Update 2017
Roz made it across the rest of the Pacific with less problems, then went on and paddled across the Indian Ocean!
Roz had broken all of her oars on the transit across the Atlantic. As a joke I had given Roz a Hawaiian paddle. She said that she could not fit it onto her boat, so would I hold it for her. On June 4, 2017 I was able to give the paddle to her in her home town of Windsor, England.
HAWAI’I !! 2008
For those who do not know, Roz Savage is the young English lady who rowed across the Atlantic and has now made it from San Francisco to Hawaii (one million strokes) and essentially around the globe. see www.rozsavage.com
She credited me with saving her life as I got the JUNK to resupply her with water and a watermaker when her water supply had run out, her two watermakers had quit, and there was no one else available to help. She then was successful in completing the final 600 miles without incident.
Roz had tried the San Francisco to Hawaii row in 2007. She was 100 miles offshore when she ran into some bad weather and her boat (the Brocade) had turned over several times. She reported that she had hit her head, but was OK. None-the-less someone trying to help called the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard sent out first an airplane, then a helicopter to pick her up. She refused at first, but relented and was brought to shore. She was very upset about that and thus on this try in 2008 she did not tell anyone that she was in trouble. In July I realized that Roz had not been forthright about her condition. (She was very surprised that I fathomed her distress and asked me when I met her in Hawaii “How did you know I was in trouble, I did not tell anyone?”) I just knew. For the month of July I called and emailed any ship or craft I could find that was in the area or headed to or from Hawaii to try to get help. Roz’s mom Rita was not happy with my “interference” but I kept at it. I kept getting negative responses. On August 1, 2008, when Roz was 1140 miles from Hawaii I contacted the raft “JUNK” (actually a raft made up of junk, bottles, old masts, old sails and an old airplane fuselage http://junkraft.blogspot.com/
who happily was also enroute to Hawaii) with a request that they meet up with Roz and give her some help if they could. Anne, the landside contact for the JUNK , immediately contacted Rita. It took two long weeks, and 500 miles but on August 13, the JUNK and Roz did meet. It turned out that the two guys on the JUNK had underestimated how long it would take them to reach Hawaii and they were on their last bit of food – a jar of peanut butter. Roz had packed more than enough food and gave them three bags of food; they gave her 7.5 gallons of water and a manual watermaker. So after that, they both made it in much better shape than if I had not gotten them together. Anne was very happy to meet me, she introduced me around and excitedly told everyone that “John got them together, he was the reason they survived!!!”
Below is a photograph I took as I was towing Roz from The Waikiki Yacht Club to the Hawaii Yacht Club to get the Brocade onto her trailer. Roz’s mother Rita had basically told me that I was not part of the team and not to come to Hawaii, but I went anyway, making a quick trip of it. Roz however asked me to stay and help her clean up the Brocade and get her ready for storage. Unfortunately I could not change my flight- luckily she had many other volunteers:
Roz on her last time on the water in 2008.
The Brocade on her trailer, Dave Helvarg of Blue Frontier Campaign is taking pictures of the goose barnacles on her bottom. I had emailed her in July suggesting that when she found a moment she should investigate the bottom for barnacles. Roz had replied that the bottom was clean, but then decided to go overboard to check, indeed there were barnacles attached and she cleaned them off; here a month later, more had attached themselves.
The raft JUNK (a meld of three photographs!).
September 3, 2008….HAWAI’I Party
Roz Savage in Hawaii
Roz’s rowboat in Waikiki Yacht Club
Stern of the rowboat.
Her aft cabin where she slept.
Roz getting into the Brocade for the last time this portion of the trip.
Roz and me.
Joel, Roz and Marcus
Hawaii Yacht Club
Joel (of the JUNK) and Anna (whom I emailed to ask her to get the JUNK to meet and get water to Roz, thus, according to Roz: “Saved my life”).
Rita (Roz’s mum, her land side person), Anna (JUNK’s land side person, Markus’s fiance), and Roz
Marcus and the containers used to make the raft JUNK.
Joel, Roz, and Marcus
Roz and Marcus (this is the photograph Roz put up on her web site – www.rozsavage.com/blog – September 6th)
Hawaii Marina at night.
Hawaii Marina at night.
Mum (very English, whot?)
This is the JUNK on the Aquarium grounds, actually 7 photographs Photoshop put together for me! Can you find the seams?
Other photographs of HAWAII:
Famed Waikiki Beach with Diamondhead in the background (14 photos stitched!)
This was a challenge for Photoshop, four photographs, two horizontal, two vertical, Photoshop worked it out and rotated the pictures automatically!!
Diamondhead Lighthouse
Waikiki Beach
Surfers (taken from my hotel)
Standing on the dock at the Hawaii Yacht club, looking down at the clearest water I have seen in a marina! (That is a mangrove seed floating on the top right.)
Amy and Sarah on my stopover on the way to Hawaii!
On the 63rd anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I stood at this spot (below) on the USS Missouri.
A little history: In November of 1945, (three months after the bombs were dropped and two months after Japan surrendered) 900,000 American soldiers and 1 million Russians were scheduled to invade Japan. The atomic bombs saved the lives of 1/3 of those Americans and Russians, and most likely over 1 million Japanese soldiers and civilians (probably almost 2 million lives in all). After Hiroshima, leaflets were dropped on 47 cities in Japan urging them to give up the war, unfortunately the leaflets were not dropped on Nagasaki until after the bomb had been dropped there. By the way, the two bombs were actually duds. Only 1.5 percent of the uranium in Little Boy (dropped August 4 on Hiroshima) and the plutonium in Fat Man (detonated on August 9 at 1,650 feet above Nagasaki because Kokura was covered in smoke) actually went off, but that was enough. Plans were in place to drop another bomb every ten days in September, accelerating to one every four days in December (a total of twenty bombs in 1945). There was enough material (U235 and plutonium) for 30 bombs to be constructed, two of which were used in tests on Bikini Atoll at the insistence of the military. For a good description of what happened, you can read “Racing for the Bomb” by Robert Norris.
The USS Arizona in the background, USS Missouri deck foreground.
Hawaii’s signature flower.
Migratory bird on Hawaii.
Interesting bird on Hawaii.
USS Arizona Monument (the ship lies below, under the water)
Two Japanese Idols on Hawaii for a photo shoot, umbrella keeps sun off.
