I received these words in an email from Frank Betush of the Adventurers' Club in LA. I was so impressed with his succinct summary of the appeal of solo adventuring, I wanted to share.
"I religiously enjoy solo bike touring - miles days and weeks of open road, long periods at a repetitive task. You used the term, 'liberating'. Yes. Turning pedals or pulling oars becomes a mantra as deep parts of the Cortical Dominion are exposed, purifying introspection. I concur with your view of solo journey psychology. It is not 'aloneness', but a sacred time to speak to 'self'.
Some brows furrow when you speak of another trip, though few among those seasoned faces at the club who share your addiction. It is not wonder-lust. I leave on each new tour, not desperate to see the opposite side of the globe, but to spend more quiet time with that human within. Once introduced to that internal persona, failing to embark, might we not forget our mental-selves?
Best luck and may 'The Oar-Force' be with you on future trips.
Frank Betush"
[Photo: I don't have a photo of Frank, but here is one he took of me]
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Today I met with Andrew Morris of PA Freight to discuss the ongoing saga of trying to get Sedna from Antigua to Miami. Andrew has stepped up after another shipping company proved unable to help. My progress across the Atlantic may have been slow, but nowhere near as slow as getting Sedna across the Caribbean.
As well as being the official race shipper, Andrew was surely the most dogged competitor in the Atlantic Rowing Race. Shortly after the start, he fell over on the boat and suffered concussion. While Andrew was in hospital his crewmate decided their row was off and flew back to France. Andrew recovered and still wanted to race but now had no partner. Over a beer one night, he persuaded Mick Dawson, one of the race officials, to drop everything and join him in rowing an ocean.
And they did it - overtaking me in the process (grrr!) - and finishing in the 7th fastest time. Impressive persistence.
I just hope Andrew can be as successful in persuading the Antiguan agents into action...
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I lived in Emsworth for 5 months while I prepared to row the Atlantic. I loved it. But it seems to have shrunk while I've been away. Or maybe my world has got bigger.
The wine bar has closed. The local boat heritage project has finished. The Emsworth Food Festival has been and gone. But not much has changed.
In a way, this is reassuring. There will always be an Emsworth, and I suspect it will always be a remarkably unchanged one. But if I lived here full-time I think it would drive me crazy.
[Photo: Emsworth swans]
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Looking around at my college reunion last night, there were a few surprises. 20 years after we first arrived as freshers in Oxford, rebels have become establishment, and free spirits have become responsible parents. Most were slightly greyer, balder, fatter or wrinklier, but some had barely aged at all, or even improved with age.
If we had, 20 years ago, written our notions of what other people would be doing in 2006, I doubt if there would have been many right answers. If I'd had to write a prediction about my own life, I would certainly have been way off the mark. I'd have guessed I'd be a wife and mother, living in the Home Counties in a nice house, rather than a nomad wandering the world and rowing across oceans.
But I wouldn't change my life for a moment. It's unpredictable and insecure, but I love it. It feels like I'm really living.
[Photo: me between Jon Taylor and Robert 'Spike' Milligan - fellow law students at Univ, and now a successful sports lawyer and barrister respectively. And respectably.]
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