Roz Savage's Blog, page 32

I have been obsessed with this question for the last 9 years, ever since I had my environmental epiphany in a small cottage in Sligo in 2004. It was the motivation behind my ocean ocean rowing voyages – the idea was that I could reach new audiences by using adventure as my medium, rather than more conventional methods of environmental outreach. I did my best to reach outside the choir, using my blogs, videos, presentations and books to raise environmental awareness.

To an extent I believe it worked, although the frustrating thing with “raising awareness” is that it is nigh on impossible to quantify, and is mostly judged on anecdotal evidence. But even if I couldn’t be sure that my messages were always hitting their mark, at least I had a sense of progress as my oarstroke count mounted up, as did the miles passing beneath my keel, and the number of oceans crossed. It may not have been the right metric, but it was a metric.

Ever since I hung up my oars in October 2011 (via a brief almost-lured-out-of-retirement episode in 2012), I have returned time and again to the question of “what next?”. As the scale and urgency of our environmental challenges becomes every greater, at times I have almost panicked about my inaction. Obsessing about problems is no substitute for resolving them.

Two tentative theories have emerged from all this obsessive thinking.

Source: Reuters/Larry Downing

1. Governments are not looking after our long-term interests. They mostly just want to get re-elected. Big Business is not looking after our long-term interests. They mostly just want to keep their shareholders and chief execs happy and rich and complacent. (Annie Leonard describes this brilliantly in her 20-minute video, The Story of Stuff.)

2. Most people aren’t listening. This is not their fault. We live in a crazily hectic world, where the average American is bombarded by as many as 5,000 advertising messages every day, spends 5 hours a day watching TV, let’s not even start on social media, and has on average only 16 paid days of vacation per year. At one time it was thought that technology would deliver us additional leisure time in which to ponder the big questions of life, but instead our modern lifestyle has created new diversions, chewing up our time and distracting us from what really matters. When a person’s waking hours are already 100% full, they don’t have time or headspace to ponder urgent messages about the long-term future of humanity.

“We get the government we deserve”, said Alexis de Tocqueville. So if we’re not thinking long-term, why should our governments? It’s not going to win them any votes – probably the opposite.

Maybe we also get the corporations we deserve. At a high-level meeting about the crisis of childhood obesity, the head of General Mills, Stephen Sanger, bluntly said, “Don’t talk to me about nutrition”. If people want to eat fat-laden, salt-laden, sugar-laden foods (an unfortunate genetic hangover from long-forgotten times when food was scarce), then that is what Big Food would continue to provide.

So if governments won’t take a lead, and corporations won’t take a lead, that leaves us. You, me, your neighbours, your colleagues, your friends. We can’t look outside ourselves for the leader. We have to BE the leader.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

(Mahatma Gandhi)

and

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” 

(Margaret Mead)

 

[Featured image: me marching with 350.org in Copenhagen, 2009]

 

 

Earlier this year I had this email correspondence with Jesper from Finland. I share it here (with Jesper’s kind permission) for those of you who might be wondering, having done the obituary exercise – “well now I know what I want to do, but my circumstances don’t allow”. Bear in mind that it doesn’t necessarily have to be all or nothing – the process of realigning yourself for your fantasy future can be gradual.

 

Greetings, [message sent via the contact form on my website]

While I don’t have high hopes that this will actually reach Roz Savage I still feel, oddly enough, obligated to write this.

I accidentally stumbled upon a TED talk of yours yesterday while I was grocery shopping. To say the least you hit a very sensitive spot in my mind. I’m heading towards a future that is very much identical to the “old life” that you had. I’ll probably get a good job (I’m a business student) with long work hours and a good salary. What your talk made me realise is that there’s something missing in my life, a major and vital part. I’ve had this feeling for quite some time, that I’m somehow going towards a life that I don’t really want to have. I’ve been adventurous all my life. Challenges have always made me feel alive and that’s the part I’m missing out on…   

The reason behind this message is mainly to thank you. You’ve opened my eyes to a future that I feel is worth striving towards, a future that I can feel excited about. But, I also happen be in need for some guidance. I’m a university student, with limited funds and three years to go, until I graduate. I wish I could ask you what I should do to achieve an adventurous life style but that’s a question I’d have to figure out myself, sadly. So instead of asking what I should do, I’ll ask you; when you look back at your life, what would you have done differently in order to achieve the lifestyle you really wanted  at an earlier stage in life? 

Thanks in advance, you’re a true inspiration to me!

Regards,

Jesper    

 

Hi Jesper

No worries – I got your email! I’m glad you wrote. If I can save a soul from the office grind, I am happy to do so!

Source: iStock/lmbarney22

You ask a good question. For me personally, I don’t actually regret the years in the office. I didn’t like them at all (although I met some great people who are still friends), but they a) equipped me with some project management skills that have proved useful, and b) gave me a very powerful motivation to make my adventures succeed – faced with the threat of returning to the office, I would do anything rather than that!

Having said that, and to try and answer your question, you really just have to make up your mind to do it. Looking at people like Sarah Outen or Ollie Hicks, they’ve known from early on what they wanted to do. They may have had some interim jobs, but only to earn money. It’s not possible to come up with a business plan for a life of adventure, or certainly not one that would impress a bank manager (or possibly your parents!) but if you are determined, you can make it happen.

Also bear in mind that it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. Alastair Humphreys manages to combine his micro adventures with life as a family man.

Or my younger sister has had a “proper” job with the same company for the last 10 years or so, but they have allowed her to resign to do things like the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, the Pacific Crest Trail, travel around the world for a year, etc – and they keep taking her back afterwards. Of course, she’s enormously over-qualified and underpaid for the job, but at least it gives her a fair degree of flexibility.

