Call of the Ocean
Discover the profound connection between humanity and the ocean with our unique collection of stories. This curated series features captivating interviews from individuals who lives have been shaped by the sea.
Each story offers a glimpse into the transformative power of the ocean, showcasing its ability to inspire, heal and connect us all.
Call of the Ocean
Rowing the Atlantic
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In this episode we chat with Emma and Andrew who took part in the Atlantic Dash. They 56 days rowing across the Atlantic and share their experiences with us. As well as it being a personal challenge, they also raised awareness and money for a number of charities. If you want to find out more about them and how you can support them check out these links @Sharkbait26 on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
Welcome to Call of the Ocean Podcast. My name's Keris.
SPEAKER_00And my name's Neil. And this is the podcast where we gather and share people's ocean stories.
SPEAKER_02So welcome to episode two. On this episode, we've got the amazing Emma and Andrew, otherwise known as Team Sharkbait. And they rode across the Atlantic as part of the Atlantic Dash.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so they they did it as a bit of a personal challenge and to raise awareness and money for a number of different charities.
SPEAKER_02We hope you really enjoy it because they're such a lovely couple.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and quite funny as well. Made us laugh, didn't they?
SPEAKER_02They did, definitely.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and apologies for some of the recording, the connection was a little bit dodgy at times, but you know, I'm sure you're going to really enjoy it nevertheless. Let's get started. Earliest memories of the ocean. And how did it make you feel?
SPEAKER_03So for me, I mean I grew up by the sea, so I th I was racking my brains. And I think it's just it was just an adventure playground, because that was where I spent every summer with my family. And me and my cousins were constantly in the water, um, as much as we possibly could be, with that old adage of your parents going, No, you can't go in for half an hour, you've just had your lunch. And we'd sit half hour to be up. Um, so that that's my first memory of it. It's just just literally playing. So, of course, the way it made me feel was happy. That was my summer, that was what I did every day. If we could, I mean, I look back and I think we were there probably every single day, the summer holidays. I'm sure with uh British weather we weren't, but for me, that's what it felt like. So I loved it. I had no fear, I'd always been a swimmer, so for me, it was just somewhere to go and spend the best summer days with my my family.
SPEAKER_01What's something's just come to me actually? I've been I've been worried about this question because I I lived in a bit of a landlocked area. I come from uh Monmouth. Oh yeah. East side of Wales, which was nowhere near the sea, unfortunately. But I I looked, I found a photograph of me sitting on Western Super Mare Beach with a cowboy hat on when I was about how about less than a year old. Less than a year old, really. But whilst Ed was talking then, I just thought of a time where my my gran, when I was about 10 years old, she's from the very north coast of Scotland, near a town called Thurzo, in a little village called Betty Hill. And she took myself and my sister up there when I was 10 and my sister was eight on a train, the two of us, and their house, where her uh family home was literally. I showed you a photo the other day. You could throw a pebble from their front door into the sea, it was amazing on the north coast.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01So that I remember like like walking across the beach up there with my gran. I was very young, I was so 10 years old. So, how did it make me feel? I remember thinking it was quite rough, the sea, certainly on the north coast of Scotland there.
SPEAKER_03So that that's really my tell them where you thought salmon came from.
SPEAKER_01Salmon, yeah. Embarrassed to say that now. They had walked this house, which is a lovely stone building, you know, really traditional Scottish kind of cottage. And yeah, my grand bought in a whole salmon one afternoon from the walled garden, which you couldn't get into, only from the house. And yeah, for a good while I thought salmon came from the garden. But one of the local fishermen has come along and passed her. Uh I obviously found out later on that salmon didn't come from the garden.
SPEAKER_02Emma, I met you like a long, long time ago and back in the days of nursing. Very long time ago. Yeah, yeah. And it's you know, and we've been friends for a long time, and and I I noticed that you um that you were doing this mad, crazy adventure of going across the Atlantic as well with um with Andrew. What made you want to do that?
