Day 63: Guest Post

Greetings from Stamford, CT and more specifically Seaside (the nickname for Paul's residence when not out at sea), where Paul lives with his four, yes count them, four roommates!! I am Melissa (a roommate and frequent blog commenter under the name Melissa M). Paul has been a resident of Seaside for three years, the three years he has been training for this row! We have breathed, eaten, and slept Row for Hope for the past three years… and, quite literally, we have breathed in the air after Paul's three-hour workouts, have eaten the freeze dried food with him for taste-testing purposes, and have slept right upstairs from Paul and can tell you that he is a snorer.

Life Before the Row: Paul's training over the past 3 years has been inspiring - the 5 AM workouts, followed by his full-time job, followed by the night workouts, and the planning for the trip. It made me exhausted just watching and hearing about everything that went into the preparation for the row. My absolute favorite part of Paul's training, and probably my best memories at Seaside, are the nights on our porch and what I would call his training for the mental portion of the row. The Seaside roommates sat out on the porch quizzing Paul about celestial navigation, asking every ridiculous question we could think of about rowing across the ocean, and discussed hope, religion, life, cancer, hard-times, joyous times, and most importantly we laughed together.

Life Back at Seaside while Paul is Rowing for Hope (Current Day): Although we are not battling the high seas over here at Seaside, we are battling some crazy snow! We received about 8 inches of snow this past week. See picture below of our house. Although we are deep in snow, our support for the Row for Hope melts through. Check out that sticker!

I cannot forgot to mention our toy boat (resembling Liv) braving the high seas of Paul's bath-tub!

We, like most of you, read the blog daily, forward the link to others, and talk about Paul whenever we get the chance. We are trying to spread the news about Row for Hope, but need even more help!

Life after the Row: These roommates could not be happier to get their fifth back in a month! Stamford is a home away from home for a lot of us that moved here after college, and we have our own little family here. The Seaside family cannot wait to get their CNN celebrity, front-page-of-theStamford-Advocate hero, NPR radio guest, blog extraordinaire back….but not for those reasons. We want him back to sit on the porch and talk about life after the row, allow us to ask ridiculous questions about what it was like at sea for 80+ days, and most importantly laugh together and appreciate every day, hour, and minute that we have in life!

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Melissa

Day 62

Excitement on board this morning as not long after crawling out of the cabin in the morning I saw my first sign of other human life in the last 29 days! A ship of an unknown type named Pasella, was heading from Trinidad to Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands of all places. I really wanted to tell him that he had a long way to go, but decided against it. In general the captain seemed rather bored by the whole thing (I was ecstatic), and passed on the pleasantries and just said he'd adjust his course to starboard, though it wasn't really necessary. Apparently a very small yellow rowboat on the open ocean isn't exciting to everyone after all! Pasella stayed too far away (2 miles or so) for me to really get a good picture, and the one below is more interesting anyway.

Ok, by popular demand, more on salt sores. Below is a picture of the two spots on my legs that are really feeling the effects despite my best efforts to keep this seemingly easy-to-clean area free of salt.

GROSS!

I can't believe people wanted to see that and I really hope that picture doesn't make it on CNN!

Anyway, there you go. I'm not a doctor, obviously, but each one of those spots seems to be a tiny irritated and/or infected hair follicle.

Yup, I jump from the glamor of national news coverage to in-depth descriptions of my salt sores. Well, you guys wanted to know what it's like to be out here! More fun topics tomorrow, I promise.

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Paul

Day 61

Another day in the books, again with pretty good mileage despite my fourth straight day of light winds, which leaves the boat feeling heavy and requires maximum effort on nearly every stroke to keep her moving. I've been lucky to have avoided too much in the way of nagging sore muscles, but the last four days of work on the oars have me sore and wincing my way through the day.

So, since all is well here and I'm in need of a recharge I'll keep this short. It's been great to get so many messages from everyone who saw the CNN interview yesterday. Either it went well or you all are too kind to criticize me while I'm out here on the ocean. I, of course, haven't seen it but am looking forward to watching it when I get to Antigua. Even so, your encouragement and entertainment keeps me going far better than hearing myself talk ever could!

Thats all for now, but I'll have some pictures for you tomorrow. Who wants to see what salt sores look like? I have some great examples on my legs that might need to be shared...

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Paul

CNN's Report on Row for Hope

Here's a clip of CNN's March 1 mid-ocean interview with Paul:

Day 60

Wow, 60 days at sea. I'm pretty sure that I've officially been out here a long time now. And its March, too - I vow that I will not see April from an ocean rowboat!

OK, lots to cover here and it's already getting late.

A good day today considering the light winds and small seas. I made 30 nautical miles West during the day, which was interrupted by a 45-minute squall in the morning (longest to date), and my interview with CNN in the afternoon. Since I've been happy to go 30nm on days with 20 knots of wind, getting the same distance today with only 10k is a huge victory.

FUND RAISING -- I know people are curious as to how we're doing, and I've been meaning to give you an update. My best estimate from the middle of the ocean is that we've collected about 15% of our $500,000 fund raising target. Here's some color on that number:
- We projected that a big percentage of Row for Hope's donations would come from corporations, which hasn't happened in the way we thought it would for a host of reasons.
- The component that we planned for from individual donors like yourselves has been pretty strong. You guys are doing great!
- The current economic environment isn't helping us, but like my each one of days on the oars, we're working hard to make the most of what comes our way.
- We fully expect our fund raising numbers to continue to grow as public awareness of Row for Hope grows. My interview with CNN today is an example of that, and we're picking up steam in the PR area. More national news coverage is in the works and we'll keep you updated, of course, on where you can see us. After the row itself is complete, fund raising will continue as I make speaking appearances back in the States.

