Forthcoming Event: Blue Vision Summit 7-10 March

My Pacific row is a "project" of the Blue Frontier Campaign, a US nonprofit organization that supports grassroots marine conservation efforts, and organizes global conferences that encourage collaboration amongst the multitude of ocean-focused nonprofits.

In early March there will be a major get-together in Washington DC. I am honoured to be one of the members of a panel discussion on the opening day, alongside such marine luminaries as Philippe Cousteau and Dr Sylvia Earle.

The event is open to all who care about the oceans - a perfect opportunity to network with like-minded individuals, and to help support future oceanic endeavours.

By combining efforts we can achieve so much more. If we pull together, we can save the world - including the oceans!

Change is in the air. Can we bring change to the water, too? Yes we can. Come to Washington D.C. and help Turn the Tide. Join the Blue Vision Summit March 7-10, 2009! Our Ocean Planet is in trouble. President Obama and the new Congress need to be reminded how vital a healthy ocean and coasts are to our economy, security and climate response. Join the Blue Vision Summit along with hundreds of ocean leaders for three purposes: To ENCOURAGE President Obama and Congress to take positive action on our public seas To ADDRESS Climate Change impacts on the Ocean To highlight SOLUTIONS to marine environmental threats that work and need to be expanded Panelists include: NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco (invited), White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley (invited), Representative Sam Farr, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and other Congressional leaders, California Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman, Sylvia Earle, Philippe Cousteau, Roz Savage, Ralph Nader, Thomas Lovejoy, marine artist Wyland, author Bill Mckibben, Sherman's Lagoon cartoonist Jim Toomey and many more.

Sponsors to Date:

Blue Frontier Campaign Khaled Bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Pew Environment Group Oceana Natural Resources Defense Council The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation Care2.com The Nature Conservancy Environmental Defense Fund

The Ocean Foundation The Ocean Conservancy Clean Ocean Action Surfrider - D.C. Chapter National Geographic The Henry Foundation Ocean Champions Project AWARE The Baum Foundation

For More Information or to get involved contact: The Blue Frontier Campaign info@bluefront.org T: (202) 387 - 8030

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The Darkest Hour Is Before Dawn

Just when life seems at its bleakest… a few signs appear that restore my faith that I am on the right track, and that fortune does indeed favour the bold. Yesterday, after I had posted my grumbly blog (grumblog?) I received an email from a longtime supporter whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, Markus Bennett from northern California. The photo is of a model of my boat that Markus made for his niece, Eleanor, a year or so ago. With his permission, I would like to share his message with you.

"Ahoy Roz,

This e-mail that I'm sending you now, is potentially awkward at best - and so, I trust that you will receive it in the spirit with which it is given....err, sent. Know that I come to you from the heart.

I just read your blog entry entitled "Larger Debt", and I could barely sit still, as I felt my body react in a visceral "call to action", in answer to your admission of basic needs needed to further your quest (I paced, I did the dishes, I folded my clean laundry, I went for a walk with the dogs - and considered washing my truck, but decided in the end to write you this letter instead - instead of flailing on with more unnecessary busy-ness).

I will admit upfront, that I have in the past, struggled with a rampant "hero complex", which although well meaning at the time, found me harvesting plenty of grief for myself. That is neither here nor there, but I just wanted to air that out with you now, because where I'm going next feels strangely familiar in that regard, but I know that this time it is different... it IS different.

I have long since found much more constructive ways to let my "hero-self" out. I discovered that there is no sense in suppressing this natural aspect of myself - and so now, I concentrate mostly on making it a healthy process of "acting out".

So along those lines, with no further ado, I would like to act out in a healthy fashion with you now.

I am by no means a man of money, in fact I've spent the better part of a decade digging myself out of debt, BUT I want to donate a sizable bit of dosh to you now. It feels right; I have to do this. I would like to extend to you, Roz Savage...a gift of $1,000 dollars PROVIDED THAT somebody else matches these funds towards your cause (i.e. for every donation somebody else makes, I will match same funds up to a maximum of $1000.

I absolutely have no doubts about the outcome to this challenge, and I look forward to "having" to send you the check.

OK Roz, no more "crawling back under the covers" (I know the feeling), better times are here, RIGHT NOW!!! Take this baton I pass to you now, and......kick some ass girl!

As always, sending you love and grace..."

So there we go - $1,000 for the asking - provided I can find the folks to match it. Since my last blog I have already received donations of $150, which I am going to put towards a chartplotter - my old one succumbed to seawater 2 days out from San Francisco, and my trusty Tomtom in-car navigation system is not going to be able to navigate me between all the islands of the South Pacific without shipwreck on a reef.

I know this is a leap of faith - you don't yet know the huge eco-initiative I have planned for this year (and I don't want to announce it until we have all the necessary technology in place - no point getting you all enthused if we don't yet have the facility to sign up) but please trust me on this. Now, more than ever, it is about the message more than the adventure. I will be using my row as a platform for a major grassroots campaign to use less fossil fuel, more human power. It's going to be good - but without the row, it's dead in the water (so to speak).

