Ocean Row Solo – Wave Vidmar

At Silicon Mechanics Headquarters in Bothell, Washington. Employee's get ready for a photo shoot to highlight their product and my expedition.

I was at Silicon Mechanics headquarters in Bothell, Washington today.   Silicon Mechanics is sponsoring my expedition with a custom-built high-performance computer.  With their interest and enthusiasm in the expedition, they are running an ad series in conjunction with several of their channel partners, Intel, and NVidia, who have also contributed to the expedition computer.

Silicon Mechanics is unique for several reasons, but in the case of their advertising, they always use their own employees in their ads.  We did some photos together, with me dressed in my rowing ‘suit’ (a heavy weather suit sponsored by Gill North America).  Look for the 2-page spread in Linux magazines starting in July.

In my 'work' suit at Lake Washington. Oars for the day loaned by Pocock Rowing Center

After the shoot, I stopped by Lake Washington for a quick solo/solo photo shoot (me alone, shooting me).  The oars are not my regular oars but ones loaned to me for the day by the famous Pocock Rowing Center in Seattle (with a little expedition flair added to the blades).

Erden Eruc makes land in Africa after having rowed the Indian Ocean

My good friend and colleague Erden Eruc has made land in Mozambique, Africa!  He’s been on a mission to circumnavigate the planet entirely by human power and just rowed from Madagascar after having made a short stop there (after rowing from Australia).  He’s most of the way around the earth now, having rowed three oceans and biked tens of thousands of miles.  I believe he now will bike to Mt. Kilimanjaro,  climb it, and then continue on towards the west coast of Africa, with another ocean row across the Atlantic Ocean.

Congratulations to Erden and his team!!!  You can follow him at: www.aroundnover.org

I must have been a mouse in a former life, I love cheese! Image courtesy of Virgin Media

I love cheese, I would eat it everyday if it wasn’t bad for my cholesterol levels.  But for my ocean rowing expedition, I have the fortune of being able to bring a nice variety of cheese and cheese products to enhance my meals.  Because I am burning through calories so fast (8,000 to 12,000 per day) on the expedition, fats consumed don’t absorb in the body, so I can eat just about anything without fear of it doing harm.  Bring on the cheese!!

When I trekked solo to the North Pole, I had three cheeses with me, and many times had omelets with cheese, mushrooms, and fresh butter!  Yum.  I found that those small creature comforts go a long way towards the mental well-being on such an extended trip.

I’ve been working on the new website, it’s really exciting, and in fact is ground breaking.  I’m not releasing details yet, but there are features in it that have never been done for an expedition before.  The new website goes far beyond live tracking and daily updates.  We’ll be launching the new site just before the launch of the expedition.  Stay tuned!

I am still looking for some help with design.  I can do it, but I’m certain there’s a person or company out there that would like to benefit from the traffic the site gets, which will bring more clients.  If you are such a person or company, feel free to get in touch with me.

Rule the world, your expedition, or company. High performance, extreme value computers from Silicon Mechanics.

One of my newer sponsors, Silicon Mechanics, make and sell super computers.  It used to be that a super computer was out of reach to all but the top companies or countries.  Now, companies like Silicon Mechanics can build a custom desktop super computer for less than the cost of a used car!

Silicon Mechanics is supplying the expedition with an entry-level system.  The entry level system being provided is a multi-core processor with 108 GPU cores, with plenty of memory and storage!  This computer outperforms the best computers in many small countries!  It will be used for expedition tracking and mission control, high definition video editing and graphics, as well as development and future expeditions.

If you’re looking for a computer to rule the world or upgrade your tired old system, give the people at Silicon Mechanics a call (in the US:  1-866-352-1173) and tell them ‘Wave sent you’.

15,000 miles of ocean rowing and this water maker is still going!

Today I received a large box, origin:  Mahajanga, Madagascar.  It could only be the watermaker from Erden Eruc’s ocean row boat!  He was kind enough to donate his Katadyn Powersurvivor -40E to my expedition in support of my education mission – and shipped it to me fast.  In fact, I think it took just about three days to get from him (near Africa) to me (Seattle, USA).

Once I opened the box it had that distinct smell of a well-used marine part, it looks like nothing you’d want to drink from, but I know it’s all just on the surface.  Beneath the cosmetic flaws, there lies a fully-functioning watermaker capable of producing 4 gallons per hour of life-giving water from the sea.

This particular watermaker has been on Erden’s ocean row boat since before he owned it.  All in all, it’s estimated the watermaker has at least 15,000 ocean rowing miles on it.  It’s also a part of ocean rowing history and I’m proud to have it going on my boat.

