TED Talk: Roy Savage: Why I’m rowing across the ocean

Rating: ***
Roy Savage is a middle aged women from London, United
Kingdom. She leads a normal like as a management consultant. Though one day she
sits down and writes two ways she wants to lead her life. The first being stay
in this job and plod on through life. The second being the more attractive, to
lead an adventurous life, rowing oceans.
This article was very appealing to me as I am considering
taking up rowing. Roy talks about her experiences of rowing across the Atlantic
which is very fascinating. She goes on to describe how so many things can go
wrong providing the audience the example of her oars breaking and having to
salvage all parts of the boat to fix them. She then tells us that she is total
self supporting and has no help boat; therefore she is alone mostly for the
whole trip and does not see practically anyone for the whole time (which would
drive me up the wall).
With this she then goes on to say, ‘How do you top rowing
across the Atlantic Ocean? Cross the Pacific’. On her first attempt to go
across to Hawaii, the Australia in the first attempt she rolled her boat four
times. Unfourtantly she blogged about it and someone decided that she was in
great distress and called the coast guard to save her. She appears a little bit
bitter and twisted about this; though in hind sight it may in fact be for the
best.
As she talks to this particular audience she is currently
standing on her 2/3’s of the crossing mark, meaning that she is close to
completing her trip to Australia. She talks about dramatic but funny event such
as her water purifier that turns salt water into fresh water being disabled
after it comes into contact with the ocean when she must of flipped.
Coincidently a boat that is made out of plastic by men who are trying to bring
rubbish awareness to the Pacific, as currently millions and millions of tons
circle in the ocean at this very minute, are running out of food as she is
running out of water. Luckily they meet up and are able to trade.
Roy then brings up an issue about a country named Tarawa. It
is a very low lying country that is always in complete and utter fear of being
hit by a wave, therefore contaminating there fresh water system, meaning that
the 100000 men, women and children would have to relocate of the land that they
grew up on to a country such as New Zealand or Australia. She talks about how
she would feel if her home country of England suddenly had to be evacuated, the
place she was born, raised, married and was a special part of her life was
suddenly taken away by an act of nature.
Nearing the end of the TED talk she tells the audience when
she reaches Australia she will be with first women to row solo across the
Pacific ocean to Australia. She tells us that she is doing this all to bring
awareness to environmental issues, such as the millions of tons of rubbish
floating around. I think that she has devoted all this hard work and effort to
such a great cause and should definitely keep all this up as she may play a key
part in such a worldwide issue.
Citation: TED Talk, Ray Savage, Why I’m rowing across the
Pacific, April 2010