Thursday, June 3, 2010

Ocean Rowing: Roz Is Done!


Major congratulations this morning to Roz Savage, who has just tweeted from Papua New Guinea that she has arrived in Madang, completing the third, and final stage of her solo row across the Pacific Ocean. In doing so, she has become the first woman to make that journey alone.

Roz's story is well known to regular readers at this point. Living in the U.K. back in 2001 she found herself working in a job she didn't enjoy and caught up on the daily grind. So, she quit that job and set out to put a little adventure back into her life. That included travel throughout the world, and running several marathons. But in 2006, she found her true calling when she rowed solo across the Atlantic in 103 days.

Not long after that, she announced her plans to row across the Pacific as well, and thus began a four year odyssey that was challenging and rewarding on many levels. In 2007, she set off in pursuit of her new rowing goals, only to abort the attempt a few weeks in, but undaunted, she returned in 2008, completing the first leg of the journey by rowing from San Francisco to Hawaii. In 2009, the second stage saw her traveling from Hawaii to Tarawa, where she returned in April to finish this final stage.

Now, the Pacific Row is done, and I'm sure she is ecstatic and relieved to have completed it at last. Over the course of this three year, three stage, journey Roz has become an outspoken environmental activist, and her message of protecting the world's oceans has become one of her primary causes. I suspect she'll now turn her attentions to that cause in an even bigger way.

I'm sure we'll hear much more about Roz's adventure soon enough. As I write this, she's barely been back on land a half hour. I'll post updates as they come in.

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