I read a news item this morning about a girl who crossed the Atlantic on a rowboat alone at the young age of 22. I was impressed by the feat and forgot about it till I ran into a web-article about Katie Spotz again later in the day. I hit the twitter and blog links about her journey.
Of course it’s a different journey from the ones Columbus and Megellan undertook centuries ago. Katie was connected to the rest of the world through a satellite. Her navigation was monitored via a GPS tracker. She could have been tracked by others via google earth as well. This offered up such exciting opportunities that it boggles your mind. She was able to post pictures, twitter and update her blog fairly regularly during her journey. I wish I had known about this earlier, I would have kept abreast of Katie’s progress by merely following her blog and twitter account.
However, all is not lost. The blog is such a lovely account of Katie’s progress through the ocean that I read it through at one sitting. She has a gentle style that makes little of the awful lot of endurance she required to row all day long, monitoring her intake of food (5000 calories per day), water, bathing, and coping with sores from sitting on one spot, coping with chafing clothes (she found it was better to go without to avoid that). Add to this the mental endurance required to be alone among such exacting elements. She chooses to give us almost breezy descriptions of her day, never neglecting to add some great pictures of herself and the sea creatures that decide to ride along her 19 foot boat.
This is a link to her first blog
Katie Spotz undertook this journey to bring some much needed funds for providing potable water to places where it is hard to come by. Lack of clean drinking water has an effect on the health of people as well.
Here is a post that highlights her mission
I liked this post as it highlighted the mental toughness required for rowing alone in an ocean
Her Daily Routine -
Here is the one that lists what her hardships were like.
Here is an online interview
I think often about how this world has no heros. Whenever time comes up for ‘Man of the year’ awards, we get to choose between some politicians, filmstars and flashy sportsmen. Why don’t we get to choose people like Katie who teach us what human endurance is capable of?
