Well - It Happened.. Again! Portsmouth NH to Portland ME. Yee Ha!

September 11, 1993. Saturday afternoon I found myself driving north into New Hampshire not remembering the directions real well and relying on my nose. I was going the speed of traffic, which was terrifying, and wondering what I went and got myself into... again.

Two hours later I'd met Gary and we set about preparing our tiny boat for a test spin into the open ocean as dusk approached. We strapped ourselves into our 19 foot by 2 foot rowing shell and headed out of a Kittery harbor for a light house about 40 minutes out. We were rowing out there to check the water conditions, and to give me a chance to get a little practice, since it had been about 1 year since I'd been in a boat like this. As it was, last year was only the 4th time in my life anyway.

It was really calm and peaceful and we moved between the anchored boats. All the rest of life's "noise" was far away and Gary and I didn't talk. It seemed like that would have spoiled it. We got to the light house about 25 minutes  later feeling really good. The water looked great and neither one of us missed a stroke yet (at 19 a minute).

Now it started to feel real and Gary and I started to talk about stuff. Life. Ain't it great. I tell him that he's crazy to do this, again, and he reminds me, again, that it's all my fault. We had been doing this for nearly a year anyway, so it was friendly and familiar ground. We rowed back to shore as we watched an outstanding sunset pass by.

Last minute supplies at a store then home for final preparations. Intensive phone calls about the expected weather and the the final decision to go. Top the night off with a monstrous pile of spaghetti to help prep the muscles.  OK, 3:45 am and we are up just 4 hrs after we finally got to sleep. Throw some food down the throat, pack the car, make a few final preparations and off we go to start the day. And what a day.

We all met at the ocean. Pat, the boat captain; Dave, the man on support and audio-visual; Mark, a rower; Beth a rower; and Gary and I as well. 5:30 and Gary and Mark are rowing out of that peaceful harbor and the rest of us are on the chase boat. A beautiful way to start the morning, watching the sun rise out in the ocean. It was cold and there was a chilling wind for us on the chase boat, but the rowers were downright hot.

As the morning progressed and we worked our way up the coast we traded off rowers from time to time to keep up the pace and keep us fresh. We were rowing at about 4-5 knots steady and battling the tide of about 1 knot. About 9am the wind picked up a bit as the sun started to heat up the water and  it started to get a bit choppy, but we didn't let that slow us down. Soon, the land started to heat up as well, and by the time 11am rolled around the wind died down and the water was smooth. The tide also started to change and we picked up speed. We were ahead of schedule.

We were doing really well until about 1:30 when the wind started to pick up  again, and this time it was getting pretty bad - about 12 knots. The waves and chop started to pick up. It wasn't long before we had waves approaching 3.5 feet about 20 feet apart. At this point, our tiny boat would sometimes be suspended between waves or get tossed around. After the second good case of "torpedoing" and taking on a boat load of water we had to call it quits for a while, it was getting far too dangerous to continue. Of course, now we had to figure out how to get out of that little boat and onto the larger chase boat without killing ourselves, literally.

After a lot of truly fantastic boat work by our captain we got the shell to a place where we could get the people off. No one drowned. However, we now had to figure out what to do with the shell. We emptied it of most of its contents and started to tow it behind the chase boat. This worked fine for maybe 1000 feet. Then a rogue wave nabbed it and it flipped over in an instant. Boy where we glad we weren't on it. Then the fun started.

We weren't totally sure the shell would float, and we knew there was some really expensive rowing gear in the boat that might come loose if a good wave hit it. We started the recovery operation with urgency and fear. We all started to do things, and the right things. Our professionally trained captain ordered us around and kept our heads as we nearly fell overboard, threw heavy objects around, fell on the deck, smashed boats together, and generally had a good time. About 15 minutes later we had the shell actually strapped across the bow of the chase boat and people jammed in corners and we searched one last time for Gary's hat - our only casualty from the affair. And we got just about all of this on video tape thanks to Dave.

We moved forward in the chase boat as the weather worsened and the wind and waves picked up. We should have sung the theme from Gilligan's Island. After 13 miles we found a spot closer to land where we could put in again. Some of our sponsors had gotten together and printed up T-shirts for us, so we put them on and started toward the final destination. We used our donated cellular phone to call ahead and let folks know we were ahead of schedule.

As we rowed into Portland Harbor we passed some folks on a sailboat that yelled over "Hey! We read about you in the paper! Good luck!". That made the whole trip, just about. As we got to our docking point we looked over on the shore and the Television News was there filming our approach. Just in time to see a boat wake soak us good. Finally we made it. We rowed 43 of our 56 mile trip and we had a good win. And we all hurt. It was long day.

Beer for everyone. Hello's to friends and supporters on the docks - some from a long way away.

For the second year in a "row" Gary Wendell and I organized and participated in a 56 mile row from Portsmouth NH to Portland ME in one day to kick off the fund raising year for the NH Ending Hunger Now campaign. Actually, we did it for crazy fun, and used this as our excuse. Last year we raised over $2000.00 when it was all said and done, and we are trying for $5000.00 this year. Some folks pledged money to the person for distance, some to the boat for distance, and most by the event.

Please consider a donation to help stop hunger. Next year we are thinking about a shorter distance but more boats. Perhaps the Cape to Nantucket, who knows!