Bravery is relative, as is adventure. In Indonesia, I climbed volcanic Mount
Batur before dawn, and reached the summit feeling triumphant only to find a
Balinese 10 year old had done the same, wearing flip-flops and carrying a case
of soda on his head to sell to us. There's always a team braver than you and
it's inspiring to meet those who coax you into discovery and adventure. In
Senegal, that team was OAR Northwest.
A team of experienced and passionate rowers, including one Canadian Olympic
gold medalist, OAR Northwest hails from the Vancouver/Seattle area, and rowing
small craft for enormous distances is what they love to do. I'd heard about a
team of rowers arriving in Dakar; the American Ambassador had hosted them for a
meal at his residence, and we were all invited to send them off. Their
departure was delayed though until it fell during business hours, and of the
Americans in Dakar, I was one of few who could attend because they launched a
block away from my office.
It was hard to reconcile the size of their craft, the James Robert Hannsen with
the immensity of their goal: to row from Dakar, West Africa, to Miami, Florida,
crossing the entire Atlantic Ocean under the power of their oars. The Hannsen
bobbed in the tussled waters separating Ngor beach from Ngor Island, hardly
bigger than the wooden pirogues the Senegalese use for inshore fishing. The
team gave a brief and excited departure speech, dropped trou, and swam out to
to their boat. And then they rowed off into the distance. They'd barely made
it to the surf flanking Ngor before they were hard to see. And then they were
gone.
Have a look at their website, as I do every morning now. They've given lots of
explanation of what they're doing and why, and they plan on measuring lots of
things as they traverse the Atlantic to provide a better scientific picture of
parameters like salinity and current. The water is only inches beneath their
feet, so they're well placed to do it. So the mission is scientific and
educational, but it's also deeply personal. I wish them the best.
I feel like I know something about the trip, having been an armchair adventure
nose-deep in countless stories of round-the-world sailing adventures. Sailing
Alone Around the World by Captain Joshua Slocum is easily my favorite, and even
that tale sends shivers down my spine with mention of ferocious seas, high
winds, snapped timbers, and the like. And he was in a larger, stronger, higher
craft powered by the wind, not by his back. Every morning I wake up, survey
the weather and the seas, and remember that four men whose hands I shook find
themselves totally exposed to the elements out there, trying to reach the
Americas under their own power. I find that inspiring, and deeply frightening.
It's been a week now, and they have yet to reach the Cape Verde Islands:
they've got a long way to go.
Wish them luck and safe passage, and follow them with me.