For me personally, I like to do things 110%, so I wouldn’t try to combine adventuring with another job, but I’m just trying to take the pressure off you a bit. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an all-or-nothing, now-or-never decision.

I hope this helps!

All best

Roz

 

Hey Roz,

Thanks a lot for the answer, it’s much appreciated! 

You prove a very good point, it’s usually not all or nothing. At least not in the stage I’m in now. Unfortunately I’m also like yourself, the kind of person that is 110% into the things that I do. But I suppose it’s not too bad to start from the “grey-zone” and work up oneself upwards. I strongly agree that the most important thing is to decide what to do and after that actually do it. Get out of the ugly comfort zone, a very uncomfortable task as you’ve both said and written. I got a vague plan of where I want to go and how I’ll get there. Maybe with a bit of refining I could actually start to follow it by heart, just to see where it takes me. The worst thing that can happen is that I fail which, in the end, isn’t that bad.   

Seeing people that have done extraordinary things, like yourself, is always a great motivator! I always think, “If they can do it, why can’t I?” This e-mail helped a lot, so thank you, again! 

When I embark on my own adventures I promise that I’ll send you an e-mail about it! 

Best of luck with your future adventures!

Regards,

Jesper   

 

So please, don’t be disheartened if your dreams seem a long way off. The main thing is to hold true to your vision. Even if you get there more slowly than you would wish, every day do something, no matter how small, to get you a bit closer. And try not to allow yourself to get further away.

 

[Featured image: Sherry of www.ottsworld.com]

 

In 1997 Victoria Riches and her mother Sue were part of a world record breaking relay expedition as members of the first all women’s expedition to the North Pole, as recorded in their book, Frigid Women.

Victoria now lives near Bath, England, with her husband Jeremy Humphries, a film cameraman, and her young son Ben. She is Commercial Manager of Teachit, an online educational publishing company, and also still works as a motivational and after dinner speaker and runs personal development training courses.

For Victoria’s full bio, see the Anything Is Possible website.

[My apologies to Victoria for apparently speaking over her so much in this interview. We were on a poor telephone line from their rural home and I was having difficulty hearing her.]

 

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Show Notes

2:40 The selection process for the North Pole expedition

4:15 How expedition technology has changed over the last 15 years

5:50 Self-limiting beliefs and how they hold us back

6:05 Adventures don’t have to be expensive and time-consuming

6:50 Why aren’t there more women adventurers?

9:05 Vive la difference! between male and female adventurers (in connection with this, I loved Mikael Strandberg’s recent blog post, Can Female Explorers Save Us From Extinction?)

11:30 The dangers of the Arctic

14:10 How did the Arctic change Victoria’s life?

18:40 In Victoria’s work as a life coach, how does she impart her wisdom to her clients without taking them to the North Pole? Gets them to recall a moment when they felt confident and create a physical anchor to summon up that feeling on demand.

22:50 Getting away from the fear of failure and learning to take responsibility

26:00 Future dreams

Mistakes – the Best Teachers

Victoria Humphries

“We all need to take responsibility and realise that it’s okay to make mistakes – that’s how you learn in life.”  (Victoria Humphries)

I loved the moment in our podcast when Victoria said these words. I strongly agree that we are too afraid of making mistakes, and as Victoria’s mother Sue put it, we should more often say yes – and think about how to cope with it afterwards.

Maybe it starts in childhood, when our parents want to protect us from making mistakes. This is because they quite naturally don’t want us to get hurt if we overestimate about our ability to balance, or climb trees, or ride a bicycle, but it’s hard for over-protected children to develop a sense of personal responsibility – not to mention a sense of survival.

From my perspective, I have definitely learned more from my mistakes than from my successes. As the American novelist E. W. Howe once said, “A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice”. I’ve given myself more good scares than I care to remember, but luckily none of them were terminal, and you can be sure I never made those mistakes again.

Our podcast tagline is “adventure is a state of mind” – and in my view, that state of mind has to encompass a willingness to fail. And this doesn’t just refer to physical mishaps. To succeed in the ultimate adventure – that one called life – we have to be willing to step outside what is comfortable and strive higher, and acknowledge that the higher we strive, the more likely we are to screw up – but learning from that experience and trying again are the only way we can push the limits of human endeavour.

To quote again – this time from T. S. Eliot, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go”.

I’ll finish with a question/challenge for you – how far would you go if you weren’t afraid to fail?

And if that question was too easy – supposing you did fail, just how bad could/would that be? Is it better or worse than never trying at all?

 

 

The most important thing I ever did in my life, was to imagine that I was dead.

If you’ve ever heard me speak, or read my first book or the prologue to my second, you will have heard all about this already. Possibly multiple times. But I’d like to repeat it here for the sake of completeness, and for the benefit of newcomers. If a story’s worth telling, it’s worth re-telling ad nauseam.

I was in my early thirties, and I felt trapped. Superficially I had all the trappings of a “happy” life – a nice house, decent salary, good friends. But it just wasn’t working for me. I felt stressed yet de-motivated at work, and as my performance failed to meet my own standards, my self-esteem was nose-diving. Externally, all may have looked well. Internally, I was leading a life of quiet desperation.

Everything changed on the day that I wrote two versions of my own obituary. I imagined that I was at the end of my life, looking back and thinking about what I did with my time here on Earth. I wrote two versions – the one I wanted, and the one I was heading for if I carried on as I was.

The obituary exercise (re-enacted)

I wrote the “fantasy obituary” first. My pen sped across the paper as I described this person who got out there and lived life to the full, who would try anything at least once, who might succeed or they might fail but they would always learn something from the experience, who really seemed to grab hold of life with both hands. That version of my life seemed so authentic to me that when I finished writing it I sat back with a sigh of satisfaction and thought, “WOW, what a great life I’ve had!”. It took me a moment to recall that this was just a fantasy.

