5-8ft
Weather: all over the shop

Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com

As of Thursday, 09 July 2009. Expect widely variable wind speeds and
direction while in close proximity to the ITCZ. NEerly trade winds
continue around the 10-15 kts, but veer to ENE 10kts by tomorrow
morning, then back to NE 10kts by tomorrow night. Periods of lighter
winds. Seas to 2-6ft.

Sky conditions: Mostly cloudy with low level clouds. Isolated
rainshowers, squalls, and possible thunderstorms. Wind speeds in these
systems 40-50kts.

ITCZ: The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) has heated up just
south of your present location. Convective clouds have increased
producing squalls and thunderstorms. The axis of the ITCZ is centered on
05 00N between 170W and 180E/W. The northern ITCZ edge is about 06 30N
and the southern edge near 02 00N. As of this morning, winds south of 07
30N to 03 00N were from the NE direction at about 7-22kts. In squalls
and rainshowers winds were 40kts.

Ocean Current: Still looking for the current to become ENE or Eerly
flowing at about 06 00N in the North Equatorial Counter Current. This
current extends to about 01 00N. There are periodic fluctuations in
these dimensions.

Forecast below is for a SWerly course.
Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft)
09/1800-10/0000 NE 10-15 4-6
10/0000-10/1800 ENE 7-12 3-5
10/1800-11/0900 NE 7-12 3-5
11/0900-13/0000 E 2-7 2-4
13/0000-14/1800 ENE-NE 5-10 3-5

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

For a change of pace, today’s blog is a vlog – a video recorded yesterday here in Arizona. This is approximately the format I hope to use for weekly RozCasts while I am out on the ocean on Stage 2 of my trans-Pacific row, so this is a bit of a pilot episode. I’d really welcome some feedback so please feel free to add comments to this blog to let me know what you think.

You might notice that I have also geotagged the video. We are investigating ways to geotag all my online updates – blogs, podcasts, Tweets and videos – so that you (and my Mum!) can keep track of me.

Speaking of Mum, please join me in wishing her all the very best for her hip replacement operation this weekend. Good luck, Mum, and I’m wishing you the speediest of all speedy recoveries!

As I walked to the gym at dawn this morning (6 miles walking = less petrol used + less money spent + more calories burned) I was listening to a podcast called iProcrastinate. Useful stuff, and I’d like to share.

Recently I have been puzzled by my own behaviour. I spent a lot of time during November and December evolving my strategy for 2009, in collaboration with experts on the environment, public relations/media, political campaigning, and human psychology. I ended up with what is, in my humble opinion, an excellent plan for an initiative that will tackle our top-priority environmental issue from the bottom-up, the top-down, with an element of education in the middle.

Then the calendar ticked over into 2009, and my plan went from being “next year” to being “this year” – and what happened? Did I launch myself into the execution of my detailed plan with my customary enthusiasm, energy, and “just-do-it”-iveness?

No. I froze. I fiddled around. I faltered. In short, since Jan 1, I’ve been procrastinating.

Some of it is justifiable – “I’ll wait until people get their feet back under their desks” or “People’s email inboxes will be swamped – I’ll wait until the New Year’s rush has died down”. Even eating became a form of procrastination – after all, you can’t change the world on an empty stomach.

But my inability to JFDI (Just… Do It) was starting to stress me. So, to tackle the problem, I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on here. The iProcrastinate podcaster sees it this way: procrastination is an existential issue. We have a vision of where we want to be – our “intention”. And we have where we are now – our present “action”. And ideally we exercise our free will to direct our present actions towards our future intention.

So my actions now should be the implementation of my Grand Plan for 2009 – rather than regular visits to the refrigerator. (Calories burned by walking to refrigerator < calories consumed while at refrigerator.)

What really struck home was when the podcaster suggested that the biggest obstacle to linking action to intention is the fear of failure. If you don’t try something, then you can’t fail at it – except, of course, that not even trying is the biggest failure of all. He talked about finding the courage to overcome that fear.

Now, although I am not the most courageous of people, I am also not the most cowardly. And although my plan is big and ambitious, so was rowing the Atlantic. This brings me back to the tipping point idea again. I am now at the point where: stress at NOT getting on with it > the stress caused by just doing it.

OK. (Sigh.) I know this is going to be a lot of hard work, but as the first guy to swim the English Channel said, nothing great is ever easy.

So… watch out world, here I come. 2009 is now officially underway, and it’s time to JFDI!

Other stuff:

Thank you very much to all who came to my presentation at the Presidio Yacht Club on Saturday night. (Photo of me with Ray DiFazio, one of the members of the band.) There was a fantastic turnout – the room was crammed, and I don’t think it was all due to the promise of dinner (which was excellent, incidentally – my compliments to the chefs).

