Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1134: Rowing AROUND the UK with Mike Ellicock

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Ep. 1134: Rowing AROUND the UK with Mike Ellicock · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_02]: external years left to live, you know, every day is a day closer to death, but all of us.
0:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know when that day is going to come, and so you've got to try and get out there and take good stuff.
0:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I deal with other people.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi friends, thank you for joining the Adventure Sports podcast today.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited to introduce to you Mike Elicoc.
0:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike, just a summer completed rowing all the way around the UK, and it was 1820 miles, and he set a new record, I believe, 49 days for doing this, but he did it for a reason.
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a charity called Support Our Paras, and we're going to talk a lot more about that.
0:57
[SPEAKER_01]: 25 years ago, he was part of the parachute regiment.
1:01
[SPEAKER_01]: out of the UK and did some amazing things.
1:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll get into a little bit of that.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But now he has a charity to support the Paris and for this he did this epic growing trip around the UK and I want to hear all the details about how that went.
1:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So Mike, welcome to the program.
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks so much, Kat, great to be here.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You were telling me before we hit record here that you've done quite a few kind of epic feats.
1:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You hold some Guinness Book World records, but the most recent one is what we're gonna talk about today, but we'll revisit the list, okay?
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But before we do, where are you today?
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, Lewis, it looks like Luz, but it's near Brighton in Sussex, South of London.
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on the Meridian line.
1:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So for those of you, Adventure is listening, I'm yes, but on the Meridian line.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So you always know how time it is there.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Indeed, yeah, yeah.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on UTC.
1:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I just finished it.
2:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So summer time here at the moment, say.
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's really funny.
2:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I finally figured it out.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I was thrown for a loop in the United States.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We say s for standard time.
2:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I say mst, that means mountain standard time.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That means not daylight saving Stein, but in Europe.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: as stands for summertime.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'd be asked, yeah, pretty some of the time.
2:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So our standard time acronym looks like your day life savings time.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I finally sorted that out because I in my hand, I was like, wait a minute, they should be seven hours, not eight hours, you know.
2:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, and I do know about so a lot about TLA's three lesser abbreviations that you get familiar with your own ones, but you don't know anyone else is.
2:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I work for many, many years in an industry that is so rich with acronyms.
2:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to even get into it.
2:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Just complete alphabet soup.
2:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone is in there.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I sometimes I think that industries do this.
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: This is totally in a side, but they do it just so they can speak through a language and no one will understand what they're talking about.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all about tribes, everything's about tribes.
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems that your parachute regimen tribe, heavily impacted your life.
3:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think so.
3:17
[SPEAKER_02]: My father was also in the airborne forces over here too.
3:22
[SPEAKER_02]: My grandfather was a,
3:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Regimental Sergeant Major on D-Day.
3:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, the military thing has been a bit of a line.
3:31
[SPEAKER_02]: My dad got out and had a successful business career and I've done that too.
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and I really, I only actually joined the military because after a failed athletic career, maybe I realized that wasn't going to get to the Olympics in Sydney.
3:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd swapped from rowing, which was my first sport to triathlon.
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And only a few people from each nation go to Olympics for triathlon, in this case, we had three places, and most nations only had two, and I was in the top five or so, but I wasn't going to make it, so yeah, I made a kind of bit of a snap decision to follow in father and grandfather and uncles footsteps and join the military because I didn't want a proper job, so yeah, that was me.
4:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so off the back in 98, I went to Santa's, which is our equivalent of West Point, did my one year of officer training, incidentally met my wife there, so we met in military training.
4:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this subsequently had three daughters who are now touching into their 20s, but yeah, so I did that.
4:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a hostage rescue in Sierra Leone 25 years ago, almost exactly 25 years ago, and I'm just off to Sierra Leone tomorrow to go and see the two villages where we rescued
4:55
[SPEAKER_02]: but I got winded halfway through that attack and actually we were Kazeebacked back to free town and there are about nine of us who are wounded.
5:05
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the guys, unfortunately, one of the troopers from the SES died on that helly flight out.
5:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think since then, you know, it's been a real privilege but particularly come as as I've left the military and got into business and so on.
5:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, looking back on those times and that the kind of the privilege of commanding soldiers on operations has left me with this kind of, yeah, desire to to try and put a little bit back in terms of the charity thing that you mentioned at the start.
5:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And part of it for me at least is like in the military framing, you talk about going to Valhalla when you die, you know, they're kind of, you know, the glory of the warriors.
5:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and in order to get to Valhalla, you have to kind of die with a sword in your hand, but perhaps a metaphorical sword now.
5:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I've always, like, alongside a normal life with a marrieding with kids and with a day job, I've always tried to do these other kind of challenges
6:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm kind of happiest when I'm on a mission.
6:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So they varied.
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I live in variety.
6:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you mentioned about the marathon.
6:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did a marathon with a 40 pound pack on my back and got the Guinness World record for that.
6:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And then did it with a 20 pound pack.
6:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of got into my head.
6:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It might be quite fun to try and go under three hours with a pack.
6:21
[SPEAKER_02]: which I achieved and that record still stands actually is 250-6 so I ruined a few people's finished photos that day I'm afraid but yeah so that was it was that kind of thing then I got it then I thought that I would do a proper math and like just normal running and did Berlin I think back in 2016 and then
6:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I did the device's Westminster canoe race with my dad actually, which it's a hundred and twenty five mile months stop.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you race a pretty good race goes through Easter weekend here in the UK so the weather can be quite bad.
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: That's trying to get under 24 hours and whether we did 22 and a half.
7:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done the Bob Graham round, which is another 24 hour challenge here in the UK.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: which was good fun, up in our late districts, and I've done a range of different things.
7:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Some local ones over COVID, where there's a long distance footbuffer goes through my town, called this out-downsway, and so I've got the record for that one-way on a mountain bike, and I've got 20 minutes off the record for the double.
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: on that, going there and back sit around 200 miles.
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, off the back of that, I also did the river I live on of the source to the sea, the first, it's only about 13 miles long, but the first 10 miles or so is basically a ditch.
7:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and you have to do it in the winter, because otherwise the over, you know, there's too much undergrowth.
7:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that was an interesting experience, you know, you know, relatively short, they like hours trying to get down to the sea.
7:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I did it in just under 11 hours, so it's that kind of.
7:55
[SPEAKER_02]: that kind of challenge.
7:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then yeah, got into my head, well maybe it'd be quite fun given I live on an island to get down to the river, turn right, and just keep going until I get back to where I started from.
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I did in the summer.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So your source to see was last winter?
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that was a few years ago.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That was, I can't remember when, so yeah, but that was just, you know, a bit of fun.
8:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't that much of a physical challenge.
8:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more just like a fun thing to do.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: but it was an inspiring fun thing to do as sounds like.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it got me thinking that.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's really cool.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So Mike, you've been choosing challenges and doing challenges for quite a while.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like a lifestyle for you.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you do that?
8:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Think it's the, I think it's a combination with having a,
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, a day job, I think, you know, we as human beings, like home assassins, has definitely not evolved to sit, looking at, in my case, two screens face to the day, you know, sat on my backside, that is a don't think terribly healthy.
8:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I also think we're kind of bombarded with, uh, we're bombarded with calories, that's one thing, and we're also bombarded with information, and that's completely alien to the whole of our evolution.
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I quite like kind of chasing scarcity, I guess you might say, I'm getting away from that constant bombardment headspace, I guess you'd say.
9:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I've always kept myself fit and got out and done stuff.
9:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I like doing these.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: these different things where you can utilize what you've learned so far from life, and also ideally learn a whole load more stuff, and you're kind of growing then.
9:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also just amazing, I mean, you're in Colorado saying, you're preaching to the converted, but you know, being out in nature is pretty good for the soul.
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I like to try and get outside
9:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I like moving fast under my own steam, you know, through the landscape and I'm hoping I've just turned 50.
10:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The most done with all the responsibilities of bringing up three daughters and very much looking and doing reasonably well in terms of my business.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So you look forward to hopefully 20 years spending with time with my wife and out in nature or myself and I love surfing or
10:29
[SPEAKER_02]: winging it like you know all kinds of different stuff and then and then you know I'm going to get back into paragliding which is something I briefly did a long time ago uh hopefully do some long distance walking some long cycling and hopefully a whole time more rowing expedition rowing because they're this boat that I used to go around Britain is just the most awesome adventure craft really awesome designed by Colin Angus over on the west coast of the states I think he lives in
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I wanted to talk about the details of the boat, but I wanted to get into this lifestyle just a little bit more before we dive into that as an encouragement for other people.
11:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very challenging when you get into the grind of the daily work routine.
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: to do the things that our bodies really need.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Getting out, moving, you know, staying fit enough to enjoy the adventures.
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And over the years, I was kind of the weekend warrior guy who would do big things on the weekends and then do nothing in between.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not the right way to go about it.
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it makes you injury prone.
11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did stay in relatively good shape by doing that, but it's much better to have more of a daily habit.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm curious what your daily habit looks like so that you could stay fit and what motivated you to maintain that.
11:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So the daily habit varies, but what I find is that unless I've got quite a big goal, but it's outside of my normal life, I just struggle to do what I need like because it plays and, and, mentally,
12:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when I look back on these different challenges, you know, I ran a marathon into hours 31
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: To do that, you need to be doing 80 miles a week, something like that, you know, for maybe 12 weeks.
12:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And after I did that, how would earth did I fit that training kit, you know, and I just can't relate to it anymore.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: How did my, how was, did it work with family life, but somehow it was, and like for this trip, I added off to finishing the trip.
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So the trip was just over 1,800 miles.
12:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you said, I actually, it became, it was pretty much a three year project.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I just love being on these projects and thinking about what are the different, what's the weakest part of this, to what extent is it my physical endurance, what is it my robustness, is it my navigation, is it the boat, is it the, the electronics, is it, you know, how can I just improve all of these things, how can I test the most effectively, you know, having to do lots of running at night, so there's lots of practice running at night, but I did 2743 miles in the boat.
13:17
[SPEAKER_02]: before I started before you started and a lot of that was on the sea a lot of it was in the night time you know I crossed over the channel from where I lived so on the Meridian line I crossed the channel like if it's back to France to give to be a day for the Pegasus Bridge which is part of the end of the Normandy landing speeches so I was there for a day last year for the 80th anniversary
13:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So stuff like that, you know, they were, I tried to do these kind of big, different trips, um, one of which I nearly died on, which we can maybe come to, but, um, well, uh, but generally like, very safe and or sensibly, you know, appropriate and all that, but all of it trying to build up so that when I did the actual trip, I was as prepared as I could be and I wouldn't ideally, but, um, me anything that I couldn't,
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: refer back to and go, oh yeah, but I've been in harder places, you know, I've done more difficult things.
14:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love that kind of, yeah, that building on what you've done and what you know already, but also learning a whole lot of new stuff.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of, yeah, I find interesting and inspiring.
14:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll do whatever I need to do in terms of my debut routine and training around the
14:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's just constantly working on whatever the we whatever the weakest link is and for this to, for example, it was, you know, I was looking to row with every tide.
14:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So we live on a very tide of island here.
14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: The tide pretty much flows one way for six and a bit hours and flows the other way for six and a bit hours.
14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So
14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can be on the water when it's flowing your way, you're basically with a river.
15:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're rowing upstream if you're having to be on the water when the tide's not in your favour.
15:07
[SPEAKER_02]: A rowing goes not terribly quick, craft.
15:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So that makes quite a chunky difference.
15:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So right from the start, I was kind of, in all of my planning and thinking, I was saying, right, okay, I need to be on the water as much as possible when the tide's in my favour.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So I need to be rowing six to eight hours on,
15:26
[SPEAKER_02]: four to six hours off with a more the the tide that had more daylight and then six hours on through the night and six hours off together slightly longer sleep and just keep that path and going and try and avoid missing as miss as few tides as possible and that's basically what I did.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like a a lot of planning would have to go into sorting all that out.
15:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so if the island is so it's great Britain have found out, so the United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland, which is not sure about that, but yeah, so the island of Great Britain, so as I mentioned, I'm on the really in line, so I wanted to start where I'm from.
16:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was sponsored by the local brewery as well, which was something pretty cool.