By contrast, my actual life seemed like a half-life by comparison. Superficially satisfying though it looked, it clearly did not measure up to the new benchmark I had just created. The fantasy life felt like the one that I had actually been born to live, free from fear, free to flourish. Now that I had glimpsed what could be, I could no longer pretend that this half-life was enough for me.

I realised then that I needed to make a radical change of direction if I wasn’t going to end up disappointed with my life. Combine that with an environmental epiphany and a burning desire to spread the good green word, and you have the makings of a major life transformation. It was time for me to stop drifting, and start rowing.

 

If you want to do this exercise for yourself, I highly recommend it, but it does come with a government health warning that “This exercise may change your life”. But isn’t that the point?

Get a pen and a notebook – or if you really want to you can use your laptop or tablet, but I find using a pen and paper taps into a different and more creative part of my brain, so even though I’m a virtually paperless person I make an exception in this case. Carve out an hour or two from your busy life and find somewhere you can enjoy interrupted time to yourself. And start writing.

An important tip: I didn’t write about what I wanted to DO – that comes later. First of all, I needed to envisage the person I wanted to BE. What character traits would friends remember me for? What kind of life would they say I’d led?

If you’re still struggling to get started, there is a useful guide here that gives you a list of 15 great questions to get your creative juices flowing.

U Journaling Guide (pdf)

Good luck! And don’t say I didn’t warn you!

 

Alastair Humphreys is a British adventurer, author and motivational speaker. He also writes a great blog, and makes mini-documentaries about his adventures. His career as an adventurer started with a four-year trip around the world by bicycle. He has also walked across India, and rowed across the Atlantic in a four-man crew. His current passion is #microadventures, adventures that can be undertaken with a minimum of time and money, requiring little more than an adventurous spirit. National Geographic named him Adventurer of the Year in 2012.

Much more about Alastair in his website bio.

 

 

 

 

 

Show Notes

2:40 Where does Alastair’s taste for adventure come from?

4:30 Adventure writing without the stiff upper lip

5:50 On acquiring new skills – photography, filming etc

6:35 Vulnerability and masochism, finding motivation in tough times

8:55 Microadventures – why you don’t need lots of time and money to be an adventurer. Alastair mentioned our mutual friend Tom Allen, who had got himself a touring bicycle for around the same price as a round of drinks.

12:25 Rowing the Atlantic with 3 other men, teamwork, the importance of humour

15:00 Egos and teams, does adventure give a sense of what’s important in life?

Al is self-reflective

17:30 Roz reads an excerpt from Alastair’s book, There Are Other Rivers

18:30 Top bits of kit for a microadventure – a bin bag, a bivvy bag, Thermarest “because any idiot can be uncomfortable”

20:40 On taking good travel photographs

22:30 What next for Alastair? The book of microadventures

23:10 Publishers and self-publishing. Alastair mentions CreateSpace for self-publishing.

25:30 A culinary microadventure – The A to Z of London Eating

 

Video Links:

A video on How To Plan Your Next Microadventure (via Red Bull)
5 to 9 Microadventure - if this doesn’t whet your appetite for microadventure, I don’t know what will!
Island Camp Microadventure with Tom Allen
Rowing the Atlantic
This is possibly my favourite, for capturing the absolute essence of microadventure
And lots more on Alastair’s website.

 

How important is it to enjoy the journey?

 

“Serial adventurers are willing to live on the basis of retrospective pleasures, which is having a truly miserable time in the hope that at some point in the indeterminate future you will be happy about the whole thing.”  (Alastair Humphreys)

Al Humphreys suffering self-doubt?

There are few adventurers that I have encountered who describe the hardship, self-doubt, frustration, and occasional self-recrimination of adventure as articulately as Alastair Humphreys does. The quote above, taken from our podcast conversation, sums up exactly how I felt about ocean rowing on an almost daily basis.

I kept trying to enjoy the journey, but eventually had to admit to myself that some things are inherently just not enjoyable. But that does not mean that they should not be attempted. This meshes with the concept of the “Retrospective Perspective” that I mentioned in last week’s reflections on the Jason McKinlay podcast. What seems most challenging at the time will pay the biggest dividends.

The Atlantic row – my first voyage – was and remains the hardest thing I have ever done. But the feeling of euphoria on arriving in Antigua after 103 hellacious days at sea remains unparalleled in my experience. If you’ve heard me speak you may have heard me describe it as being like finishing a marathon, winning an Oscar, and getting out of jail, all rolled into one (although admittedly I have direct experience of only one of those things – I will leave it to you to guess which one). I have no doubt that the overwhelming sense of accomplishment – and relief – was in direct proportion to the hardship of the crossing.

In a slight leap of logic – but bear with me here – it also makes me think of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment, in which young children were offered one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows if they could wait until the researcher returned in 15 minutes. Follow-up surveys showed a clear correlation between the ability to defer gratification and subsequent success in life, as measured by academic scores, BMI, and other life measures.

This got me wondering….

-       Do adventurers have a predisposition to defer gratification, and this is what enables them to endure hardships in pursuit of a greater goal?

-       Or do they learn to defer gratification by having set their sights on a goal, and when they unavoidably encounter hardships en route, they just have to learn to deal with them in order to attain the goal?

And a corollary to this…..

-       Are adventurers more likely to be successful in other ventures than non-adventurers because of what they have learned on expedition?

-       Or is it because they already have a solid set of life skills that they are able to conceive and execute the expedition in the first place?

What do you think? Comments, please!