So please, help me out here. I promise you, I will reward your faith in me. Let's... just do it.

In the interests of transparency, I have decided to publish my list of expedition expenses. This is for Stage 2 of the row. Stage 3… well, we’ll worry about that one later. One stroke (or stage) at a time…

$4,000 Weather forecasting
$5,400 Website redevelopment
$4,500 Electrician’s bill
$9,000 Satellite phone bill (approx $40 per podcast, $35 per blog, $40 per day to download emails, plus phone calls to weatherguy and mother)
$114.95 VHF radio + shipping
$427.00 Chartplotter + shipping
$800.00 100 x freeze-dried/boil-in-bag meals
$500.00 Other food and provisions for voyage
$200.00 Professional splicing services
$150.00 Swivel shackles for sea anchor
$100.00 Cleats for sea anchor tripline
$555.00 Liferaft service

$25,456.95 TOTAL

(Obviously this doesn’t include any living expenses while I am on dry land, nor flights, car rental, etc, but I don’t want to ask you to help with these necessary but less-than-glamourous necessities of life - because I'm not asking for money for me, I'm asking for money for the mission.)

Apologies for yesterday’s broken link to PayPal. I know that quite a number of people weren’t able to get to the page for donations. I'm still having problems with it, so please use the Groundspring donations page of the nonprofit for which I row, the Blue Frontier Campaign - being sure to specify "Roz Savage - The Voyage" from the dropdown box. The Blue Frontier Campaign is a registered 501(c)3 organization, so all donations are tax deductible.

A Job Begun Is A Job Half Done

As I walked to the gym at dawn this morning (6 miles walking = less petrol used + less money spent + more calories burned) I was listening to a podcast called iProcrastinate. Useful stuff, and I’d like to share.

Recently I have been puzzled by my own behaviour. I spent a lot of time during November and December evolving my strategy for 2009, in collaboration with experts on the environment, public relations/media, political campaigning, and human psychology. I ended up with what is, in my humble opinion, an excellent plan for an initiative that will tackle our top-priority environmental issue from the bottom-up, the top-down, with an element of education in the middle.

Then the calendar ticked over into 2009, and my plan went from being “next year” to being “this year” – and what happened? Did I launch myself into the execution of my detailed plan with my customary enthusiasm, energy, and “just-do-it”-iveness?

No. I froze. I fiddled around. I faltered. In short, since Jan 1, I’ve been procrastinating.

Some of it is justifiable – “I’ll wait until people get their feet back under their desks” or “People’s email inboxes will be swamped – I’ll wait until the New Year’s rush has died down”. Even eating became a form of procrastination – after all, you can’t change the world on an empty stomach.

But my inability to JFDI (Just… Do It) was starting to stress me. So, to tackle the problem, I’ve been trying to understand what’s going on here. The iProcrastinate podcaster sees it this way: procrastination is an existential issue. We have a vision of where we want to be – our “intention”. And we have where we are now – our present “action”. And ideally we exercise our free will to direct our present actions towards our future intention.

So my actions now should be the implementation of my Grand Plan for 2009 – rather than regular visits to the refrigerator. (Calories burned by walking to refrigerator < calories consumed while at refrigerator.)

What really struck home was when the podcaster suggested that the biggest obstacle to linking action to intention is the fear of failure. If you don’t try something, then you can’t fail at it – except, of course, that not even trying is the biggest failure of all. He talked about finding the courage to overcome that fear.

Now, although I am not the most courageous of people, I am also not the most cowardly. And although my plan is big and ambitious, so was rowing the Atlantic. This brings me back to the tipping point idea again. I am now at the point where: stress at NOT getting on with it > the stress caused by just doing it.

OK. (Sigh.) I know this is going to be a lot of hard work, but as the first guy to swim the English Channel said, nothing great is ever easy.

So… watch out world, here I come. 2009 is now officially underway, and it’s time to JFDI!


Other stuff:

Thank you very much to all who came to my presentation at the Presidio Yacht Club on Saturday night. (Photo of me with Ray DiFazio, one of the members of the band.) There was a fantastic turnout – the room was crammed, and I don’t think it was all due to the promise of dinner (which was excellent, incidentally – my compliments to the chefs).

A lot of people came up to me afterwards with questions, requests for photos, and promises of financial support. To those people, and anybody else who would like to help me make this year’s plans a reality, you can donate in any of these ways:
- via PayPal here, or
- online to the Blue Frontier Campaign (making sure to choose my project from the drop-down box), or
- by check to The Blue Frontier Campaign, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, D.C. 20036. Please make sure that the check is clearly marked in the memo field as being for Roz Savage, and indicate if you would like a letter of receipt for tax purposes. (The Blue Frontier Campaign is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.)

Thank you!