A lot of people came up to me afterwards with questions, requests for photos, and promises of financial support. To those people, and anybody else who would like to help me make this year’s plans a reality, you can donate in any of these ways:
- via PayPal here, or
- online to the Blue Frontier Campaign (making sure to choose my project from the drop-down box), or
- by check to The Blue Frontier Campaign, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, D.C. 20036. Please make sure that the check is clearly marked in the memo field as being for Roz Savage, and indicate if you would like a letter of receipt for tax purposes. (The Blue Frontier Campaign is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.)

Thank you!

WELCOME!

Over the past three years I’ve got quite used to launching boats, but it’s been a long time since I launched a new blog. I’ve been sharing my life and adventures since 2003 over at RozSavage.com, but when it comes to Blogger I’m a newbie.

So, to my old readers, welcome to my new blog.

And to my new readers, welcome to my world.

And what an interesting world it is – not many people row across oceans for a living, and even when on dry land my existence as an off-season ocean rower is different from most. I’m rarely in one place for long, and I get to meet the most interesting and inspirational people – both on and offline. Life is rarely predictable, and certainly never boring.

I feel it would be selfish of me to live a life that I love without sharing it around a bit – hence my compulsion to blog, podcast, photo, video and Twitter, from sea and land. I hope you’ll come along with me – to share the adventure and enjoy the ride!

One of the questions in Saturday’s podcast Q&A has got me
reflecting on how my boat really is a perfect little unit of
self-sufficiency. The solar panels provide more than enough electricity
for my needs, if my watermaker was working I would have an endless
supply of water, and if I decided to fish I would have an endless supply
of food.

Even as it is, if I absolutely stuffed the boat to the gunwales, I could
easily pack enough food for a couple of years – I’ve got two completely
empty hatches, several others that have plenty of room to spare, and the
fore cabin is nowhere near full.

And by sprouting my own beans (see photo) I can produce enough fresh
vegetables to ward off scurvy, for very little overhead in terms of
space, time and water.

If I wanted to I could stay out here almost indefinitely – but it
wouldn’t be much of a life.

But the take-home message from this, literally, is just how viable
energy self-sufficiency and low-impact living are becoming. As I
mentioned in the podcast on Saturday, solar panels have come a long way,
so the payback period is now sufficiently short to make them an
attractive proposition. A couple of examples:

– Mike Klayko, CEO of my title sponsors Brocade, is fitting solar
panels to his new house – not out of environmental concern (although
that helps) but mostly because it makes financial sense
– Even in supposedly rainy old England, my mother has solar panels
on the roof of her house in Yorkshire – not the kind that generate
electricity, but the kind that heat water – and they work a treat and
save her a substantial amount on her utility bills.

I’ve had surprisingly little sunshine out here on the Pacific, but even
on dull days, and even with the limited amount of space I have available
for mounting solar panels, I’ve got oodles of electricity. (For the
detail-minded, I’ve got 4 x 60W semi-flexible panels on the aft cabin,
and 2 x 30W flexible panels on the fore cabin.)

If I had a home, I would seriously be looking at solar power. And if I
had a home in a sunny place, I could even sell back my surplus
electricity to the power companies and make a profit.

Definitely there’s good financial sense in self-sufficiency!

Other stuff:

Position at 2145 28th July Pacific Time, 0445 29th July UTC: 24
08.209′N, 138 25.306′W.

A different perspective – here
is a blog written by one of the researchers I met as I rowed past
the Farralone Islands back in May..

And now (as they say on the TV) for some messages:

Robert – good luck! Be sure to check out the section on my website
(under Adventure) on How To Row An Ocean.

Markus – great to hear from you at last. I’d been wondering! Love to you
and Eleanor.

Oops, laptop battery about to go flat. Will sign off now so I can plug
in to recharge using all that lovely free electricity!

Click here to view Day 65 of the Atlantic Crossing 3 February 2006: Ocean Rowing and What it Does to a Girl’s Looks – about weight and suntan.

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I dream a lot when I am at sea – something to do with the constant rocking, and my sleep being occasionally interrupted by a particularly large wave slamming into the side of the boat. Most of the dreams – as on dry land – are random rehashes of recent experiences and memories, but once in a while there’s a different kind of dream – exceptionally vivid, that seems to bear more significance. A couple of nights ago I had one of these dreams.

I was on a beautiful beach with a group of friends, and we decided to go swimming. We dived down under the waves into an amazing underwater world. There were sea urchins and fishes and all manner of marine creatures, each one a myriad of colours and textures and incredibly gorgeous in its own way. I was wearing no scuba gear or snorkel, but was able to breathe easily and simply look around me and marvel at all the natural beauty.

It was a bit crowded underwater, with lots of swimmers, but I assumed that this was just because we were close to the beach, and that it would thin out as we swam further.