Speaking personally, I think I had something of a predisposition to defer gratification, certainly when I was a quiet and studious child, and although I’d lost it somewhere in my hedonistic twenties I was able to rediscover it on the Atlantic. On the second point, I’d started to develop a few useful life skills before I set out across oceans, but oh boy, crossing the Atlantic was definitely a crash course in developing a whole load more!

So my belief is that you don’t have to be “that kind of person” to have an adventure. You just have to decide that having an adventure is something you really, really want to do, and that you won’t let anything stand in your way – least of all some temporary discomfort or misery.

And by the time you finish your first adventure – voila! You will be an adventurer! Just remember though, as Captain Webb’s epitaph said, nothing great is easy….

 

 

 

 

In 1967….

I am born.

Massive demonstrations against the war in Vietnam take place in San Francisco, New York City and Washington DC.

Muhammed Ali is stripped of his boxing title and sent to prison for refusing to enter the US army.

83 people die in race riots in the US.

Aretha Franklin releases “Respect”.

The Rolling Stones appear on the Ed Sullivan Show – and get busted for drugs. Several times.

The Beatles release the album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and John Lennon takes delivery of his psychedelic painted Rolls Royce.

Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu get married in Las Vegas.

The Apollo 1 fire kills 3 astronauts.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom has already been on the throne for 15 years.

Francis Chichester becomes the first person to sail single-handedly around the world via the capes, in his boat the Gypsy Moth.

Che Guevara is executed.

Scientists Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald become the first scientists to flag up the connection between atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and Earth’s climate.

The top films include The Graduate, The Jungle Book, Bonnie & Clyde, The Dirty Dozen, You Only Live Twice, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Casino Royale, Cool Hand Luke, and Valley of the Dolls.

 

Since then…..

[Source]

The human population has more than doubled, from 3.4 billion to 7.1 billion.

World oil production, expressed in barrels per day, has risen from 37.12 million to 79.95 million.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen from 322 ppm to over 400 ppm.

The global average temperature has risen from 13.99 degrees C to 14.57 degrees C (2009).

Annual car production has risen from 19 million to 49 million.

Annual world grain production has increased from 1,014 million tons to 2,213 million tons (2010).

Annual fertiliser consumption has risen from 55 million tons per year to 163 million tons.

Number of undernourished people has remained around the same, up slightly from 878 million to 925 million.

Gross World Product has grown from 15.76 trillion US$ to 73.24 trillion US$ (adjusted to $4,343 per person to $10,728 in 2009 US$ terms).

The number of Earths needed to meet human demands (i.e. humanity’s ecological footprint) has risen from 0.77 Earths to 1.51 Earths (2007).

 

All this has happened on our watch. Even if we think it’s not our fault, how can we not care?

“There is no greater gift you can give or receive than to honour your calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.” (Oprah Winfrey)

Do you ever have the feeling that you somehow missed the bit of the instruction manual that told how to have a great life? Do you feel like there is another whole dimension to living that you can’t quite access? Do you feel as if the party is happening somewhere else and you didn’t get the invite?

It could be that what you are missing is a sense of purpose, a guiding passion in your life that can release abilities and energies that right now you can only dream of.

Mo Farah, the Somali-born long distance runner

When you watch someone who is utterly in tune with what they were born to do, it is incredibly uplifting. Think of the last time you heard a talented musician, or watched an athlete winning a gold medal, or cheered on a legendary rugby try, or saw a piece of art so beautiful it moved you to tears.

Did you get that sort of goosebumpy, exhilarated feeling that left you glowing for hours afterwards? You know the one I mean. Witnessing someone “in the zone” or “on song” or “in flow” leaves you feeling, at least for a while, that the world is a better place.

I remember getting those goosebumps, but not believing for a moment that I could find my own special talent, or life purpose. Those who had seemed especially privileged, the lucky ones – and I was one of the not-so-lucky ones doomed to a life of pleasant mediocrity.

Now I believe differently.

Let’s explode a few myths here:

1. If, as I did, you believe that life purposes are something that happens to other people, get over it. I believe that anyone can find their life purpose – if they want to.

2. There isn’t just one life purpose per person. There may be many alternative routes you can take to the top of the mountain, and at different times of your life you may want to pursue different paths. Having a life purpose may not be a once-and-for-all kind of deal.

3. But it’s not easy. It won’t necessarily come and find you. You may have to go and look for it. And it may not show up exactly when you expect, or look like you thought it would. But you’ll know it when you see it, if you trust your instincts.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll be writing a lot more about this – how to go about finding your life purpose, the rewards it will bring, and how to cope when life pulls you off your compass bearing. I’m convinced that it’s the best, if not only, way to find happiness – and it costs a lot less than a pair of Jimmy Choos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is with a tremendous sense of awe and excitement that I present you with our first ever episode of the Adventure Podcast.

As our first guest, I welcome Jason McKinley, an accomplished endurance athlete and adventurer who rowed the Atlantic in 2003. He has run no fewer than 55 marathons, including a marathon on Everest and the gruelling Marathon of the Sands in the Sahara desert.

Originally hailing from Liverpool, Jason now lives in Salcombe, Devon with his wife Sarah and their children Oliver, 3, and baby Emilia Rose.

Jason and his rowing partner, Josh Tarr, also from Salcombe, have recently knocked 11 days off the existing world record for rowing around Great Britain when they came home after 41 days 4 hours and 38 minutes at sea.

Show Notes:

1:25 – on being a “working class adventurer”, challenging himself physically and mentally

2:50 – on motivation in adventuring and racing

5:50 – beginnings: how Jason started out in adventuring

7:30 – choosing a rowing partner for crossing an ocean

9:30 – the Great Britain Row (Note: the “American lady” that Jason refers to, who has rowed the Atlantic AND around Britain, is the amazing Angela Madsen.