Again, thank you Erden and your Around N Over organization.  I’m sending the unit off to Katadyn for a check up and when returned will install in my ocean row boat “Liberty”.

Know how to use your gear before you have to use it!!

Recent events with a rower being rescued are bringing to light how a lack of preparation and knowledge of gear can impact an expedition.  The rower activated an emergency rescue beacon, known as an EPIRB (and also PLB’s – personal locator beacons), but used them improperly extending his time at sea.

Several key points have been learned from this particular rescue:

• If you activate an EPIRB or PLB in an emergency, keep it on!  The rower turned on and off his EPIRB and PLB causing speculation and delayed his rescue by days.  Mission Control had 11 different rescue events caused by one person…
• Make sure the EPIRB or PLB you activate has clear sight of the sky!  The rower kept both the EPIRB and PLB (he had several) in his life raft thus making intermittent signal with search and rescue satellites and ground stations.
• Make sure your EPIRB and PLB records are up to date with the registering authority!  If you set off an EPIRB or PLB Search and Rescue authorities will know about it within 5 minutes.  They will call the phone you have listed with them.  Keep your information up to date!

These guidelines above apply to anyone out on the ocean and each vessel should have its own EPIRB.  Take the time to learn proper use before an emergency.

Rowing an ocean means spending a lot of time on your butt – literally.  The most prevalent problem facing ocean rowers is care of this region of the human body.  Extended duration activity, sweat, environmental elements, all take their toll and can leave a rower incapacitated due to a sore bum.  Having roughly 15,000 miles of bike touring under my belt, I learned long ago how to stay healthy and happy in this area.

If you’ve been following ocean rowing, then you’ve probably seen reference to ‘rowing naked’.  When possible, rowers tend to row naked.  The chaffing from clothing is often cited as the root objection to being clothed.  Indeed, chaffing, saddle sores, combined with salt water air/spray/water can pose a serious, even life-threatening problem.

The biggest problem for a rower is bacteria and skin irritation.  For long-distance biking, I found that daily  (or more often) changes of underwear, shorts, and clothing, when combined with antibacterial wipes/shower will mitigate nearly all saddle sores.  One pair of underwear that work really well are Exofficio’s.  I took several pair with me to the North Pole and they worked great.  You only need a couple of pairs, wash them out daily and you always have fresh ones…

To address the chaffing issue, lack of clothing helps, but also sport anti-friction treatments can help – or hurt – depending upon your skin type, the activity, and environmental conditions.  I’m testing several and also experimenting with my own compound – I’ll let you know how it goes as testing continues.

When you choose your own expedition-worthy underwear, make sure the seams don’t meet your skin at bad places for you/your body, ensure the material wicks (= not cotton), and it has antibacterial/antimicrobial properties inherent in the  fabric.

I’ve been working on my menu for a 140-day expedition (my impending ocean row across the North Atlantic).  I’ve worked out how many calories (minimum) that I will bring, as well as which basic foods I will bring.   One thing that I spend a fair amount of time on is expedition nutrition.  I need calories as well as taste.

My energy requirements will top 1,000,000 calories for the row.  That’s a lot of food, basically enough food to feed a person with a regular diet for 2.5 years.  Even with a high-level of caloric intake, I’m still likely to loose tens of pounds in body weight.

My menu planning is two-fold; first I try to reach the caloric intake I need, then focus on taste and variety.  As it is, I will eat 2-5 packs of top ramen nearly every day, fortunately I like top ramen.  Adding meat, butter, oil, they help add calories.  And though it sounds mundane, I actually eat very well on an expedition.  Meals like honey lime chicken, Thai shrimp, BBQ beef and mashed potatoes, even omeletes with 3 cheeses and fresh bacon.  I might even try to bake a quiche!

Beautiful Lake Washington in Seattle, Washington - kayaking

I love the water.  I like to row, but also kayak, sail, swim, surf, scuba, ski, I like it all.  While in Seattle, I have been fortunate enough to live within a quarter of a mile of Lake Washington, a huge lake connecting many communities around the Seattle/Bellevue area.  I try to get out in a kayak as my schedule permits, and work on another project “Pacific Coast Visual Record Project” when I can.

And whether I go solo on an ocean row boat or kayaking around Lake Washington, I am prepared.  I take a radio, cel phone in dry case, strobe, multi-tool, food, water, GPS and cold-water kayaking gear whenever I go out, if even for just a few hours.  I also make sure that someone knows where I’m going, when I left, possible updates, and when I returned (often called a float plan).   Kayaking is a lot like ocean rowing.

I thrive on the challenge and adventure.

Special thanks to NELO USA for their support of a NELO Navigator, a sea kayaking speed machine.