We are doing final tests of the RozTracker in preparation for Roz’s departure at 6pm today from the Waikiki Yacht Club. If you’re in Honolulu, come down to Magic Island and say aloha as Roz rows off into the 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.

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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Ninety days already. Or ninety days – seems like forever! I’m not sure which I feel. On the one hand, now that I am well into my daily routine, weeks seem to whizz by. But when I think back to my departure under the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight on May 24, it seems like forever ago.

And now the end is drawing near. But how near? That is becoming an interesting question.

My ETA – with the emphasis on the E – is still August 31. It had started to slip towards September 1, but today has been a good day with conditions helping me along towards a better-than-average daily mileage. It would be nice to finish in under 100 days. But still anything could happen.

When, on the Atlantic, my satphone stopped working on Day 79 severing all communication with land, I thought I had just a couple more weeks to go. Those two weeks ended up taking me nearly a month. The wind dropped away to nothing and I slogged along in relentless heat for what felt like an eternity – about ten days. It felt like I would never get to Antigua. My poor mother was waiting there for about 10 days before I eventually showed up.

And one of the other crews rowing the Atlantic got within 180 miles of the finish (the total crossing is about 3,000 miles) when they capsized. Their boat refused to self-right and they had to be rescued. So near and yet so far. On this Pacific row I still have to face the dangers of the infamous Molokai Channel, where wind speeds of 30 knots are fairly typical. We are preparing and planning carefully, but it will be challenging nonetheless, and is increasingly on my mind.

And then there is the matter of actually hitting Hawaii. The winds are different every day, and it is rarely easy to make a straight course. Up a bit, down a bit, constantly adjusting my latitude, because if I miss the islands. well, missing the champagne celebrations would be the least of my worries.

So I now know better than to make any assumptions about when or if I will arrive safely. This is still far from being a done deal, and I won’t truly relax until I have my feet firmly planted on dry land. And if that dry land happens to be in Waikiki, and happens to be on August 31, then that is a bonus.

Other stuff:

Position at 2100 22nd August HST, 0700 23rd August UTC: 22 17.290′N, 152 46.041′W.

Hi to Karen Morss (am just about surviving lemon-less, but looking forward to a citrus resupply!), Nave, Will, Holly H, and all the regulars.

And thanks to Texino for his kind words – seems they are not easily won!

And a special thank you to Joan in Atlanta, who posted this lovely comment: I’d like to suggest that all the readers who wish they could be in Hawaii for the landing celebration hit that Donation link above and send along the monetary equivalent of the bottle of champagne or round of drinks you’d happily buy if you could be there. A generous bit of funding for the next leg of the crossing is the best congratulatory gift we could give. I’m sending along a magnum donation.

If you live in the UK and wish to make a contribution to Roz and don’t wish to use Paypal, send a message from the Contact area of this website for details

Click here to view Day 90 of the Atlantic Crossing 28 February 2006: Stripped Down – a recounting of all the items that Roz has lost en route.

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Today I proudly crossed off another degree of longitude on the whiteboard in front of my rowing position (top right in the photo). For a long time, while I was dancing to and fro across 124 degrees West, I didn’t dare put the numbers up in front of me – it would have been too depressing (and I would have had to keep reinstating the 124 after having crossed it out).

But last week I decided I was ready. So now, like the Birdman of Alcatraz, I am keeping score – and it is helping to keep me motivated. Today the rowing conditions were uncomfortable, with a choppy swell coming at me from the side, but I knew that if I rowed all my shifts I could get to 128 degrees West – and the end of my audiobook, of which more below – and that thought kept me going.

For the stattos, here is how long it has taken me to cross each line of longitude so far. Just so you know, the Golden Gate Bridge is at about 122 30′ W.

To cross 123 degrees: 2 days

124 degrees: 3 days. Then went backwards and spent 3 days the wrong side of 124. Then 2 days the right side of 124. Then 8 days the wrong side (including a brief foray back into the 122′s). 4 days the right side. 6 days the wrong side. Then finally broke through for the last time.

124-125 degrees took 4 days.

125-126 degrees took 6 days.

126-127 degrees took 3 days.

127-128 degrees took 2 days.

And that’s where I am now. Waikiki is at 157 50′W – so there’s still a long way to go. But I’m getting ever closer to the trade winds, so I’m starting to feel cautiously optimistic about some decent progress from now on. Just hope I’m not tempting fate.

Current position (03:41 UTC) is 27 52.099′N, 128 01.573′W.

Other stuff:

Roz Recommends: today’s audiobook was Collapse, by Jared Diamond, as recommended to me yesterday by a blog-follower. It’s a fascinating look at previous cultures that have brought about their own demise through mismanagement of their natural environment, and an intelligent summary of what we can learn from their mistakes. It’s unsettling reading (or listening), demonstrating as it does just how short-sighted we humans can be. But it’s also empowering, because he concludes that the power to change our future lies in our hands.

BLUE PLEDGES

In case you’re stuck for ideas I’m going to suggest a subject for a Blue Pledge inspired by the audiobook Collapse. Promise to buy only fish approved by the Marine Stewardship Council – this guarantees that the fish comes from sustainable stocks.

Simply go to www.theblueproject.org and click on the Make a BLUE Pledge button.

BE COOL, BE BLUE!

A special hello to all the kind people who have written to me from Hawaii to say Aloha and expressed a wish to greet me in. Don’t hold your breath just yet. but as soon as I know where I’m going to make landfall I will make sure I put a note on this website to let you know. And I’ll see you there!

Rochelle in Texas (and all your friends!) – thank you for your lovely message. I wish you could be in Hawaii too – I could seriously use that massage!

Hi also to Gene, John, Mark, Pippa, Dwight (sorry, don’t know the water temp here – cold enough, when I get splashed!), and Alex (thanks for the words of encouragement).

Click here to see Day 43 of the Atlantic Crossing January 13 2006.

You can now read any earlier blogs by exploring the list at the top right and at the foot of the Contents page. The link is to the left of the Marine Track box.

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