Today’s blog is about a Seattle ocean rower named Erden Eruç. Support him and his journey by reading his blogs from the sea at http://www.around-n-over.org
Our great friend and ocean rowing colleague, Erden Eruç, is over half-way across the Indian Ocean. To date, he has now been at sea for the 2nd longest of any ocean rowers in history. It is a truly remarkable number that first started it’s count when he took to the mid-Atlantic Ocean – one of the many legs on his multi-year journey to circumnavigate the earth by human power. With that not being enough, he is also climbing 6 of the world’s 7 tallest summits.
We get the question often enough, “Are you CRAZY?!? Why on earth would you row across an ocean?” Reading Erden’s blog today, he took the time to answer that question not in his own words, but those of the legendary ocean rower John Fairfax:
“I DON’T think that those of us who have felt the need to climb a mountain or row an ocean have done it, or will do it, “because it’s there” but “because we are here.” Without us mountains and oceans have no meaning by themselves: they “are there” and always will be but, for a very, very few, their presence inspires a dream of pitting our puny strength against their might, and to conquer not them but ourselves. The quest to prove worthy of an almost inconceivable challenge is our greatest reward.
‘To us it is not the final result that matters but how we measure up to our self-imposed task to confront and do battle with Nature at its rawest. And those who die in the attempt do not die in defeat; quite the opposite, their death is, in many ways, a triumph, the symbol of that indomitable human spirit that will break before it bends. To test what we are made of, that is our pursuit.”
Erden is down to just 2 oars after his spares have all broken. He’s telling a terrific story of his pursuit… his quest… his triumph.
What’s your motivation? What is your pursuit? What is your triumph? We’d love to hear your comments.