16:50 – what’s next for Jason, wanting to get back to adventuring the old-fashioned way, the mixed blessing of satellite phones (Jason mentions the polar explorer Erling Kagge, who removed the batteries from his mandatory safety radio so as to be uncontactable)

19:30 – the adventuring attitude, the need to not miss the things that you just can’t have. I refer to James “Tiny” Little, who rowed the Atlantic in 2005.

21:40 – when is a broken watermaker not a broken watermaker?

22:50 – I do Jason’s bragging for him

23:40 – Jason’s work with his personal training clients, running with them and motivating/inspiring them (this is my personal favourite part of this conversation!

29:00 – facing failure, Jason introduces us to his WAY system – Who Are You? and being true to that

30:50 – Jason talks about his other role, as a family man, and his hopes for his children

32:00 – more about the WAY system – how to use it to approach life (and phone calls!) with confidence, how to reduce bad habits

35:55 – how to donate to the good causes that Jason supported during his GB Row. See also their crew website.

 

The Retrospective Perspective

Jason McKinley

During our podcast, Jason mentioned that helping his fitness clients to achieve their goals has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of his life to date.

I loved the story that he told about doing an Ironman triathlon with a client of his, a 61-year-old woman. It was her third attempt. During the second lap of the run, when it was already dark, she started to struggle. She said she didn’t think she could do it, and in fact wasn’t even sure the Ironman was really the event for her.

Jason kept his calm. He knew that taking the Navy Seal PT Fitness Instructor approach was not going to be the most effective.

Sure, he said. No worries. You can run another 20K or we can stop here. Why don’t we go into that bar over there? Probably the Ryder Cup is on live.

But just before we do that, imagine yourself in 10 years time, and how you will feel then if you make that decision now. Ask yourself if you will feel fulfilled. You’ll be the only person who knows the answer – everyone around you will say well done for having got this far. Only you will ever know if you did the right thing in stopping.

Needless to say, the story has a happy ending. After walking a bit, she started jogging, then running, and went on to win her age group by a couple of hours. She is now number 1 in Europe in her age group, and later this year will be doing a half-ironman with her 50-year-old younger brother, who has been inspired by her example.

This story really resonated with me because I went through similar doubts on the Atlantic. Amongst the many techniques I devised/improvised/scrabbled around desperately for in order to keep myself going, one was what I called the “Retrospective Perspective”. I kept reminding myself that having got this far, spent this much time and money, told so many people what I was going to do, I’d feel so disappointed in myself if I quit.

I found it really helped if I imagined I was writing the book about my adventure. Right now this experience might feel like the worst thing that had ever happened to me, but eventually it would make a fantastic story. In fact, the worse it was, the more dramatic the story would be! This helped me to detach myself from my immediate suffering, and to see it in the overall context of my life.

If you’re facing a big and challenging project in your life right now, why not try out this technique? When it all seems overwhelming, offer yourself a get-out clause. Think about how it would feel if you quit. Then think about how you would feel about that choice in 10 years’ time. Would you be happy with it, or would you regret giving up?

There is no right or wrong answer to this question. You’re perfectly entitled to quit if you’re happy this will still seem like a good decision 10 years from now. Or you might find that this really tough time is actually just a relatively short-lived slump in motivation, and eventually you’ll be proud that you persevered.

I’ll leave you with this quote from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, which relates to this:

“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved towards that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon’. Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being sorely tested.”

This summer is an exciting time for me. With another book in the pipeline, due out 15th October, I’m revamping my website and getting my house in order, ready to hit the ground running (or the water rowing).

I’m going to take August as a break from blogging – not that I won’t be busy writing behind the scenes, but I’d like to take a little hiatus before I relaunch with a new style in early September. (I’ll still be Tweeting and Facebooking, though, so I’m not disappearing entirely.)

Here’s a flavour of what’s to come:

I’m going to blog regularly (yes, really!) on three main areas: Adventure, Inspiration, and Environment.

The core of the Adventure strand will be a brand new podcast: Roz Savage’s Adventure Podcast. Each week I’ll be “in conversation with” a different guest about their projects / expeditions / adventures, trying to get to the heart of why they do what they do, and how they do it. The goal is to leave listeners feeling inspired, energised, and informed.

I’ve been podcasting since 2008 (you can listen to my Pacific podcasts online). During my ocean rowing years I was always the interviewee, so I’m excited about flipping things around so I get to ask the questions – although really, the goal is to have a fun and informative conversation rather than a traditional Q&A interview.

Within the Inspiration strand I’ll be picking up on the lessons that I have learned both on and off the ocean. I’d already done a lot of reading and processing and thinking before I started rowing oceans, and 520 days of solitude on the sea gave me the opportunity for a heck of a lot more thinking – which, I think, has led to some useful insights. As Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” I’ll be presenting them in a way that I hope you will find useful as you face that challenge that we all share – the one called life.

At the West Cork Literary Festival in Bantry, Ireland, earlier this month

Environment – well, I can’t NOT write about it! Concern over the way we’re treating our planet was what inspired me to start rowing across oceans in the first place, and I still believe it’s the Number One issue facing our generation. The human population has doubled in my lifetime, and we’re consuming more resources than ever. So for those of you who have followed my evolution as an environmental advocate, fear not – my passion for sustainability is still very much front of mind.

I hope you’ll enjoy all this good stuff. Have a great summer and I’ll see you in September! (or on Twitter or on Facebook)

P.S. Just in case you missed it, I’m releasing a sneak preview of my upcoming book, Stop Drifting, Start Rowing. If you’re already on my mailing list you should have received details of how to download your copy of the Prologue and Chapter 1. If you’re not on my mailing list yet, please sign up in the box on the right to get your free sneak peek!