SPEAKER_03Well, I you you know, I've been rowing in Celtic longboats for years now, 20 years. And um it just came up on Facebook that somebody else I knew was looking for teammates and it all escalated from there. And then the team changes a couple of times. Obviously, I ended up this lovely man said he would come with me, so um, we both set about getting it sorted together then. So it was just a progression from my rowing, I think. Not so much for Andrew, he'd never rowed before.
SPEAKER_01That's not slight.
SPEAKER_00But I suppose you get the hang of it before you get to the final destination, I guess. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Say that again, sorry.
SPEAKER_00I suppose you get the hang of it before you get there, don't you? After month one, you're probably an expert.
SPEAKER_01I did say that the rowing was kind of almost the least important aspect of it, really. We were quite physically fit, weren't we? Before we were, but that we did we spent so much time just sat in front of a computer, like ordering food and all the requirements for the boat that the the fitness lapsed in the end, didn't it? But it was okay. It was okay. Going across is okay. Absolutely shattered now.
SPEAKER_03The he's being a natural athlete. I think he was actually better at the rowing in the end than me.
SPEAKER_00What what was the um you know what prompted it? What was the the reason for for doing it?
SPEAKER_03For me, I think it was just the chance to have a big adventure, the chance to prove to myself that I could do something quite extreme. Um, and we we did it for charities as well. So there was, you know, the the the fact that we were out there and we were hopefully gonna raise plenty of money for the the charities that we'd chosen. Again, this was the old teammates that we chose the charities with. But and and I've always said to the kids, you've got to go and do mad daft things. I kind of thought I'd better put my money where my mouth is. And what about for you, Andrew?
SPEAKER_01Well, I uh when I when I met Emma that fateful night almost two years ago now, I did I I had no knowledge of rowing really, although I live by the coast now and have done for like 25 years, I suppose. Rowing wasn't in my kind of sphere. And uh yeah, gradually got covert. So I was interested in a challenge of some kind. I've been through a bit of a rough patch in my kind of personal life, I suppose, outside of Ebba over the last few years. So I was looking for some kind of challenge and something to rattle my cage and get me sort of out and about there, really, and shake me up a bit. And this was the challenge that came along. Luckily, at the right time, it was perfect, yeah. All of the teammates fell away one by one, and I was left like a night in shining eye. Yeah, it's about doing it on her own, but I'm sure she could have done it without a doubt. But I'm glad she said she asked me. She asked me, or I asked her, no one really knows. There had been a lot of red wine drunk that night. But it all ended in the right place.
SPEAKER_02What's your most favourite memory of the experience?
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh, that's a difficult one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Mine, I think. Like people talk about the sunrises and sunsets, but for me it was the moon rises and the moonsets. The night sky was amazing, and obviously at night you still can't see anything. We became a little bit obsessed with the moon because it meant that we could see a bit more of the water. Yeah, um, and then aside from that, I suppose the wildlife was just phenomenal, wasn't it? I mean, we didn't see as much as perhaps we'd have liked to, but we did see a lot of dolphins, birds, loads of fish.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, incredible. We did get surrounded by dolphins one day, didn't we?
SPEAKER_03Well, that was that was yeah.
SPEAKER_01Hundreds of dolphins for only for about 15 minutes, but it was amazing, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03And just being out there alone. It's just nothing, just sea and sky, and more sea and more sky, and seas were big at time, and just getting I don't know, it's hard to tie down one thing, but just being amazed at what you can get used to living in on a day-to-day basis.
SPEAKER_01You know, we came from Lanzarote, and the seas are quite calm, and then they just get bigger and bigger every day as you approach the center of the Atlantic, and but you just seem to one day you think I can't I can't live like this, I can't do cooking, and then a few days later you're that sea exists, and you're doing cooking and just living in it. It's phenomenal how you get used to, yeah.
SPEAKER_00What was the hardest bit? Would you say what was the the most difficult thing? Was it physical or psychological, or is it something unexpected?
