Thoughts on crossing the Atlantic in a row boat

South African explorer and adventurer Riaan Manser has made it to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with his teammate Fanafikile Lephakha, the halfway point in the pair’s row from the Canary Islands to Barbados in a phenomenal challenge that has been dubbed The Odyssey Row.

Riaan ran a competition last year inviting one person to join him on this adventure and Fanafikile was selected from 15,000 entries. The two are crossing the ocean alone and unaided in a 7-metre ocean rowing boat with no motors or sails and no support yacht. The pair have have made continuous headway despite having to battle unpredictable seas and a number of other challenges.

Below are some thoughts from Riaan when he reflected on their journey after having rowed one-third of the way.

‘We have passed our first goal of 1,000 nautical miles. That equates to 1,853km and represents just over a third of our total expected distance. Something that has made me laugh is how Fana is mulling over the idea of how to explain to school kids back in South Africa what this distance really is. Of course for the kids, and people who do not travel for that matter, it will be very vague on the reality. Fana says he really wants them to understand, to be able to have them relate exactly what mammoth task he has undertaken here. I tell them that this journey is like going to the mall and back 1,000 times. But not in a car, in a row boat.’

‘We’ve had a tough week in many respects. We have argued. Frustrated each other, for many a reason. We had an evil weather pattern that beat us backwards. I’m sure many of you watched on our live tracker as we did a loop on ourselves.

‘Our electrical power on board is crippled because of lack of sunlight and our laptop that we use to backup video footage seems to have gone to gadget heaven. (Or at very least it has come close.) Our navigation instrument panel we use on the outside of the boat also decided that it was time to pack up. I should have triple-checked the electrical connections to all these before we set off. It would have meant that we would be in Barbados much earlier…’