So, that's where we are on the fund raising front. Do we wish those numbers were bigger? Yes. How do we feel about raising what we have raised for cancer research? We're ecstatic! Pumped! Thrilled! And we obviously owe a lot of thanks to you as supporters of Row for Hope. Thank you again!

I saw a whale yesterday, but only briefly. It was mid-afternoon, small sea state and light winds (like today). I happened to look to the port side about 60 feet away (three boat lengths) and could clearly see the shape of a whale just under the surface gliding along with a wave. I could only see it long enough to make out the shape, see that it was dark-colored and shaped like a whale (not a dolphin, bigger, wider, with a big whale-like tail), and think to myself "Holy crap, that's a whale!" I ducked into the cabin to get my camera, but it was gone by the time I got back out.

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Paul

Day 59

Light winds again today, but I made reasonably good progress with what I had, though it came at a price as I had to pick the boat up on every stroke, which make for some grueling hours on the oars. Crossed 47W about an hour before nightfall, which at this point comes a little before 10PM GMT.

I'll be happy to get this quarter of the trip behind me when I cross 50W in a few days' time. The let-down after hitting halfway at 40W was much more troubling than I expected, and I've since had to readjust mentally to return to the outlook that "I'm moving in the right direction, but I still have a long way to go." I'll try to wait to think about Antigua until I cross 60W, which is just about 100 miles from the finish.

OK, on to the stars. I've thought a lot about how to describe them for you, but I'm still not sure I'll be able to do them justice. As many of you know, I probably spend more time than most staring at the night sky (and have since I was a kid) so the landscape is reasonably familiar. With that said, the views I see out here feel like I'm looking at a completely different sky compared to what I've seen at home, even on the darkest nights.

Imagine walking around a familiar room with the lights off. You know your way around, can make out the general shapes of the furniture, and won't bump into things. Then one day as you're feeling your way around someone flicks on the lights and WOW! Amazing! Incredible! All of a sudden you can see the color of the couch, the books on the shelves, and the pattern on the rug. Who knew this room was full of so much stuff?

Well, if that analogy makes sense to anyone but me, that's what it's like looking at the stars out here. The stars blanket the sky completely--enough to convince me that there isn't an inch of sky that doesn't contain at least one dim star.

The constellations are dramatic and dominating. You don't have to look for Orion. He dominates the scene from the very center of the night sky, his arrow pointing West just after nightfall. The big dipper is enormous and swings a wide arc around the north star, which at this latitude is lower on the horizon than I'm used to, having lived in the 40N latitudes all of my life. I find it impossible to look at one star or one constellation without immediately being distracted and drawn to another one nearby--a process that is repeated until I have to give up trying to look at them all.

Hopefully this gives you some sense of the night sky out here. It's really one of the highlights of the trip for me, and a real treat after a long day of rowing.

Quick shout-out to the brothers of Theta Chi Fraternity at Colgate University, who are throwing a fundraiser/party on behalf of Row for Hope, complete with rowing machine races by the brothers, which will be entertaining for sure. For anyone betting on the outcome of these races, my advice is that, no matter the relative size of the competitors, always bet on the experienced rower.

Wow, longest update ever. I might have earned myself a day off with this one. Bed time!

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Paul

Day 58

Unusual day today - here's what went down:

Started by scraping for barnacles first thing in the morning. Wind and seas were bigger than I would have liked, but it will suffice to say that there was no way Liv was going to blow away from me (I was also tied on with a 50 ft rope) with the death-grip I kept on the grab lines running the length of the hull. In mid-swim I stopped to look around for Atlantic White-tipped sharks. Thanks to my roommate Zack for the heads up. Didn't see any. If I did spot one, the plan was to go with the "barnacle-scraper-between-the-eyes" approach. Actually I probably would have screamed like a schoolgirl...then who knows what.

After scraping I got on the oars around 11AM and rowed for an hour through the first half of the heaviest squall I've seen so far. As I've made my way across the Atlantic, the squalls have become wetter and more numerous, I suppose because the clouds have more time to accumulate water as they too cross the ocean. I finally called it quits around 12:15, soaked and chilled to the bone. I decided to wait the rest of it out and made lunch and did emails early.

By 1 PM the rain had stopped (for the moment), and I hit the oars for what turned out the be a 9-hour shift - my longest to date. Surprisingly, the extra four hours didn't really seem any different from a normal 5-hour shift. I'm not sure what that means. Maybe that I've lost my mind?

The rationale for the long shift was a combination of my morning shift getting cut short and the slow progress of yesterday, which I wanted to at least avoid repeating. Though winds today were light and are forecast to stay light for the foreseeable future, I still did 27.5 nautical miles west today, which is close to what I was making during my stretch of 50-mile days. I won't get as much nighttime mileage with the wind I have now, but at least I've made the most of the day.

That's enough for now. Sorry, but I will have to postpone writing about the stars until tomorrow.

Thanks to all who have supported this expedition and important research at Yale Cancer Center with a donation to Row for Hope. If you haven't donated, or if you would consider donating again, it would be much appreciated. To donate online use the link in the upper right-hand corner of this page or visit www.rowforhope.com.

Paul