Lots more goodbyes...

Wow, so its been another busy day today getting ready to leave. My phone's been ringing off the hook with people wishing me good luck, which has been great. Based on everyone's goodbye's it seems like they're expecting me to disappear for years, rather than just a few months while I go splash around on my little rowing trip. Either way, its good to hear that so many people are following this!

One question I've gotten a lot is about how people can keep in touch with me while I'm out there. There are a few ways:
1) all of the comments on this blog will be consolidated and e-mailed to me in the boat
2) you can track my progress on www.rowforhope.com to see how fast I'm rowing
3) you can e-mail me at paul@rowforhope.com and my land-based team will forward these e-mails to me in the boat

Words of encouragement will be much appreciated while I'm at sea!

Paul

The Countdown Is On - 12 Days

Ok, we're in the home stretch here leading up to departure on December 20th. I've been incredibly busy winding down my work responsibilities at Greenwich Associates and gearing up for the expedition over the past few weeks, but I promise that I'll be writing more for the next three or four months!

Friday was my last day in the office, and I think my goodbyes made a lot of people realize that despite the fact that my 9AM-5PM life has stayed pretty normal over the last few months the wheels have been very much in motion elsewhere and that this expedition is for real. I love the metaphor of the duck that moves effortlessly around the pond, until you look under water and its feet are paddling like hell. That might have been me recently.

I (finally) finished my RYA Yachtmaster Ocean Theory course, which is one of the many requirements that the Spanish government requires rowers to complete before being cleared to depart from the Canary Islands. This course covers everything from world meteorology, passage planning, and boat equipment to celestial navigation, and is offered online by the Tiller School of Navigation and Seamanship. 

I'll be spending the next two and a half days packing and pulling together all of the little pieces of equipment that I didn't send over with the boat. While none of them are critically important, right now for example I'm sitting in the Greenwich Library downloading audio books to listen to on my iPod while I'm out there. Not the end of the world if I dont have them, but they might make three months of rowing at least a little more interesting. 

Thanks to:

- Peter Dawson at the Tiller School who worked the weekend (both days) grading my Yachtmaster exercises! Much appreciated. 

- Marcus Werner, for donating a three month supply of USANA vitamin supplements for my trip. More information here: www.abundance4all.usana.com 

Paul

Cleared Customs!

Great news from Andrew Morris at PA Freight. Liv has cleared customs twice now, both in Liverpool after the first leg of the trip (from New York), and again in Tenerife, Canary Islands. She'll take one more ferry from Tenerife to La Gomera, where she'll be delivered to the marina in San Sebastian on Wednesday or Thursday.

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First Goodbyes

November 24th, and still plenty to do!

Good news is that Liv has made it safely to the United Kingdom and has been unpacked and repacked into a new container for the next leg of her journey to the Canaries. She should arrive in La Gomera on December 12th.

With two and a half weeks before I fly to Africa, I've spent the last couple of weeks heading in and out of doctor's offices making sure I'm healthy, sane, and well-medicated enough to row an ocean. I'm pretty sure that I'll have a big enough medical kit to supply a cruise-ship full of people, and there should be no shortage of treatments for blisters, salt sores, and my biggest fear of all -- sea sickness!

I've also gotten my first taste of goodbyes which has made my departure seem like its just around the corner. I better get used to it-- lots more of these to come.

Shout-outs to:
- Everyone who came out to my going-away party in Stamford on November 15th. Was happy to see some old faces I haven't seen in a while, including the Chicago/Colgate crew that came from half way across the country.
- My roommate Melissa who helped with the party planning -- just a warm up for the one in Antigua, right?
- Donna at Wilderness Medical Systems who is setting me up with a very well thought-out medical kit at a discount.
- Dr. Rob Udewitz, a sports psychologist who I've met with a couple times in hopes of getting my head around the undeniable mental aspects of this row, and dealing with isolation, extreme stress, and sleep deprivation in a very foreign environment.

Liv on the high seas...

At long last, Liv is getting her first taste of the open ocean today. That is, if you count being strapped down inside a 20-foot freight container packed in the belly of a big cargo ship as "tasting the open ocean."

Anyway, Monday, November 3rd was a big milestone as I dropped of a fully-loaded boat in Port of Newark, NJ to be loaded into a container and shipped to Liverpool, UK. The Atlantic Container Lines freighter will leave New York today (Nov 8th) and arrive in the UK on Nov. 18th. It'll be turned around by my UK shipping agent, PA Freight, and loaded on another ship for the trip from Liverpool, to Tenerife, Canary Islands. After one more ferry from Tenerife to La Gomera, she'll be in place and waiting for departure. Whew!

