The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Friday 3 July 2009

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

A few weeks ago, when Ron over at Walking Fort Bragg absented himself for a few days to go and walk along a railway line, he posted a few links to other blogs to keep his readers entertained in his absence.

I clicked on one of the links, and over the coming days of avid reading I discovered that there’s a whole mad world out there of people rowing across oceans!

Ron’s link was to Roz Savage, who is currently in Stage 2 of her three stage bid to row solo across the Pacific, and soon I was so hooked on her writing that I dedicated a weekend to not only catching up with the events to date on her current trip, but also lapping up every word of her previous rows, across the Atlantic and the first stage of her Pacific trip.

Truly compelling, and exceptionally well written. I highly recommend popping over there to have a look.

It was befuddling enough to a boat-hater like me to learn that there is a woman out there, bobbing around, rowing an unfathomable distance half way across the globe. Then I found out that she’s not the only one.

Currently 3100 miles into a solo row across the Indian Ocean there is Sarah Outen, and then there’s a pair, Mick & Chris, who are 1700 miles into a little(!?) jaunt across the North Atlantic.

Even more befuddling is the fact that these people who really are taking endurance to the limits and are living in some incredibly testing conditions (even without taking the wetness, salt and bobbing into account) still manage to find the time and energy to post a daily Blog.

Excellent stuff!

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