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Portland to SF by Rowboat
The night before launching. A huge thank you to my friend Joy for helping me pull it all together. Goodbye Portland! Gone fishing! My 'on Safari in Kenya' selfie, except I am rowing down the Columbia River. Same same. Heavenly light. The morning light was such a gift. Photo 1 - there is so much beauty in the world. [...]
WASHINGTON TO SF
Only 17% of biographies on Wikipedia are about women. My mother learned this on the radio. I found this article online citing the same stat. It gets worse... if there aren't enough visitors to these women's pages, the pages disappear!!! Thankfully my page has not disappeared and even more delightful, I recently discovered my Lia Ditton wiki page has been [...]
Charlie Martell: Departs Japan!
Yesterday - Thursday 23rd May - at around 3PM in Japan, Charlie Martell rowed out of Choshi Marina bound for the USA. Woohoo!!! This is Charlie’s 2nd attempt to row the North Pacific along the same route I will row next year. In his first attempt, Charlie departed Choshi, Japan on May 12th 2012 and was picked up 35 days [...]
A Chinese Man and a Spaniard rowing solo to Hawaii.
It sounds like the beginning of a contentious joke, but next month is set to be an exciting month in ocean rowing. Two individuals - both of whom have rowed oceans before - are planning to set off from the US west coast bound for Hawaii. Part 1 - Man from China - Ruihan Yu Ruihan appeared in the Bay [...]
ROAD TRIP WITH STRIPY BOYFRIEND!
On Monday April 15, I checked out of Marina del Rey - for now anyway. Destination? 1,200 miles away: Anacortes, WA (2 hrs north of Seattle). In January I had flown up to visit Betts Boats with a view to having Betts, build the new boat. [New boat update to follow.] In the short term, there was work to do [...]
Film Trailer!
Last year as part of my training, I set myself a (smaller) challenge: circumnavigate the Farallon Islands - a chain of gnarly looking volcanic rocks some 26 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. You can see the islands occasionally, backlit by rays of low-lying sun or on particularly clear days as you cross the bridge from Marin County to [...]
FILM RELEASE!
I owe a debt of gratitude to the following individuals - Don Bekins and the SFYC David Holscher of Night Train Swimmers David McGuire of Shark Stewards Dr Dave Birznieks Also a special thank you to Danielle Sellwood of FindItFilm for continuing to collaborate with me on the making of these films and to all my wonderful Patreon/ Believers, without [...]
FISHING-FOR-SURVIVAL: Chapter 1
Fishing-for-survival training begins THIS WEEK! From a selection of trolling lures, I have borrowed two lures for my first round of training. The blue one I have named ‘Blue Lagoon’ and the orange one ‘Tropical Punch.’ Proper fisher-people probably do not name their lures, but as an aspiring fisher-person I have decided I would. I also have lures for [...]
BONUS STORM
For Part 1 click here. Part 2 By noon, the visibility socked in, 1 mile or less. The wind increased its howl and rain poured down. I was drifting at around 0.7 to 1.5 knots - too fast - so I wriggled into my foul weather, donned my harness and went on deck to deploy a drogue. A short time later [...]
SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY
ROUND CATALINA Part 1 I left the dock at night into the teeth of 18-25 knots of wind. I wanted a romp, a fast blast to Catalina. Adrenalin kept me awake and the cold numbed my body until it became detached from my mind. Chaotic, messy, loud, colliding, the sea was rough and mildly nauseating. I was over the Redondo [...]
HAS THERE BEEN ANY BACKLASH?
I spoke out for the first time about my 7-year experience of being stalked, on Thursday January 24th at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, CA. It was the hardest talk I have ever chosen to deliver. The purpose of the evening was to explore the question WHY. Why do I want to row across the Pacific Ocean? I am [...]
AN OPEN LETTER TO MY STALKER
Dear Christophe Launay, I am speaking out about being stalked by you, because after 7 years I refuse to live in fear anymore. This isn’t revenge. I wish you no harm. I write this today to set myself free of the shame, that I am the one you stalked; to fill in the missing years of the story of my [...]
First Presentation of The Year
THIS WEEK Thursday 7PM I'll be giving a talk at the Corinthian Yacht Club in Tiburon, CA. This is going to be a talk like no other. One I've never given before... and may never give again. The subject is WHY? The big Why. Why do I want to row across the Pacific Ocean? Free and open to the public [...]
Film Release
PERSEVERANCE Here it is! The full 8-min film of my California Coast Row June 2018. This film was funded by my Patreon.com/rowliarow family of Believers. Consider supporting today ? https://vimeo.com/305547172
2018 – Beyond The Gate
The first part of the year was hard, but each Believer who signed up on Patreon helped me get back on the oars. Rowing to the Farallons in April was a proper 3-day adventure. Little did I know that ‘short’ training row would become one of last year’s greatest challenges. I departed for what became my final, record-setting attempt on [...]