P.P.S. On 6th AugustI’m doing an online event to benefit the wonderful work of the Pachamama Alliance. In a moderated conversation, writer and activist Drew Dellinger and I will be exploring the intersection of cosmology and art, and how unbridled passion for the planet can break through the destructive stories of our time and create an entirely new landscape of possibility. Please join us by registering here!

P.P.P.S. If you’re feeling energetic, we’re doing a big sponsored row in London (or you can join in virtually) to raise money to refurbish an old hospital ship on Lake Malawi so that it can once again serve the communities around the lake. Please check out what we’re doing at The Big Row. Even if you can’t be there, you can still donate to this life-saving cause!

 

 

This blog is rather long, but now we are at the denouement of this doomed attempt, let’s just get it over and done with. I’ve also refrained from adding after-the-fact comments this time around, letting you see the story as it stood at the time.

So here you go – the humiliating end to this first attempt on the Pacific.

If you’ve enjoyed these excerpts over the last few weeks, please think about pre-ordering my new book, Stop Drifting, Start Rowing: One Woman’s Search for Happiness and Meaning Alone on the Pacific. I had great fun writing it – I hope you’ll enjoy reading it! (I’ve just set up my Author’s Profile over on Goodreads. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a thriving online community of people who love books. Let me know what you think of my new page – do you like it? Anything else you’d like to see on there?)

What to do next?
Rita Savage

23 Aug 2007

6pm GMT Roz has called me several times today on the satellite phone. She was making good progress without rowing. Following the two capsizes already mentioned on yesterday’s blog, she put out Sid the sea-anchor to keep the boat with bows facing the waves so that she would not roll again. During the night it did happen again.

Venturing out onto the deck to find out what Sid was doing, she found only 6 feet of rope attached to nothing. Sid had gone.

She called Rick her weather forecaster to find out what the prospects were, only to learn that MarineTrack had lost track of her. Her GPS was not working either, so she had no idea where she was. After her first phone call to me she tried deploying her drogue – which I gather is something like a big canvas bucket with a hole in it, which if streamed out behind the boat should help to keep it going straight. Since it would be risky to open the rear hatch, we had to discuss options as to how to affix the drogue to the rear of the boat. She went out to try, but did not feel she had been very successful.

By this time, we had called on the researchers at TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators) that have supplied the Brocade with 4 redundant satellite tracking devices. Don Kohrs was on the case immediately and got us a precise location for Roz. Shortly after, Roz went out again to retrieve her hand-held GPS from her emergency grab-bag in a hatch out on the deck.

Roz got very cold being out there, and is now lying in her wet sleeping bag, shivering. She had bumped her head during one of the capsizes.

In a later call when she knew the co-ordinates of her position, and I had made a few phone calls to find out the prospects of rescue, we debated whether she wished to be rescued or not. In some ways she felt that she could not continue without a sea anchor and with the damage done to some of her electronics. However, having got that far, and not wanting to give in at the first hurdle, she now says that she wants to stick it out for another 24 hours and see how it goes. There is a sea anchor available which could be taken out by helicopter and dropped for her. MarineTrack is again following her, with updated locations on our tracking page.

It is a real shame that this has happened so early in the voyage – and she really has moved some distance in the last day or so. It sounds like all the ingredients of a nightmare for those of us safely on terra firma. A living nightmare for Roz, she dreads another night of sleepless worry about whether the boat will capsize again. She feels safe, but not at all comfortable. Thank you for all your messages of encouragement and concern for her, and for me. We will keep you informed.

Comments posted at the time

 

Roz On Dry Land: Safe, Healthy and Ready to Return to Sea
24 Aug 2007

Due to a combination of high seas to 14 feet and 35kt gale force winds, and the loss of her sea anchor, Roz made the decision last night to return to dry land and resume her journey when conditions improve. The United States Coast Guard arrived at the Brocade via helicopter to evacuate Roz at 8:30 p.m. PDT. She arrived safely in California at approximately 10:00 p.m., at which point she underwent a complete medical evaluation, standard procedure for a Coast Guard rescue. After a good meal and a full night’s sleep, Roz is in good spirits and has a clean bill of health.

The boat is currently still at sea, with its tracking systems in place, and the team is planning to retrieve it as soon as the weather conditions improve. At that point, Roz looks forward to returning to the San Francisco Bay Area in the next few days and exploring options for retrieving her boat and continuing her adventure under optimal conditions.

On behalf of Roz and her family, her friends and her shore team, we’d like to express our gratitude to the USCG for their assistance. Roz also appreciates the outpouring of well-wishes during the past few days and sends her thanks to everyone for their ongoing support.

Last evening Roz was airlifted off her boat and is now in California. More news will be coming shortly.

Click on the Weather tab [not available on this blog] above to see the new weather report by Rick Shema. Other weather information is regrettably not up to date as a result of malfunction of a recording device on the boat.

Because of the volume of comments, we’ve disabled the standard web comments and request that you use the Contact Form to send Roz messages of support. Thank you.

Comments posted at the time, before that facility was disabled

 

Dramatic Rescue at Sea
Roz Savage

24 Aug 2007, USCG Humboldt Bay, Northern California

Thanks all the people who have been in touch to express concern for my safety. I can assure you that I am absolutely fine, and am making plans to return to the Brocade as soon as possible. More of that later, but first I would like to present the ‘authorised’ version of yesterday’s events, plus the link to the YouTube video…

A powerful wave rear-ended my boat. I shot down my bunk, my sleeping bag tobogganning over the slippery vinyl of the mattress. I came to an abrupt halt when my skull collided with the wall at the end of the cabin.