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started at the brewery in the town I lived with living, which is about eight miles from the sea.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Road down the river, the clock started when I went around the lighthouse in New Haven.
16:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Road westwards, so round lands end, down to and around lands end, and then headed up.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: uh the North Cornish and then the Devon Coast over to Wales, which is quite a chunky crossing.
16:38
[SPEAKER_02]: The plan was then, so then you've got the single the Irish Sea, which is a kind of semi-inclusive between Ireland and Wales and then in Northern England and then Scotland.
16:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The plan was to hop over to it's another hop, it's like a 50 mile paddle, but over to Southern Ireland and go up the East Coast of Ireland, which is normally the way to go because you're protected from
17:00
[SPEAKER_02]: south-westly prevailing kind of low pressure systems here, but we had a really unusual summer this year and so we had blocking high high pressure system, a lot, really dominated the weather system, really dominated weather so I actually ended up leaving earlier than I plan to be ready to go.
17:18
[SPEAKER_02]: My window was starting on the fourth of May but in the end I left on the 30th of April
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The once I got to the southern Wales, it was way windy at over on the Irish side of an Irish sea.
17:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So we hugged the Welsh coast and I did a number of kind of relatively long chunks across.
17:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if they ever mean one, super interested, you can go on starve and see all of my different things and also the websites, Pegasusround.uk and then hugged the coast of our hugged the coast of Wales, which is really difficult because there's loads of tighter races there.
17:53
[SPEAKER_02]: then had to hunt the coast of England, which again was really difficult because the tide goes in and out a long way there, so you're two or three kilometres away from the land properly when the tide's out.
18:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was because I was trying to use the tide effectively.
18:09
[SPEAKER_02]: That was really quite problematic.
18:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I got into Scotland and I crossed over to Scotland.
18:14
[SPEAKER_02]: and then went up and around.
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Once I got to some I could open, which is in the Western Isles, I had a really big decision choice, and it was the kind of the biggest decision on the trip.
18:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Was, do I try and go all the way around the top of Scotland, which was the plan?
18:29
[SPEAKER_02]: But we had some proper weather coming, low pressure systems coming in, and I'd recommend that top of the Scotland.
18:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got some of the biggest tidal races in the world, so I wasn't underestimating it.
18:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I decided instead of maybe having to hang around waiting for seven to ten days, I'm going to keep moving and I went up what's known as the Caledonian canal, so we're locked nesses, which many listeners may have heard of.
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see the Loch Ness monster.
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I was I was the Loch Ness monster for a little bit, but yeah, so it took me two days to kind of cut through.
19:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did some really cool portaging and along the Caledonian canal.
19:07
[SPEAKER_02]: One was a two kilometer portage and so it's under the wheels for the boat and then along Locklocky and then along Loch Ness and then out to Inveness.
19:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I went round.
19:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, when you look at my route, I've got off this top, top bit of top bit of the UK, but interestingly, I take to mileage of one bit over one thousand eight hundred miles is pretty much the same is one day's paddling difference from guys who've gone all the way around the top, but done the Irish, you know, done the direct route of the Irish sea so.
19:41
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a very cool guy, Polish guy, who went round in a sea kayak this year.
19:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm called Seba, Sebastian Stubsky.
19:49
[SPEAKER_02]: He went around super quick, and he's got the record now for kayaking around.
19:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was held by a guy called Mike Lam that who went round last year, and both of them went round the top, but both of them basically did the same mileage I did.
20:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of swings around of that, and I got a different route
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then down the East Coast of the UK, you basically hugged the coast if you look at the shape that shorts this line is inshore, whereas on the west side, the shorts this line is often cutting across these large indents, which mostly they were a little bit over-attied like they'd take me, you know, more than say Asian, more like eight hours to 10 hours, which made some of the planning quite cheeky
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, you're trying to tie it right to a ride on sacked height and not get hammered.
20:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, broadly, with successfully doing that.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So tell us about the boat.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you're talking about these big open water crossings.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it, it would take the right kind of boat to do that well.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But it has to be light enough and small enough to paddle quickly at the same time.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is this thing?
21:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
21:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's, it's an angus rodeo expedition.
21:08
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the design.
21:09
[SPEAKER_02]: and call it some of your listeners will be familiar with Colin and Julie Angus, they've done all kinds of amazing adventures, you know, while back now Colin, I think the two of them designed the boat for an amazing trip that they did, I don't know how many a decade ago maybe, where they tried to go for a while they did succeed and go for John a Grotes on the North there's a Scotland to a lepo in Syria, which is 7,500 miles over the course of one summer.
21:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And they designed the boat so that it's got a front hatch behind where you're the round position was that's big enough to fold up a bike and a trailer and tow the rowing boat when you were when they were cycling.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They ended up cycling pretty damn slowly because they had all of their expedition kit low that they didn't have all of their food for the whole trip, but they had a lot of expedition kit in the boat.
22:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So, towing, towing that on a bike is not fast, but that's why they designed the boat.
22:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I started getting into my head this idea of all going around Britain,
22:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Some, I can't remember exactly why, but I came across Collins website.
22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I got in touch with him and you can buy the designs and a mate of mine is a really good boat, so he built the boat for me.
22:22
[SPEAKER_02]: We actually built a second boat, so I had a training boat and then a life boat for the trip itself.
22:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, so that is just a stunning design.
22:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's flat bottoms, which most people when they look at it think that that's really strange.
22:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to track very well, but when the boats see to low in the water, when it's when it's got a decent load to it, it's it tracks amazingly well.
22:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really good in pretty much whatever you chuck at it, you couldn't I can row
22:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Crucial thing is the tide.
22:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, what the water is moving.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: But I rode consistently into 15 not headwind.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It will tolerate, I could still make, you know, forward progress with maybe a 20 not 25 not headwind.
23:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Once you start to get the window over the water,
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: a few hours, then you get into a different ballpark because it's because you built up a small sea, you know, with two different, three foot waves.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I never really had any proper swell.
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I had little bits of okay swell that I'm a surface ache.
23:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't too worried about the swell.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: The swell when it's not breaking, like you can just tolerate
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, the house size as well.
23:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a problem.
23:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually this 50 little short and, you know, two to three foot waves that are breaking because of either the shallow water or because, you know, or because of the wind.
23:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that then you get a little bit wet, but other than that, the boat is honestly, it's
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just the most awesome thing and it's like having done the miles I've done in it and still love it that much it's yeah it's pretty good it must be doing something right then so how much does that but way roughly I don't know exactly but empty it's probably like
24:18
[SPEAKER_02]: 40 pounds or 50 pounds or something like that.
24:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a marine ply with fiberglass construction, apart epoxy, so it's a very good.
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're making short runs of different things, where it doesn't justify making a mold, it's a really good construction technique.
24:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really robust solid.
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I dragged the boat up the beach with a terrible pounding.
24:48
[SPEAKER_02]: quite a lot of that had come off by the time I got up to Scotland and we had to do some repairs, but basically it's and it has a load of seal compartments.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I could I could sleep in the boat so the front bulkhead we cut out like a foot shape or you know shape where I could sleep through yes so not on the water ever but dragging the boat up the beach if the weather was bad I could get into the front hatch and we designed which Colin didn't have a kind of tent structure for the front hatch cover.
25:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, that was my kind of sleeping position.
25:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't take a tent, for example, but I took a huge, vivid bag.
25:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So everything was all about trying to minimize down-times.
25:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Any time when I'm not moving forward on the water, it's going to take you infinity time to actually finish the trip.
25:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was desperately trying to spend as much time
25:43
[SPEAKER_02]: either sleeping, eating, you know, doing something that is preparing me to move forward again and then get back on the water as soon as I could.
25:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I kind of slept on the beach generally.
25:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got a kind of really amazing institution here in the UK called the R&L-I, which is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
26:03
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just celebrated there 200th
26:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was in quite engaged with them.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That was someone who used to be in the partially regiment who was relatively senior there and particularly up in Scotland.
26:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So at various stages and especially on the East Coast, when I was coming back down again, I was able to stay in their lifeboat stations.
26:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they call her head and call her head and say, oh, there's this mad man running down the coast.
26:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you put him up?
26:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, that was just incredible because there,
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: by definition, they're in a perfect place, you know, they're in a harbour, but then, you know, on the waterfront, and I could drag my boat up a slick way or just tie it off on a pontoon, get my kind of sleeping stuff out and you know, get my wet, get out of my wet kit, normally have a shower, which was just so civilised, it wasn't true.
26:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, yeah, get my get some food down my net, get food prep for the next leg, and then get my head down for four hours, and then go again.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was compared to a lot of, I guess, your interviewies who are doing properly hard course stuff out in the remote wilds.
27:13
[SPEAKER_02]: This, this is pretty civilized.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Civilized, but rowing 1,820 miles is a big effort.
27:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was, it was, it was a, it was a decent post.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been curious about this.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I think,
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be so hard on one's back unless you have a very, very strong back, but it might have something to do with the configuration of the vessel as well.
27:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But how did you feel physically when you're rowing these big distances and you had to do some major crossings where you just had to keep going?
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was one of the most major crossings and that kind of fear factor.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've got this kind of model work.
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I've started doing some talks about this, this model draws on, you know, various bits of work that I've come across.
27:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But in terms of once you're moving on the trip, there's this thing from Xenon, Xenon, the art of art tree.
28:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like great faith, great doubt, great effort.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
28:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You've clearly need the great effort, but you also this balance between the faith, the belief that you can do this, you know, come on.
28:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You've put the marks in the training, you know, I've rode across the channel.
28:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done lots of growing at night and and the doubt that oh my god, I really don't want to push off from a beach again at like three o'clock in the morning.
28:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so that's guys getting like it's pushing off at 11 or 12.
28:32
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the worst.
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: like going through one o'clock two o'clock three o'clock in the morning moving, but that the physical effort was not dissimilar from walking with a pack on your back.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was that kind of level of effort.
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So very, very dissimilar to being on a road machine.
28:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So lots of people have said to me, I can't imagine being on a road machine.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, that kind of length of time is like, yeah, now I'm looking
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, in this kind of the spirit of trying to do things that I could refer back to that will worse than what I'm currently feeling at the moment on the trip, I decided to have a go at doing a fast marathon on a round machine, on a concept to round machine.
29:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And well, I found out that I was, so I've run a 231 marathon.
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got into my head, oh, maybe I can do a 230 something, rowing marathon, and then I thought for there, because I did a two 42 or something like that, just in my garage.
29:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I thought, oh, this could be good for the fundraising, like a bit of publicity.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went, I spoke to the brewery who was sponsoring me about it.
29:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've got, we had this late night shopping in the town where
29:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of thought it might be a good idea to have a go at this rowing marathon in the brewery on late night shopping.
30:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I did that and we had some banners up and I had my, you know, my good mate of mine, like helping me out, you know, trying to get the food and the drink down my neck.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was pretty confident that I'd be able to go to 38 or something like that.
30:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, because of the kind of context and it was a really wet night, it was really quite humid and there were people coming in and out and you know, it's in people trying to talk to me and you know, and anyway, it was too agile like the second half of the marathon was just pretty horrific and then with 8K to go, I had my crud starting to cramp up.
30:42
[SPEAKER_02]: because I hadn't managed to get enough fluid and then actually I'd particularly down my neck.
30:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so it was just mind-blowingly awful, but I did 2013, 2013, and 7 seconds.
30:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I am the only person to have gone under 240 running after an and also under 240 on a range of shit.
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was a physical, that was a horrific physical experience.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But so there was nothing on the trip that was anything like that.
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got into this just constant routine, which I guess a lot of your kind of, you know, people who have done a lot of
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: just like every hour having some form of solid food like a drink maybe on the half hour but however I felt through the hour but some solid food like gels or Turkish delightful stuff like that the hour on the second hour on the third hour I'd have some warm food either I always had two flasks of them like this kind of flask, you know, a litre flask.
31:45
[SPEAKER_02]: of, I remember this is on Radio now.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I lead to plus, insulated lead to plus with origin, which was a thousand calories or like a savory mix.
31:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So depending on what I was up for, I'd have a few spoonfuls of that.
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And then again, like our four, just to something small snacky, our five, some things snacky, our six, some things solid.
32:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I also had the boat set up so that I had a kind of cut down,
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could, and I had a fold outable piece of ply that could go over the rowing slide, and basically, actually form a bed.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: The most comfortable sleeping position was actually that with the firmerrest on the top with my head on the rowing seat.
32:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, up the beach, mostly, sometimes on the water, I'm tied off on a boy.
32:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that folded in half, when I, if I turned around
32:45
[SPEAKER_02]: and stand up paddle.
32:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So after kind of, if I was on a really long paddle after five hours, I would turn around and spend maybe a mile stand up paddling.
32:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was just unbelievably good for like stretching my back out and getting comfortable.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was really cool.
33:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm just trying to break it up like that and then you can, to be honest, at that intensity, you could just like, I didn't do the big Irishy crossing, but if I
33:13
[SPEAKER_02]: probably like in 18, 20 hours or something like that.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can keep that going.
33:18
[SPEAKER_02]: When I went across the channel in the practice one, that ended up being 81 miles.
33:24
[SPEAKER_02]: The track is looks amazing, like on YB track because it's two full tides or three full tides, actually, for 18 hours.
33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a big S. But I did, I did, I did, I did that routine for nine hours.
33:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I then I was pretty tired and I had a, I set my alarm for 15 minutes for a sleep, but I woke up after 11, when the alarm went off for 15 minutes, I was rowing again.
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I slept for 11 minutes, and then the second half was actually fast and the first half.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's unique that your body can get into this, going adapt to this kind of low level.
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: My heart is like a hundred, you know, so it's that kind of intensity.
34:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And the way this thing since the trip as I thought I'd be like super fit off the back of the trip was exact opposite my CV fitness is just rubbish really really sought to pieces and I've only just started getting fit again now.
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: and I finished the trip on the 18th of June.
34:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it was your body and my body adapted really well to the specific challenge.
34:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, then I was pretty rubbish at a thing like normal CV fitness, which yeah, like I said, I'm just starting to get back now.
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it, do you think that going that long, that hard just took that much out of you, or was it that you were focused on just one movement?
34:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't, it didn't take that much out of me.
34:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this, the real strain was the mental strain.
34:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So after, like basically, it was four weeks of rowing, up to get through that type of crew that I mentioned, the Caledonian canal, a locking arsenal that, and then I got round to somewhere called Stone Haven, which is just half of Aberdeen.
35:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I was planning on keeping going, it happened to be my 50th birthday that next day.
35:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was sitting on the woke up and was sitting on the the toilet, the loo, the in the our in the live station and called my wife.
35:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's basically, I wasn't quite into here.
35:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying, I could see on the forecast the weather was going to change up to at 4 o'clock in the morning.
35:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was juicer set off at midnight.
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was used to row for six hours.
35:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And that wasn't going to work.
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was going to be with the last two hours the weather I would have been with quite a strong on short wind.
35:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It would have been really difficult to land.
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: The only place I was landing was on the beach.
35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of said to her, look, I think I've had enough.
35:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I've done 1,200 miles in 28 days.
36:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been amazing.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen whales.
36:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen dolphins.
36:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I've almost every day.
36:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen seals.
36:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen this amazing bird life.
36:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen some, I've had all through.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, well, famous title waters that and got through safely, you know, all in one piece, I've just done it.
36:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done it.
36:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had enough and and she was like, look, your sister was planning on coming and seeing you tomorrow morning on the beach on our land.
36:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like she'd been kind of coordinating it.
36:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So look, she's up in Scotland.
36:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, she was on holiday there with her family.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Why didn't you just meet up with plan or sister and, you know, spend the birthday with her.
36:41
[SPEAKER_02]: and see where you had that.
36:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously, that was very sensible advice and we did that.
36:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So I happened like I said, the next day happened to me my birthday.
36:49
[SPEAKER_02]: There were so many coincidental things that happened on the trip that I'm not personally religious, but I can understand why people are given how much amazing stuff happens when you put yourself out there.
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, if she turned up and we went and I spent, I slept a lot and I ate a lot and they helped me wash my clothes and all that kind of stuff.
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of course, I need to carry on, but I took the sleep train and actually came back to where I live right on the South Coast left the boat in an empty R&L station and then went back to it.
37:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took and the reason for that was the weather forecast, the weather was just shocking for six, seven days.
37:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought, well, I might just go home, rather than just sit around here.
37:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, went home for a bit, got my head back in the game and then went back up and then I did to get home.
37:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically the whole of the East coast was then just just two weeks.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I did some days rowing.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I had 36 hours off the water because of the weather at a place called Spurin Head, which is where the humber history comes out.
37:55
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the busiest shipping lanes in Europe.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it was like five days to get home from there.
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So it had a completely dream, like, what almost completely dream I had a few things in the tail, but yeah, to get to get back.
38:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
38:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I think when I got back, like I said, I mean, when I was the most fatigued was when I was up in Spain, haven 28 days solid 200 miles.
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was just mentally drained more than physically.
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: After a couple of nights sleep, I was fine,
38:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the same at the end, like I wasn't, yeah, apart from what I said about my fitness wasn't really there, the real strain was the mental strain, just that kind of responsibility, especially, you know, because I've got three, three daughters and married it on, you know, really conscious about, you know, being sensible in terms of the risk that I'm taking, that was that was the far more.
38:51
[SPEAKER_02]: straining element than the actual physicality of it.
38:55
[SPEAKER_02]: The physicality was, you know, kind of resilience, really.
38:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just keeping moving.
39:01
[SPEAKER_02]: But, but it was mostly that mental strain.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, describe the risks, the physical risk that you were facing because they're numerous risks in doing something like this, but I'm not sure everyone knew where of that.
39:13
[SPEAKER_02]: No, and this is an interesting one because there's like a couple of power, there's a parallel between this trip and actually that hostage rescue that you mentioned at the start of the show.
39:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, 25 years ago, I did a hostage rescue in Sierra Leone with special forces hostage rescue, you know, they've been booked in films and stuff, written down about it since.
39:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a pretty epic thing for the British military.
39:37
[SPEAKER_02]: and I got wounded like I got hit halfway through the attack but I survived and I recovered and all that kind of thing.
