I’m a land lubber. I’m not ashamed about it. I’ve taken a few boat trips around the island, I’ve gone snorkeling and attempted swimming, but I am NOT a water-baby like the Antiguan foursome who are participating in this year’s edition of the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic rowing Challenge. The prospect of crossing the Atlantic on a vessel that is powered by oars doesn’t appeal much to me. Even though they’ll be only a few miles away from land on the entire row, that land would be under water, so I’ll be following the progress from the safety of the land. I however, will not criticize team Wadadli and their cutting edge carbon fiber craft, Wa’Omoni. To each his own. Sailors are a special and rare breed and from what I know of these men, they fit that mold perfectly.
On the bus the other day I struck up a conversation with a lady about a book I had. When I introduced the race and nitty gritty involved, she aghast and stridently insisted that the crew- Nick, Peter , Archie and JD- were lunatics on a fool’s errand and ‘needed to get their head checked.’ All my attempts to convince her that this was a worthy cause and that all the precautions were taken that would ensure the safety of the rowers were put into place were futile. She believed that the ocean was for fish and the land was for man. I can’t blame her; after all, the ‘medievals’ ignorantly thought the earth was flat and feared that they would fall off the edge into oblivion if they sailed too far west, but we know how that turned out. As she got off at her stop, she looked back, “Fuller a me doctor, but you can tell he me say he crazy” the whole bus laughed. Immediately, everyone began staring at me. “ So you a one ah de crazy ones too?”
As I said, I am a land lubber, so you know that being at sea for approximately 6 weeks wasn’t a part of my program. I hadn’t even heard of this race until recently, but the sheer test of will and skill that would be tested on this journey intrigued me so I thought it best to follow their progress, looking through the eyes of these men who were more at home on the water than on land. By the time I got to my stop, I felt like an expert on m things about this challenge. I could have told them about the boat and its specs, the members of the crew and their seamanship experience, but most importantly was the reason that these men who –according to many- had lost the good cause of their brain were going to get into a rowboat and come across the pond. There was one man on the bus who wasn’t aghast at the thought of crossing the Atlantic in a row boat. He was totally okay with the prospect of it being done and I quickly realized why. He was one of the rare breed. He was an English Harbour man so I’d expect no different. That however, wasn’t the only reason. It appears that an uncle of one of the rowers ,his close friend spent his last days being cared for at the St. John Hospice, the primary beneficiary of team Wadadli’s madness. Causes like this only seem to take on significance when they impact close to home and I tip my hat to the rowers who from all indications are reasonably well off and are able to provide for themselves privately the sort of care that the hospice offers free of cost. This extreme measure to bring to the fore the labour of love carried out by those at the St. John Hospice demonstrated the commitment to the cause; I however do not see myself doing that but I believe that we should all aspire to demonstrating our humanity by becoming involved in some way. I won’t dictate how but I think I’ll go chat with the directors and patients to get their take on how this could be done……