Ouch.

I sat up. Blood trickled down my face. I explored the damage with my fingers. It didn’t seem too bad. I dabbed the blood away with a flannel and lay back down on my bunk to try and sleep, although it wasn’t easy to do more than doze as my boat lurched around on the high seas.

This was Wednesday night. The night before, Tuesday, I had capsized twice. The first time the Brocade rolled right over until she was upside down in the water. I lay flattened on the roof of my cabin, while all around me belongings escaped from their straps and slid around the curved walls of the cabin like garments in a washing machine. For what felt a long time the Brocade remained inverted. I held my breath, willing her to turn. At last she slowly started to self-right, and my belongings and I returned to the floor of the cabin – but in a very different arrangement from how we had started out. The cabin was a mess, with the majority of the objects piled up on top of my legs and feet.

I moved enough things aside so I could get out of my sleeping bag to check the status on the darkened deck. As I opened the hatch the wind was blowing strongly and spray was flying through the air. I clipped into my waiststrap so that if another destructive wave came along I wouldn’t be parted from the Brocade. It didn’t look too bad out here, considering what had just happened. I unfastened the cockpit bags from their fixings and stowed them in a hatch, just to be on the safe side. A huge wave crashed over the side of the boat, drenching me in cold seawater.

Soaked, I returned to my cabin and tried to get warm again inside my sleeping bag. I strapped myself down to the bunk using the straps secured to the cabin floor, hoping this would stop me ending up on the ceiling if I should roll again.

Two hours later the second capsize came. The restraining straps ripped out of their fixings on the floor and once again I was on the ceiling.

This time when I went out on deck the bags containing the various sections of the sea anchor had escaped their ties. The sea anchor – of course. That would help. I deployed the large parachute over the side of the boat and gradually she turned so that her bows pointed into the waves. Instead of sideswiping the Brocade, the waves now pushed past her sides so that she pitched more forward-and-back rather than side to side. This should reduce the risk of capsize, I hoped. I returned to my bunk.

The next day was rough, but nothing worse than I had seen on the Atlantic. The safest place was in the cabin, so I spent most of the day below, trying to stay as warm and dry as I could while the waves raged around the Brocade. It wasn’t easy – the cabin was increasingly wet and unpleasant – both my hatches had leaked slightly while they were submerged, so everything was damp. I was glad of the waterproof casing on my sleeping bag.

I made a list of the damage. The GPS chartplotter wasn’t working – the screen came on but it wasn’t managing to fix my position, so the connection to the satellite antenna must have come adrift. One of the masts on the roof of my cabin, supporting various antenna and aerials, had come adrift and was swinging forlornly. The navigation light wouldn’t come on, and the raillight was full of water. My seed sprouter had vanished overboard. Wilson’s head was hanging at a strange angle, as if he had a crick in his neck.

I spoke to my weatherman at regular intervals throughout the day. The prospect was not appealing – at least another 60 hours of these rough conditions, gale force winds and seas of 8-11 feet – but I was still determined that I could hang in there.

The second night of the gale arrived. After the rear-ending wave I tried to get back to sleep, but a little later the boat capsized again, for the third time in 24 hours. My head cracked against the cabin ceiling and again I felt the trickle of blood.

But how had this happened? The sea anchor was out so the Brocade should have been facing into the waves. On deck the truth became clear – the main line to the sea anchor was severed just 6 feet from the point where it attached to the boat. I pulled in the backup line to the sea anchor, the tripline. But that, too, came to a premature end, at the first of the two flotation buoys. My brand new sea anchor was gone.

This was bad news. Now I had no defence against further capsizes. I deployed a pair of small drogues, but they didn’t seem to make enough difference.

I reckoned I could still tough it out. Tori Murden had capsized something like 12 times in 15 hours when she was attempting to become the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. That was my benchmark, and things were still a long way short of being that bad.

But that afternoon the decision started to be taken away from me. A small plane flying overhead announced itself to be from the US Coast Guard, and told me that a 660 foot ship, the Overseas Long Beach was going to bring me a sea anchor. This was welcome news. Less welcome was the news that USCG Control wanted to talk with me “to discuss the viability of your voyage”. The USCG ship Dorado was on its way, ETA sunset. I had not contacted the coastguard, but it seemed they were now aware of my situation and were concerned.

In my mind, the voyage was still totally viable. I still had my oars and my rowing seat, as far as I knew my watermaker was still working, and apart from a couple of dings and dents to the cranium I was fine. I trusted completely the seaworthiness of the Brocade and I felt that the risk of death was extremely small while I stayed with her.

But the weather was going to get even worse over the next 48 hours, according to the USCG. They told me that I was already right on the outer edge of the range of their helicopters, and later on in the afternoon I would learn that the 82 foot USCG vessel Dorado had turned back because the conditions were too bad. If I was going to require assistance to survive this storm, I was running out of options. I would soon be beyond the range of land-based help.

I was distracted from further thoughts at that point because the Overseas Long Beach arrived. I was surprised to see how the huge ship wallowed in the heavy seas. Waves crashed around her bows, looming like cliffs from the water. The ship came as close as they dared without swamping me, but despite repeated attempts we were unable to get the line from them to me so that I could receive the sea anchor. At last, on about the seventh attempt, I managed to fish the line out of the water and hauled what seemed like about 500 feet of line on board. At the end was a small sea drogue. It wasn’t as large as the 12-foot para-anchor I had lost, but maybe it would work.