39:44
[SPEAKER_02]: About three months later, one of my really good friends from university was spent, he spent Christmas with his girlfriend, his new girlfriend in Wales and they gone to the pub and they were halfway home, both pretty drunk and he thought she'd left her
40:07
[SPEAKER_02]: to the pub and he carried on kind of going home.
40:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, by the time she got home, he wasn't there.
40:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, they couldn't find, they put out such a party.
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: They found in the end what had happened was he was just drunk, he was, I think, taking a pee, taking a leak and fell over a fence.
40:26
[SPEAKER_02]: That's something rolled down a little bit of a hill, banged his head and drowned in a six inches of water or
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I just got back from my host's rescue where and I was fine and then I was in New Orleans like serving in the military and I get this messaging Ben's died.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: How's he died?
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He was out.
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He was in the pub with his friends, you know, with his girlfriend and he's like, so innocuous, you know, that is people like that stuff happens.
40:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, when I settle for my trip, you know, two days, three days after I set up on the trip.
40:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone like that one would assume
41:02
[SPEAKER_02]: The risk is quite high on the trip like this, but my brother-in-law was cycling in Brighton, which is a fairly big town in the UK.
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: A van just turned across the cycle lane.
41:13
[SPEAKER_02]: He was going at 23 miles an hour.
41:15
[SPEAKER_02]: He had the speedo on.
41:16
[SPEAKER_02]: He went straight to the side of the van, but over the windscreen broke his collarbone in three places.
41:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, he was fine.
41:22
[SPEAKER_02]: He thinks it's okay.
41:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, he's cycling in a town.
41:28
[SPEAKER_02]: and he gets hit by a cut, you know.
41:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would contend that the actual the objective risks of my trip were quite low, but subjectively, everyone assumes they must be very high.
41:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you're out on the water, there is basically not very much a ramgy, so I was very, very worried about shipping, but if you compare shipping, even in somewhere very busy like the English channel where I think
41:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it's both ways or one way, but it's a busy shipping lane and then we've got fishing boats and we've got lots of other things.
42:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But compared to being in a town with cars driving around, and you step off the sidewalk or into the road at the wrong time, and you're gonna get hit and you're gonna possibly die.
42:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we underweight the objective risk of normal life, and that's just those kind of things
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: obesity and all the other kind of more chronic conditions rather than the acute kind of risks like going to hit my car.
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, but I think with careful planning, you know, and particularly thinking about the weather forecast, you know, for all of those big long permitting crossings, you know, you really couldn't shouldn't go if the forecast is, it's going to check, you know,
42:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So there were six different forecast models that we were using.
43:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It would end all going into something called predict wind, which is the most amazing app that is in New Zealand designed to then we'd kind of output that into the kind of Garmin voting app.
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that would be what I'd have for my track.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But generally, like forecast things good, but it's still only forecasting.
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had a few particularly when I was going to the Muller
43:26
[SPEAKER_02]: pretty, it was a pretty sketchy cross to a tiny little island which I was going to called sander island which is basically I'm inhabited and it's pretty small and it's just off the Muller contire.
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was heading towards that, it was dark and there was a proper like growing swell over's coming down the earth.
43:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it's like one of the models had that as the forecast and five of them had the wind.
43:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like, unfortunately, it was the wrong model, but it was in the balance of safety.
43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That, you know, it was uncomfortable, but it wasn't dangerous.
44:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually think the boat, the boat, which is the right way around, the boat could tolerate way bigger and more
44:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I haven't tested the full limits of the boat.
44:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I did a lot of a lot in the surf near here where I knew I lived.
44:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're in breaking way, breaking like two to three foot waves, which everyone said was really good practice for, you know, if you're in any title races.
44:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I did get into one title race, commonly coming out of the set near a place called Corrie back and which is one of the most famous whirlpools in the world.
44:40
[SPEAKER_02]: and I'd avoid it, carry back in and another world full full grey dogs and I was going to go one way round the island of lung and had a chat with a guy said, oh, they will if it's not when you go around the other side.
44:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But I hit the, I hit the, um, the tidal loopholes at like peak tide whereas most of them, I'd avoided that.
45:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that was, that was the closest I got to capsize ahead.
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: What one say it's a station boat kind of, just slewed sideways down this way.
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I
45:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Possibly would have capsized but luckily I didn't so that was my that was that was a kind of sketchy moment on the trip.
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: The other sketchy moment was lightning.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: We had we don't have that much lightning in the UK.
45:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I was going around East Anglia, but you know four days off the end.
45:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I was rowing at night and hoping to get to a place which I kind of knew because I'd camped there before who played any point.
45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this electric storm started and it wasn't super close, but it was kind of 360 degrees around like I, I didn't, it wasn't clearly drifting away from me or whatever, so eventually I was like, no, I'm never, I'm not going to make that extra five miles I need to come into the beach, I came in.
45:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But the time was going out and the where the where the where I hit the sandbar was a long way from land I thought okay well I'm probably safe here if I can get as low as possible on the sandbar and blah blah blah So I actually I actually texted my friend of mine who was doing my navigation who's based in Sydney so on the other side of the world so worked quite well in terms of being able to communicate with someone at night and he said he actually typed into chat GPT
46:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Sandbar during electric store type thing and he came back to me with some output and basically said look actually look it is pretty serious You probably need to try and get to land so so I got out I had been in the boat there.
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the few times when I really was to get into the boat Because pouring the drain so I kind of got my anchor out and buried the anchor in the sand took some essential kit with me
46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: across the where I could see some pine trees, which were just over a mile away.
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of dropped a pin and I'll give you a sit to help me try and find the boat.
47:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, halfway across and I went across a number of kind of kind of deeper bits of water on the way.
47:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So the beach and he's the tide was going out and I knew my boat would be that thought my boat would be safe for like four hours or something.
47:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So eventually I got to these pine trees.
47:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had I'd bought my top board and with me.
47:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I was pretty tired.
47:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So I managed to sleep for two hours, which was quite cool just like in kind of fetal position.
47:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And then but when I woke up, I'd set my alarm so that I try to get back to the boat before the tide.
47:29
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, woke up, the rain had stopped and then
47:32
[SPEAKER_02]: looking out.
47:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It just looked class off.
47:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It looked like there was water all the way, but it was just because of the because of the rain.
47:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was I was I was pretty confident my boat would be all right, but the kind of channels between me and the boat might might be swimming in time.
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So boat managed to get out like when went up to my waist got back to the boat again pretty tired.
47:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got this big I've got this big yellow kind of workman's jacket, which kind of goes over and I think got got that on me.
48:01
[SPEAKER_02]: got my kind of hat on, got laid down in the cockpit.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Then my long for seven a.m., which I thought was when the tide would be with me.
48:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, woke up at six a.m. with the water laughing at the boat.
48:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I got it and rug right now.
48:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, and then off I went again for another day in the office.
48:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that wasn't the best night sleep ever.
48:21
[SPEAKER_02]: That's for sure.
48:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Good memories though.
48:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, no, it's awesome.
48:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, you can't you can't buy this stuff.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to kind of highlight that, I've said it several times, but you'll never forget that night, that experience, that storm.
48:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But had you been at home, you would never remember that night.
48:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, of course not.
48:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's huge.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I'll go out and do things, right?
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, actually.
48:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that the thing, a really strong thing from the trip along that thing is, you know, we all have so many assets, it's ridiculous.
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the number of boats I saw that were more would up was in the hundreds.
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: in a ratio to boats that I saw actually out on the water.
49:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the number of boats all the way up the west coast, I think I'd probably only saw six boats sailing.
49:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And this, with their set, with like, I saw some sailing boats motoring, but only maybe five six boats actually sailing.
49:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was the, this is the last summer we've ever had.
49:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And up in open, I was, I had a chat with a guy who's a sea kayak up there.
49:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of, he had two little anecdotes for me.
49:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They had a kind of, I don't know, 50-year-olds guys get together.
49:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got an eclectic group of friends and one of the friends was one of the founders of the a big cycling warehouse chain here in the UK and I think he exited, made millions from this steel and he'd say he turned up in a 10 million pound boat.
49:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Most of the other people turned up to, I don't know, well, that is 12 million, 13 million
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: million dollars and yeah so they did this weekend they went off to one of the islands they had you know bonfire and you know had barbecue and they had a few beers and all of that kind of stuff at the end of the trip he was Patrick who's my friends contact up there he was this guy was talking to Patrick and he said hey Patrick I made him a steak dinner I should have bought a sea car rack
50:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, it's definitely, certainly there's definitely a debate because you buy a 10 million per boat because you can and then you need someone to, you need a crew and you need somewhere to more it and so the other anecdote from him was that there was, there's a big marina up there.
50:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyone who's wanting to sail in the western answer, that's the obvious place to kind of store your boat and he's friends with the guy who runs the marina.
50:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He said so, what do you think Mike in terms of the average number of days that those boat
50:48
[SPEAKER_02]: that moring or out of the marina and out like doing what they were designed to do.
50:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to take a guess, Kurt?
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, average number of out of 365 days, how many days do you think those boats are actually moving?
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's going to be low, right?
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You've already said you're in.
51:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I did your answer.
51:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to guess like three weekends.
51:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
51:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, three individual days.
51:18
[SPEAKER_02]: millions of pounds worth of boats that are tied up there in Scotland.
51:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I are kind of slowly rotting away or gaining algae.
51:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it just, it really, it really is a real revelation to me.
51:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you know, you have this kind of wealth and health kind of curves.
51:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
51:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So interestingly, you know, so yeah, it's really focused my mind on look, I'm, I'm in good health and I have
51:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And we don't know when that day is going to come and say you've got, you've got to try and get out there and dig it stuff.
51:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Ideally with other people as well, like one of the things that the biggest takeaway from a solo trip around Britain was the people.
52:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the people were amazing.
52:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The people kind of supporting me on a WhatsApp group or looking at the Instagram staff and commenting or donating to the charity you mentioned at the start.
52:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But the people I met were just incredible, just incredible.
52:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I got into this place called Berghead on the North Coast of Scotland, the last two hours of rowing from in Venice were pretty cheeky.
52:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It was probably four six by the time I got into the harbour.
52:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It was at low tide say the waves were breaking either side of the harbour channel and I and it's a tiny like 10 meter wide channel.
52:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Sky is walking his dog came down and it's like, oh, did you just come in and that's like, yeah, you know, it was a bit cheeky, I'm glad I'm in and he said, oh, do you want to come and have some breakfast?
52:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I can't just leave my boat.
52:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll we'll we'll take your boat up to my in-laws place, they've run a little space next to their house, so we he helped me drive the boat up.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: and then he's like, come in, do you need your clothes washing?
53:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Need, you know, it's just the whole thing.
53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you need to go to sleep.
53:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so get some food and have a shower.
53:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Go to sleep.
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll deal with your clothes and all this.
53:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's what I like.
53:16
[SPEAKER_02]: see woke up.
53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a weekend and she was having a bit of a alliance.
53:19
[SPEAKER_02]: She woke up at 10 o'clock and she was like, you know, this strange guy with like all this dry, you know, dry seat trousers, whatever, the washing machine and all this.
53:27
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it was just unbelievable.
53:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So they kind of adopted me for it was, you know, for 24 hours because I missed the tide because it was really when you went again early the next day.
53:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But that was, I mean, that was the most extreme example, but, you know, it was just amazing.
53:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You pitch up on a beach and
53:44
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, people are, oh, hi, what are you doing?
53:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you know, can we help you with your boat up to the high water market?
53:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, restores your faith in humanity, I have to say.
53:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think getting out there often does that.
53:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear that a lot from people that I've been honored to interview.
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like if you go out in you encounter humanity, people you don't know, you're doing something somewhat unique.
54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing how humanity steps up.
54:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, people are great.
54:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, definitely.
54:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, we've entered tribes or whatever at the start.
54:16
[SPEAKER_02]: People are in this lackey chain business.
54:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They think that on the people are evil,
54:24
[SPEAKER_02]: generally not, you know, like go, go, go out there and meet people and you'll be pleasantly surprised.
54:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't want to get political, but I will say this much.
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like there's a lot of propaganda trying to set people against each other for political advantage.
54:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't think that.
54:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what?
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: People are all people and everybody generally wants the same things.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We want love, we want friendship, we want family, we want opportunity to do well, you know, to succeed in life enough that we can have a lifestyle that we can enjoy.
55:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that those are universal traits of humans and we can all relate on that level.
55:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
55:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it was, it was just a wonderful thing.
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it really was.
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
55:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's, you know, an amazing trip.
55:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to do it for my fifth year.
55:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very keen like anyone interested in the boat or interested in the trip or whatever else.
55:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's PegasusRound.uk is the website, but do get in touch with me.
55:26
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an email address on the bottom of the website, which was linked to the trip.
55:30
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, get in touch and I'm very keen happy to help anyone who's interested in doing this kind of thing.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
55:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Pegasus round.uk.
55:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's talk a little bit about support our Paris.
55:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a fundraiser.
55:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it still ongoing?
55:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so still ongoing.
55:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to keep up until the end of the year.
55:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We're on about.
55:48
[SPEAKER_02]: 19,000 pounds.
55:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So far, which is pretty good given all the donations.
55:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically, have been from normal people, you know, not from big corporates or whatever.
55:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way to get, you know, serious money.
56:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was, I was, that wasn't my main effort for the trip.
56:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It was to do to do the trip.
56:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so incredible generosity of kind of individuals.
56:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so that's there.
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We did it.
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We also did a really nice thing with the brewery where they made a specific beer called
56:17
[SPEAKER_02]: and a pound from each bottle sold went to the charity.
56:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So that generated about 4,000 pounds.
56:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was really cool.
56:26
[SPEAKER_01]: that's great and tell us where the money in the charity goes, how are people helped by the charity?
56:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so that's so please do go on their website, support our Paris.
56:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not directly involved in anything to do with the charity, it's an independent charity that's regulated by the charity commission, but they are the kind of, they describe themselves as the reserve parachutes,
56:55
[SPEAKER_02]: need a bit of support, often monetary support, but also potentially rooted to other kinds of support for whatever reason.
57:04
[SPEAKER_02]: They're also about the present soldiers.
57:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's quite a lot of stuff.
57:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know your military is very well respected in the U.S. and you get lots of support subsequently.
57:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it's quite so strong here.
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's quite a lot of stuff that current soldiers in terms of wider opportunities for adventurous training or
57:25
[SPEAKER_02]: to support them as they leave and those kind of things are not necessarily publicly funded by the governments.
57:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So they sometimes do that kind of work and they do some work around things like commemoration.
57:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So D-Day taking veterans out to there and that kind of thing.
57:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a range of work.
57:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I was briefly working directly in a research organization to do
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: and what became apparent to me there was there lots in this country there's lots of big that military charities.
57:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very difficult for them to know what's happening on the ground and so these charities that are related to different bits of the military are the the best conduit to actually make impact on the ground.
58:14
[SPEAKER_02]: and so supports our parishes, the one for the airborne forces, that's a different one for the raw Marines, which is our rough equipment within the Navy, like your U.S.M.C.
58:23
[SPEAKER_02]: years, Marine Corps.
58:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so each of these different elements and my loyalty is to airborne side of things, because that's what I was in and my dad was in and stuff.
58:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, that's what it is.
58:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Support our pairs and what's the best way to make a donation if someone wants to do that?
58:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Support everything I think go on to that Pegasus round website, there's a date button there and also there's the Instagram feed is on there.
58:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So people want to have a look and also just last week we put up a video.
58:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a one minute video on the homepage of the word you see it as you open the website.
59:02
[SPEAKER_02]: a highlights of the trip type video so that will give people a feel for what it was like out there and then yeah and then if they're kind of enough to donate then please do that be incredibly incredibly helpful and yeah like I said if they're interested in getting in touch definitely I'm hoping to engineer my life so that I have more time to do things like these this and the future I'd love to come across to
59:26
[SPEAKER_02]: The West Coast is something like race to Alaska, maybe in this day, maybe in a different boat, or, you know, those kind of, I think it's WA 360 is another one and stuff like that.
59:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll see, but I mean, I like keeping things local, that's tons of stuff to do in Europe.
59:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to get the boat down into the Mediterranean.
59:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to do the coasted Norway, and then I want to do later walking challenges and stuff with my wife.
59:48
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife's not particularly keen on the sea.
59:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
59:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So the ones on the sea wavy with her, but hopefully they'll be with other people.
59:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to go around Ireland as well.
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I like it's a really nice and a wonderful place, wonderful people and yeah, I'd like to do that with someone else and with it being their trip, but with them doing the fundraising and all that kind of stuff that me hopefully providing a mentor type role and but also hopefully doing the trip as well as say.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that would be great.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Lower profile for that.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's one major theme of our visit today, Mike, was how having the right goal keeps everyday life better, keeps us motivated, gives us reasons to do the daily grind so we can do the bigger trips later.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I encourage anybody, if you feel like you're kind of stuck on a rod or head in a direction that you don't want to continue on, set a bit goal, choose something you really, really want to do.
1:00:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Not just a goal that's like, well, I wish that I could say that I ran.
1:00:47
[SPEAKER_01]: 500 miles this month, you know, instead of that, turn it into the lifelong bucket list item that you always wanted to do.
1:00:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that will motivate you.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, definitely they talk about B-hacks, then they big hair your days just go.
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Which, yeah, which I quite like, but for me, it's kind of, it's probably a post-post-fisting on it, but kind of, Valhalla were the challenges, you know, challenges that I've been happy, you know, when I get to Valhalla
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_02]: have a few beers for someone to tilt through some of my highlights.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well Mike, thank you so much for your time today.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like a delightful adventure and I'm impressed.
1:01:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's amazing what you've done and I'm glad that you did it in a way that benefited others.
1:01:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's also a beautiful thing.
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, no, it was great.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really fun talking to you and yeah, it was a fun trip and I just I was very lucky.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's lucky with the weather.
1:01:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I was lucky with the people.
1:01:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, but I think most people, if you put yourself out there, you'll get lucky too.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
1:01:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, for everyone out there, until the next show, please do get out there and have some fun, and maybe maybe it's rolling around.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Great Britain.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Take care.
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.