But then we reached a sign, saying “No Through Road” and we were funneled upwards, out of the water, to a staircase that led up into a depressing shopping mall. We had to sit on a jetty just outside the mall to wait for a ferry to take us back to the beach. Some of the people were eating fish (!) while they waited, and appeared to see nothing wrong with this scenario, but I was disappointed and appalled. It seemed that my amazing diving experience had been nothing more than the marine equivalent of a Disney ride, and that most of these people were oblivious as to the connection between what we had just seen underwater, and what they were now eating.

When I woke up, the memory of the dream was still unusually strong, and I had the feeling that the dream was a reminder of what my message is and why I am here. After having struggled through the last few days, with disappointing mileages and uncomfortable conditions, it was just what I needed to remotivate me.

It reminded me of a thought I had when I was invited on a safari in Tanzania 18 months ago. The safari, although we saw some wonderful things, also made me very sad. It made me wonder when the world changed from being a few human habitations surrounded by wilderness, to being a few bubbles of preserved wilderness surrounded by human habitations.

I do hope that we never end up in a situation where the oceans are as dominated and exploited by humans as the land, and where a few isolated marine sanctuaries are the only places where ocean life survives. But I fear that unless we take action, and soon, we are heading that way.

Other stuff:

Position at 2130 26th July Pacific Time, 0430 27th July UTC: 24 19.863′N, 137 09.350′W.

[Photo: barnacles on the Brocade. They are not as bad as they look - this is just a narrow band of barnacles along the waterline. Covered by the water in this shot is the start of the antifoul paint that coats the bottom of my hull, which is still as smooth as a baby's bottom!]

Conditions today have been rather more rower-friendly. For the last few days it has been like rowing through treacle, to the extent that I even checked the rudder to make sure I hadn’t accidentally picked up a stray fishing net or other bit of flotsam. Each stroke felt like a weightlifting exercise. But today was considerably better, and my rate of progress has gone back to more like “normal” in the trade winds.

Thanks from both me and Mum for all the great comments – especially in response to Mum’s blog.. She is doing a great job and I’m very proud of her!

Glad that people are enjoying the podcasts. I also really enjoy my thrice-weekly chats with Leo. He is always so cheery and positive that even when I am having a lousy day our phone calls cheer me up. Thanks, Leo, and also to all the people who download the podcasts or tune in to watch them live on TwitTV.

Click here to view Day 63 of the Atlantic Crossing February 1 2006 Day 63: Life on Mars. Roz selects some favourite adventurers.

Do take a look at http://losfarallones.blogspot.com/ describing their encounter with Roz at the beginning of her Pacific row.

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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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There are some days when it’s easy to be motivated, when I’m raring to go, when I feel as if I could row forever.

And then there are days like today.

Maybe I tempted fate this morning when I was recording the podcast with Leo and he asked me about motivation. I breezily said how much easier I’m finding it this time around, having the audiobooks to keep me entertained, and also having had the Atlantic experience that has given me a number of tools in my psychological toolkit for when the going gets tough.

Well (sigh) I was really put to the test today. The conditions were the roughest they’ve been in several weeks, which made it impossible to row neatly. It was a case of bashing along and trying to stick a stroke in where I could – and this always makes the time drag.

But there was more to it than that. I put it down to having just passed the big milestone of 130 degrees West, and just after a success is often the hardest time to get motivated. You’ve been all excited about your achievement, and there’s a bit of a post-success slump when you have to set yourself a new goal to aim for, but the new one seems so distant when compared with the immediacy of the one you’ve just passed.

I had fallen into what Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance calls a “gumption trap”. I felt weary, and bored, and demotivated. I was totally gump-less.

So I pulled out the old Atlantic psychological toolkit. I bribed myself with extra rations. I changed the edifying audiobook 1491 for the escapism of a novel. I took a post-lunch siesta. And I set myself a more immediate, interim target that I should be able to reach within the next few days.

And it pretty much worked. I didn’t row quite as many hours as usual, but I achieved about 80%. And most importantly, I’m not beating myself up over it. There are bound to be days when I feel like this. Any challenge is, well, challenging, and gumption traps happen.

The thing is to carry on doing my best – and to accept that on some days my best will be better than on others. And tomorrow’s another day.

Other stuff:

Position at 2130 17th July Pacific Time, 0430 18th July UTC: 25 21.109′N, 132 22.819′W.

All kinds of weather today – sun, rainclouds (but barely any rain), rainbows – and lots of wind, fortunately coming from the right direction.

I saw my first flying fish today – a tiddler of about 1 inch that hit me in the side of the head while I was rowing. I would have taken a photo, but I wanted to get the poor little fellow back in the water asap, just in case he had any chance of survival. He didn’t look too lively though. Maybe he was scared to death – either by whatever creature had induced him to fly out of the water, or by unexpectedly finding himself on the deck of a small ocean rowboat.

