Leg 2, Day 30 – A realisation

Emma Mitchell By

Day 30 – A realisation

During the first leg I remember always feeling like we were in a little bubble of the Pacific. On a clear day we can see approximately 10 miles in every direction and we could have been 100 miles from shore or 1000 miles from shore and never known. Despite the occasional ‘Oh my God we’re actually doing this’ moment, the expectation that there was land or other boats just out of sight across the horizon didn’t go away. However since leaving from Honolulu something seems to have changed for me. One night, two weeks ago, I was on the oars with Nats under a beautiful starry sky with waves lapping at the side of the boat, when all of a sudden I was struck by the realisation that we are a tiny 29ft boat, an insignificant pink dot, almost 1000 miles from the closest land mass in the middle of the worlds largest ocean. What’s more this immense ocean is an insignificant body of water on a single planet in the universe I was staring up at in the sky. I have no idea how it took me over 100 days at sea to finally have this realisation but it happened again yesterday on the oars with LP in a calm early morning shift. Surrounded by a gently rolling, silky smooth ocean I suddenly realised that we really are surrounded by water for hundreds of miles in every direction with nobody else around. We haven’t even seen another boat since our first week out of Hawaii. We are out here with no choice but to accept and deal with anything the great Pacific chooses to throw at us. You might think that this would be an intimidating thought but I actually felt a magical sense of freedom and independence, embracing and enjoying the feeling. Out here on Doris we have everything we need to survive for the (hopefully only) 60 days it will take us to reach Samoa. Our 29ft pink mobile home can ride the waves, keeping us safe and dry when necessary or letting us experience the elements in all their wild glory on the oars. We have food, water, the ability to communicate with home, the ability to know where we are and where we are going and great company to keep us entertained. Before we left the UK I remember answering the question ‘what are you most looking forward to?’ with ‘the feeling when we lose sight of land and it is just us and Doris out on the ocean on our way’. I think this is the feeling I am finally appreciating that we are out here self sufficient and unsupported (not counting our amazing support team back home). Our experiences in the first leg in all kinds of challenging conditions has built our confidence in Doris and each other and I think maybe it is this confidence which has now allowed me to think about and appreciate the scale of exactly where we are. So onwards we go towards Samoa battling the crazy weather and strong currents of the ETCZ the five of us out on the ocean.

UPDATE: The sky is blue, the clouds are like white and peach candy floss on the horizon and the temperature is high. After our last rowing shift I feel like a baked potato – roasted on the outside and squidgy in the middle. Last night was another dry and calm one under the stars. The moon is back lighting the way for most of the night but our Mahi mahi escort last night was only a single solitary fish so I think we might be leaving their stomping ground. On the oars Nat and I talked trees and flowers. If Nat was a flower she’d be an orchid and if I was a flower I’d be a bluebell.

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6 Comments

  1. Jim Andrews says:

    Thank you for another interesting insight of your life on an ocean wave. I love your description of your solitary existence out of sight of the rest of the world. I love the photograph of planet earth from deep space “The little blue dot”. Some one wrote that there on that little blue dot, every bit of our history, all our futures, every invention and every thought that ever existed, is! You are currently rowing across a segment of that little blue dot, whilst I, on that same blue dot look on in admiration. Stay safe. XX

  2. Simon TY says:

    There must be a point on this globe where you can say “I am as far as can be from any other person”. And also, of the 7,000,000,000 people on this earth, about 100, or maybe a few more, know where I am right now. I wonder if the CIA tried zooming in, could they focus on you, from some sattelite ? Could the International Space Station “see” you ? Wonder what the hell is this 29ft piece of pink jetsam ?

    That made me think, I read somewhere the difference between flotsam and jetsam. Flotsam is floating stuff, lost at sea by accident, wrecks, stuff washed overboard. Jetsam is stuff abandoned, thrown overboard deliberately ( presumably most of the trash you see). Apparently Jetsam is a shortening of jettison. So, are you flotsam, thrown into the Pacific by accident ? Floating ( hence flotsam) ? Or have we all, yr friends, deliberately thrown you overboard, encouraged you to head off, let you loose by design ?

  3. Barney says:

    Great post Emma. You make ocean rowing seem so attractive. I will speak with Simon about starting a holiday company called Jetsam Rowing Holidays! “In your thirties? Like to exercise regularly? Hate sleeping in? Always searching the horizon for new experiences? This is for you!”

  4. Simon TY says:

    I have been fascinated by yr map and the specks of land you are approaching. There is life out of there. Kiribati I have heard of. But Napari SSW of you ? A new one on me. And currently in yr path Teraina ( also known as Washington Island) due south of you. Had to google. It actually has a population of 1690. Nine villages. How close will you pass ? Will you be visited by land birds ? See fishing boats ? See a cloud mass on the horizon ( are there clouds over a flat coral atoll ?).

    I learned a bit about an obscure part of the Pacific today !!!

  5. JG says:

    This will become so much a way of life that you will miss it hugely when you return to the banality of ‘civilised’ existence. It was over 20 years ago that I left the desert and I still, even now, hanker after the way of life I had there. It did completely change the way I looked at life and it will change for you all too. When your progress reverts to Southerly direction it may take you pretty close to some of the Line Islands as mentioned above – Kiribati and Washington being the most likely I would suspect. Is there scope in your expedition for visiting any of these I wonder? I would imagine that finding your way through the coral reefs around these places would be a serious risk to Doris unless the islanders were able to pilot you through the channels. Keep sake and beware of sharks when dipping in the ocean!

  6. JG says:

    This will become so much a way of life that you will miss it hugely when you return to the banality of ‘civilised’ existence. It was over 20 years ago that I left the desert and I still, even now, hanker after the way of life I had there. It did completely change the way I looked at life and it will change for you all too. When your progress reverts to Southerly direction it may take you pretty close to some of the Line Islands as mentioned above – Kiribati and Washington being the most likely I would suspect. Is there scope in your expedition for visiting any of these I wonder? I would imagine that finding your way through the coral reefs around these places would be a serious risk to Doris unless the islanders were able to pilot you through the channels. Keep safe and beware of sharks when dipping in the ocean!

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