Coincidentally, I had a dream last night that I was rowing around in Liv (up a river for some reason) and after a while I realized that the forward solar panel had been stolen. Then I looked for all of my food, and that was gone too. Then I looked around the rest of the boat disintegrated underneath me, leaving just a blanket of yellow and white paint on top of the water. Do you think I'm a little paranoid about something happening to the boat during the shipping process???

Shout-outs and thanks this time to:
- Liz Tomic, for her help replacing Liv's old leaky deck hatches last week and weekend, and for helping with the inventory and loading of the boat on Sunday night.
- Tony at Select Plastics in Norwalk, who whipped up some custom deck lids and oar mounting brackets on short notice, and for an EXCELLENT price. Tony and company treated me incredibly well throughout and turned around six custom deck lids and four custom brackets in less than 24 hours.
- Bob at Bob's Equipment in Norwalk, who donated his time and expertise by welding some "feet" on to the backstays of my oarlocks, without which the new oars wouldn't have fit into the oar stowage tubes in the forward bulkhead. Incredibly, his work was fast, free, and always friendly.
- Brian Nathanson, of New England Physical Care in Norwalk, who has generously donated his time and expertise to Row for Hope and my expedition. He'll spend the next couple of weeks ruthlessly working out all of my muscular kinks, knots, and stiffness, to be sure that I'm in the best possible shape when I set off in December.

More soon,

Paul

Oh, the hypocrisy! Haha...well, though you'd never know it from my updates here, I'm still very much alive and am now only 37 days from departure (give or take). There have been a massive amount of exciting developments going on with my expedition and Row for Hope, so here's a quick update:

- Last weekend the Row for Hope team was at the Head of the Charles regatta in Boston (picture above). We talked to tons of people, sold lots of tickets for a raffle where we'll give away a weekend of sculling instruction at Craftsbury Sculling Center in Vermont (generously donated, thanks Sheldon!) as well as a recently-developed oar case from Concept2 (also donated, thanks to Jon Williams).

- Shooting has begun for a documentary that will cover my expedition. Matt Heineman is in the process or rigging the boat with all sorts of camera equipment that will record everything that happens in days leading up to and during my Atlantic crossing. He's also training me to talk int a camera (a lot harder than it sounds), and get comfortable checking in daily with updates on my thoughts, feelings, etc...Check out his last documentary called The Young Americans Project here: http://www.tyap.com/.

- I'm up to my eyebrows in final boat preparations to get the boat ready to ship on October 31st. I have a few projects left to complete, then its just a matter of packing Liv with all of the equipment that I won't be able to carry on the plane to the Canaries, which is basically everything.

- FOOD - Wow, 8,000 calories a day for 95 days is a lot of food! I have almost 500 freeze dried meals on the way to me from Mountain House, who was kind enough to give me wholesale pricing (~40% discount). I also have almost 400 energy bars sitting in my living room (I won't promote the brand, because the bastards turned down my request for free bars.) The rest of my food is mostly snacks, etc...and will come from Costco where I'm headed tomorrow.

All I have time for, for now...but expect more from me in the next few weeks. Also don't forget that I'll be posting every day from the Atlantic starting in a little over a month.

Paul

111 Days

I've always been annoyed when an ocean rower I've been following has gone a long time without updating their blog-- and now I've gone more than a month without updating my own...oh well...

There's lots of news to report, as Row for Hope has made several well-received appearances in the Northeast including a long weekend in Binghamton, NY where we promoted Row for Hope and showed off the boat at an art festival, a golf tournament, and a Binghamton Mets (AA) baseball game. Another weekend we had the boat in Gloucester, MA for the Blackburn Challenge, a big open-water rowing regatta north of Boston. The reception that we got in both places was fantastic and reinforced what we already knew -- that the Row for Hope story is one that inspires.

The next several months are going to be crazy, and the team's list of t0-do's is more than a hundred rows long at this point. Often times it feels like every time we accomplish one thing two more pop up...luckily the growing pile of ocean rowing equipment in my living room is always a reminder that with every piece of the puzzle we put in place I get one step closer to the starting line, and consequently, the finish line in Antigua. 

Come talk to us and see the boat on Saturday, August 16th in Greenwich, CT on Greenwich Ave in front of the Senior Center (299 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830).