On the Atlantic

On Feb 5 I will be in San Francisco for the Ocean Film Festival screening of Rowing The Atlantic, the film by JB Benna of Journeyfilm. It was a finalist in last year’s Banff Mountain Film Festival. The film includes a lot of the footage I shot during the Atlantic Rowing Race – I was director, producer, scriptwriter, cameraman and, errr, star, plus interviews and commentary filmed afterwards in Sausalito.

If you live in the Bay Area, I hope you might be able to come and join us. I will be around for Q&A afterwards.

And there are many more stunning films in the SFOFF lineup – all connected in some way with our incredibly precious oceans. Check out the program for full details.

See you there!

If I could change one thing, it would be to spend more time in each city. I have friends all over the US – both personal friends and online friends – and it would be lovely to have a week in each location to chill out and catch up, in a kind of lap of honor around the country. But the idea behind a book tour is to have a veritable media blitz, which requires hitting them hard and hitting them fast to keep the momentum going, so alas it is rather a whirlwind of a schedule!

We have entered all my appearances in the Events Calendar on this website, but it is a feature of the calendar widget that all events have to be entered in a single time zone, which currently is set to Hawaii time. Personally, I find this rather confusing, so fearing that you might similarly be confused, I’m taking this opportunity to present a definitive list of the details. The information is also presented more clearly on the Events page of this site.

Book signing in New York

Book signing in Los Angeles

Book signing in Portland, OR

It was a mad scramble to get ready to leave on May 24th. I’d officially been standby since May 15th, but there were still various loose (and some not so loose) ends to tie off. I hadn’t had a chance to do a full test on the camera system. An iPod of audiobooks on philosophy was still on its way from the East Coast. Stickers for the boat were being ordered but had not yet arrived. We hadn’t done any sea trials since the extra ballast had been installed. The new website hadn’t gone live yet.

And suddenly, when I received that phone call from my weatherguy on the morning of May 23rd, it was all systems go. Not exactly “now or never”, but with weather you never know when you’ll get another chance.

My first reaction to the weatherguy’s phone call had been, “No, I can’t – I’m not ready”, my second reaction was to ask, “Am I ready enough?” And the answer was, “Not yet, but I can be by midnight tomorrow!” So I went for it. Everybody rallied to the cause and by midnight on May 24th I was ready.

Ish.

I felt about 95% ready. I knew I would never feel 100% ready – perfection is rarely achieved – but 99% would have been nice.

But as things stand at the moment, I am glad that I took the calculated risk and set off anyway. As it turns out, the external video camera is not working, to the chagrin of my documentary producer Bill Chayes, but apart from that I’m managing without the things that had not arrived, and the Brocade is having the best possible sea trial of all. It may have helped that I tend to set a very high target. It may not be possible to get 100% of the way there, but 95% of a high target is better than 95% of a low target.

I think back on other projects that I’ve planned, that faltered and fell by the wayside because they didn’t have a deadline. So I fussed over the plans, revising and refining, wanting them to be perfect. which, of course, they never would be, and so they never actually made it off the drawing board and into reality.

They say that: “Success happens when opportunity meets preparation”. I don’t know yet if my mission to reach Hawaii will be successful (although confidence is growing daily) – there are still many miles to cross and many weather systems to encounter – but I do feel glad that I was forced to take the plunge when that rare weather window opened up. There comes a point when you just have to take a leap of faith, knowing that although you could possibly be more ready, you’re ready enough.

[Photo: the on-board menagerie: Squishie the dolphin, Quackers the duck, and Chirpy the robin. Chirpy says hi to the 4th graders at Cottage Lane School! I think he's bringing me good luck so far.]

Other stuff:

The gale force conditions subsided slightly this afternoon, so I was able to get a few hours of rowing. I’ve been amazed by the favourable direction of my drift the last 24 hours – making quite decent headway west, even though the wind was coming from the NW. I assume it must have been the combination of the set of my rudder and the deployment of my sea anchor. When I pulled the sea anchor back on board this afternoon in preparation for rowing, I found that it was in a right old twist, with the tripline all wound around the main line, and each of those then twisted around itself. It took me about an hour to sort out the tangle of lines. I’m just hoping that I haven’t now lost that magical configuration that was taking me westwards!

I’ll keep this blog brief, as I haven’t quite got my sea legs yet and tapping on the keyboard makes me feel queasy.

Last night, at a few minutes to midnight, I pushed away from the dock at the Presidio Yacht Club and rowed out under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

That makes it all sound very easy. In fact it took me a ridiculous amount of time to row the very short distance from the club to the bridge. The tide was supposed to be “slack”, but it still seemed to be coming in pretty forcefully and I was rowing hard just to stay still.

But as with many things, you put all the hard work in and then when the time is right it suddenly all comes good and you make rapid progress. So after about half an hour of going nowhere, the tide finally turned, I passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, and rowed out into the darkness beyond.

I rowed all night, and apart from a one-hour nap I’ve been rowing all day. Conditions this morning were perfect – milky calm and wonderful. But during my nap the wind picked up, and this afternoon has been a battle into a headwind coming out of the west. Tonight I’ve put out the sea anchor to try and preserve the progress made so far, and I hope not to be blown back too far while I sleep.

It feels strange to be back on the ocean. I almost can’t believe this is for real. It was such a last-minute scramble to get ready in time, i didn’t have much time to think about it.

Now I am out here, and it is familiar but different. On the one hand it is easier, because I’ve rowed an ocean before so I don’t have that self-doubt that I suffered from on the Atlantic. But whereas on the Atlantic there are helpful winds from the outset, I’ve got a 200-mile battle (at least) before the winds come around behind me and help me towards Hawaii.

But hey, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it!

Thanks to those who came down to see me off last night. Thanks especially to David from Blue Frontier who bought me a selection delicious breads to supplement the ship’s rations!