It took about an hour to disentangle the lines and eventually I managed to deploy the anchor. I watched anxiously to see if the Brocade would pivot around to lie bow-on to the waves. At first I thought it had worked – the Brocade turned through 90 degrees – but then she carried on turning until she had done a full 180, so I was still sideways to the waves, just the other way around. Sideways was not where I wanted to be. This was where I was vulnerable to capsize.

I felt suddenly exhausted. I had barely slept for two nights, I hadn’t been eating much, my appetite affected by the constant movement of the boat. I had spent hours on deck trying to get hold of this sea anchor, and now it didn’t seem to be working. The prospect of another dark night of capsizes loomed.

Right then the US Coast Guard called back. “We need a decision, right now,” they said. “By tomorrow you will be out of range of a helicopter rescue, and we can’t get a boat out to you in these conditions. The weather is going to deteriorate, and we are very concerned about you.” I begged for 5 minutes to consider my options.

After talking to my weather man I realised that this decision was going to have to be mine and mine alone. It was a toughie.

On the one hand, I pride myself on being fiercely independent, and on not quitting when the going gets tough. On the other hand, the safety of the Brocade was now somewhat compromised with the loss of my sea anchor and the broken bunk straps. I still had at least 2 months more out on the ocean, and wanted to be ready for whatever the weather may choose to throw at me in the future. I was being offered an opportunity here to pause and make my boat properly ocean-ready before continuing. It went against my instincts, but it seemed to be the sensible thing to do.

I rang them back. “OK, let’s do it,” I said. “Come and get me.”

As soon as I rang off I started to cry. This wasn’t how I had wanted things to be. But the decision had been made. After a couple of minutes I pulled myself together and started to make ready for evacuation. I put all my most important pieces of technology into a single Pelican case, and put on my immersion suit and lifejacket.

About an hour later the USCG helicopter appeared overhead. Via the VHF radio they told me what to do. When I saw their man being lowered into the water on the winch, I was to jump into the sea. Then they would attach me to the winch and pull me up into the helicopter.

Looking at the ever-roughening seas, the rescue seemed more terrifying than staying on board, but I attached the Pelican case to my waiststrap and made ready to abandon ship. Once the swimmer was in the water I slid awkwardly over the side, around the end of the oars, into the water.

The Pelican case dragged me down and the oversized immersion suit flapped at my feet. I wallowed over to my orange-clad rescuer. The Brocade seemed to want to follow me – the wind was blowing her almost over the top of me – so I had to swim clear of her path. The Coastie grabbed me and manoeuvered me onto the winch. Seawater splashed over my head as we waited for the helicopter to rise. After what felt like a long time the line went taut and we were being lifted clear of the water.

I looked down at the Brocade. From being my whole world for the last 10 days she now looked so small and forlorn amidst the foaming white waves. I felt awful for abandoning her. This didn’t seem right.

“You can always get another boat,” said the Coastie, trying to cheer me up.

I was aghast. “No, I’m coming back for this one,” I declared, and already I meant it. “And soon.”

P.S. I have heard via the USCG that some “salvage operators” have already shown an interest in retrieving the Brocade. I am not sure, under the laws of the sea, what the situation is. All I can do is to issue this plea:

Please, please, do not touch my boat. I intend to return to her just as soon as the weather calms down. I will make a few running repairs to restore her to a safe condition and continue on my way. I hope that this rescue mission will happen in the next two to three days.

I intend to carry on, preferably from where I left off, but failing that, then from wherever the Brocade has drifted to between now and then. This plan would be utterly thwarted if anybody has moved her or interfered with her in the meantime.

Please respect my wishes and leave her alone until I return.

Thank you.

Comments posted at the time – a few of them negative, but my staunch supporters rallied to my defence, for which I am forever grateful. Most of the criticism is based on factual misconceptions, which are covered in my subsequent post, Putting The Record Straight. When you click on that link you will also see a record of how I coped with the first few days ashore, the salvage of my boat, and a video recorded in my cabin showing my end of the dialogue with the USCG in the run-up to the rescue.

 

Thank You
25 Aug 2007, Eureka, California

 

Me with the crew of the USCG helicopter. L to R: Kevin Winters, Chuck Wolfe, me, Stephen Baxter

I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to the many people who have played such significant roles in my life over the last 48 hours:

- the crew of the USCG helicopter – pilot Stephen Baxter, flight mechanic Jason Bauer, flight commander Kevin Winters and rescue swimmer Chuck Wolfe

- Clint and the crew of the USCG airplane

- the captain and crew of the Overseas Long Beach

- the staff at USCG Humboldt Bay

- my support team:

Rick Shema

Nicole Bilodeau

Brooke Glidden

Eric Sanford

Tim Harincar

- and of course my poor, long-suffering mother, Rita Savage.

Also to David Helvarg at Blue Frontier Campaign, and CEO Michael Klayko and all the staff at Brocade for their continued support.

Thanks also to the new friends I have made in Eureka – Rich, Marilyn, Ken and Jack, for their hospitality, support, food and clothing.

I am aware that recent events have evoked a large number of comments. I had the strange experience of sitting in a coffee shop in Eureka today and overhearing people discussing the front page news – me.

Most of the comments to this site have been positive and supportive – and for that I thank you.

As to the naysayers, rather than responding in words I will allow my actions to speak. For now, know that your words only fuel my determination to do this and to do it right. And so I thank you too.

Comments posted at the time

 

2013

Now we know, of course, that the story had a happy ending. The following year, after some adjustments to my boat to keep her the right way up, I was back out there again. This time the dream came true, and I was able to leave from under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. 3 years, 8,000 miles, around 2.5 million oarstrokes, and 250 days of rowing later, I arrived in Papua New Guinea to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Get the full story in  Stop Drifting, Start Rowing: One Woman’s Search for Happiness and Meaning Alone on the Pacific - coming out this October!