SIGN UP FOR THE NEWSLETTER! We now have a facility for you to sign up for a newsletter. At the moment it goes out once a week, on Thursdays, and after a short message gives you a list of links to the week’s blogs. In the “off-season”, while I’m not on the ocean, it will go out every couple of months with any important news or a general update. If you’d like to sign up, go to my Home page, and down at the bottom you’ll find a box labeled: “Sign up to the Roz Savage newsletter, just enter your email address:”

Hello and thank you to all who write in and/or lend their support to my venture – today especially to Sindy Davis. And to Chris Martin for the laugh! John H – I watched the movie Deep Water last year – made me cry. Fascinating story, and well told in the film. Comments on my visor – a gift from my friend Mariya, courtesy of the Kailua Canoe Club. I may not be there yet, but I’ve got the headgear already! Hi to Greg K. Thanks, Chuck, for your concern about my weight – but I really don’t think I’ve lost any. Those chubby cheeks are still there!

Owww. Must go. I need somewhere more comfortable to sit to write my blogs! Like a nice dry study somewhere..

BLUE PLEDGES

Some extracts from a press release by BLUE Project:

Sport met environment at the launch event of the BLUE Climate and Oceans exhibition at Westminster yesterday as Olympic Minister, the Rt. Hon Tessa Jowell MP and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP both made pledges to be BLUE.

The exhibition which was attended by ministers, sustainable energy business leaders, Olympic representatives and sports ambassadors focused on how sport can be a mechanism to engage with people to actively care about sustaining our water environments.

One of the big project ideas to engage our communities that was showcased at the exhibition called The BLUE? Mile, is a mass participation event designed to bring together our coastal communities in the UK on a huge scale to celebrate our natural resources. Inspired by the need to leave a wide-spread environmental legacy from the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it is hoped that this event will become part of the Cultural Olympiad towards 2012.

Speaking at the launch event Hilary Benn said: “It’s astonishing what you have achieved, with initiatives like this that get people involved we have a better chance of making sure that we live in harmony with the Earth, whether on the green of the land or the blue of the sea.”

Tessa Jowell said: “By 2012 this has the potential to be engaging 100,000′s of children all over the world and I feel privileged to witness the beginning. It’s such a pleasure to be here today and I’m looking forward to competing my BLUE mile next year.”

Rob Gauntlet, youngest Everest climber and 180 Degree Pole to Pole adventurer said: “This project is young, fresh, ambitious and adventurous. Instead of just discussing the issues, the project gets people directly involved.”

Click here to see Day 54 of the Atlantic Crossing January 23, 2005. Questions, Questions – and some answers.

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After a tough week, today was outstandingly wonderful. It all averages out in the end!

It got off to a good start when I woke up to discover that the wind direction, for the first time since I left San Francisco, had an E in it. It was coming from a whisker East of North, helping me towards Hawaii. This was Very Good News.

Then, while I was doing my podcast with Leo Laporte this morning, I saw my first piece of ocean debris since I got away from the immediate vicinity of land. It was a small black mooring buoy, bobbing by about 10 yards away from my boat. Unfortunately I couldn’t photograph it because we were in the middle of recording. Although it was obviously not a good thing to see, it was noteworthy for being the first object I had seen – other than sea, sky, and the contents of my boat – for many weeks.

But the best “first” was this afternoon. I heard a snuffling sound and looked around to see a black fin arcing through the water just 20 yards away. I squealed and dashed to the cabin to get my camera. I just about managed to capture the creature on video, although I don’t think I’ll be winning any awards for cinematography any time soon. Then there was another one, and another. In all, five of the creatures passed by, most within just a few feet of the Brocade.

I think they were whales, about 8-10 feet long and black. Or it could be a porpoise or a dolphin, not sure. But the fact that they were traveling so far apart, and the snuffling sound, make me think whale.

Although, obviously, I remain zen and calm about these new developments, appreciating them as a privilege and not as a right – after weeks and weeks of unrelenting west winds, and an absolute dearth of marine life, today was almost more excitement than I could cope with, and while it lasts, absolutely fantastic!

Must run now. Want to make the most of these NNE winds while they last, so am off back to the oars.

BLUE PLEDGES

The deadline is 14th July – UK time. So best do it now!

Go to www.theblueproject.org and click on the Make a BLUE Pledge button. Costs you nothing, and it helps save the oceans – and the planet!

Thank you to all who have made the pledge already – and those who haven’t, please do it now! It’s all in support of the Marine Bill currently going through the UK parliament, but people of any nationality can make a pledge. After all, the oceans connect all of us!

BE COOL, BE BLUE!

Position at 1920 Pacific Time, 0220 13th July UTC: 26 25.248′N, 129
22.660′W.

Click to see Day 49 of the Atlantic Crossing Frustrated Idleness – Roz coping with broken oars.
and another blog for Day 49 of the Atlantic Crossing

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