Today I escaped my boat island and dived into the big magnificent blue. I let myself drift astern of the boat to the very end of our 45m safety line. She looked so tiny and far away, bouncing, like a piece of plastic litter, just like the many I had seen while rowing. But this boat, this @Mhondoro (proudly named after the magnificent game lodge in the Welgevonden game reserve), lives up to her name. Mhondoro, the ‘young lion spirit’ in the Shona dialect, lives up to her noble name! Indeed, she is not only the lion spirit, the symbol of the King of beasts, but also Earth Spirit. Please let me explain.

Our little 6.8m row boat is currently floating in no-mans land. The chances of being rescued if things went really bad are very slim. For a ship to reach us once the inflatable life raft is deployed, may possibly take weeks. An air search and rescue in the mid South Atlantic is like looking for the veritable ‘needle in the hay stack.’ So, why am I feeling sort of okay, and in a way, content in doing this so-called ‘impossible’ expedition (this will be a world-first in reaching Rio, in that it is the most southerly row ever undertaken to the Americas and also the first ever row from South Africa to South America. One of the main reasons is because of the heavy seas, which we experienced in no small measure, that push mighty and strong from the deep cold of Antarctica. Cape Town is not called the ‘Cape of Storms’ for nothing!)? I feel okay for two reasons mainly; one, my purpose is good and can have a great positive impact on our Earth (with your help) and two, our boat Mhondoro is not dis-similar to Her!

What do we need to survive on this rare home of ours? Sun, air, water, food, shelter. Our boat is solar powered to charge our batteries, so that our batteries can operate our water desalinator so we can drink.

The air is pure around our little home. The food is stored in ration form in our holds, although the sea supplies us with Her bounty (flying fish and squid land on the boat at night) and our tiny cabin is more than adequate shelter. If we do not look after her, and all she freely provides us, we will die. Are you, where you are right now, and us, where we are right now in the mid South Atlantic, so far apart after all? Are our responsibilities not the same; to look after, with infinite care, our finite resources?