SPEAKER_03That I think it's definitely psychological. It it is a physical challenge, but it's not as physical as people think. It's definitely more just being out there, being alone, when it's getting a bit hairy out there, realizing that there's actually nothing you can do, no one's going to come and save you. You're miles from anyone, despite all the wonderful equipment that you've got on board. Um yeah, psychological. We we capsized, unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it. Um, and so after we had to hand steer, we'd lost our auto helm, and we were doing half-hour on, half-hour shifts for the last three weeks, 24 hours a day. So the sleep deprivation was definitely one of the toughest things as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And what so what kept you going? Well, at one point we did we did almost, we were, we were thinking we couldn't keep going. Um, but we had didn't really have much choice. Is one of the main reasons there was no one coming to save us. And I think the closer we got to Antigua, you just get to a point where you think, I've done this now, I've got to finish this, and I've got to finish it in style. And the finish was phenomenal. Just family and friends at the end and the people cheering us in. It was the most one of the most amazing experiences of my life, definitely.
SPEAKER_01Incredible, incredible. But yeah, it definitely was more of a psychological, a mental test than a than a physical one, luckily, because we'd let the physical, but it definitely was, yeah. Yeah, it was in it was intense. After the you the beginning of it is very exciting when you leave Lanzarote, and then but when you just after you lose sight of land, which is probably only two or three days, wasn't it? And it's it's still exciting because you're learning how to live and exist as two people on this tiny little boat, but eventually you get used to that, and then it it the mundane nature of what you've got ahead of you. You've been doing the same thing day in, day out, and you there's a process then of you you you're trying not to think about all the weeks that you've got ahead of you and things like that. So that you've got to get your your mind around that, haven't you? That transition from excitement to oh my gosh, this is just we're just slaving away here for the next five or six weeks, which is exactly what happened in the end. So it's definitely a definitely more of a psychological test than a physical. Would you do it again?
SPEAKER_03If you'd have asked derived first got off the boat for at least a week, you would have got a point blank no, absolutely not. But the brain's clever or I don't know, dangerous, but slowly the the discomfort and the bits that were terrifying disappear, and all the beautiful bits and the lovely bits come to the front. So, yes, potentially a different ocean, I think. I think we've done the Atlantic, but possibly I wouldn't say no now.
SPEAKER_01No, no, it's like not to row in the ocean. The hard but the hardest bit is kind of everyone says, is getting to the start line, really, with you know, finances and all of the the learning process, certainly for me, not being a rower and not really having any access to any kind of sea background at all. Yeah, it's it was it's a long process to get just to the start line. So it's whether you're prepared to put yourselves through that again, as well as the actual if someone said you can jump in a boat tomorrow and do it in a different ocean, I'd probably say yes.
SPEAKER_03It's an expensive endeavor.
SPEAKER_01They gave us the money.
SPEAKER_02So is there a next adventure ready?
SPEAKER_03No, not yet. There's a few things we've toyed with. Um, Andrew's an Iron Man, so I keep saying to him, Do you want to do one with me? Because I haven't done one. I am trying to persuade him that the Indian Ocean would be another perhaps exciting challenge. But again, like we said, it's it's expensive. We will do something, I think. You don't do something like this, and then just go, right, that's it, that's me. I'm gonna take up watching TV or knitting. It there's got to be something else to do, hasn't there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think so. Can't go back to the mundane life, although we need to get money back in the bank accounts at the moment.
SPEAKER_03It's always money.
SPEAKER_00So, did you have to fund it yourself pretty much, or could you get sponsorship to sort of help fund it up?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we did have some sponsorship. We had some very generous sponsorship, but we did have to do a large part of the funding ourselves because it it is just so expensive. The equipment is there to save your lives and and you pay for it, the boats aren't cheap. Um, so yeah, we had we had some very lovely people who helped us out, and our family and friends were absolutely amazing. Every bingo, every every event they came and bought tickets, but um, but yeah, it's it is it's not a cheap thing to do.
SPEAKER_00And you can't earn while you're rowing across the Atlantic, can you?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_01No, that's it. You've got to fund your time off. We've both had six months. Well, Emma had a six-month career break, and I I've done pretty much the same, haven't I? I suppose, apart from December.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So yeah, still still got to pay the bills, even when you're out in the middle of an ocean.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, tricky.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's not something you think about really, is it? No.
SPEAKER_01No, that's it. But yeah, everyone's got the same is in the same boat, aren't they? Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03And most of the other crews, there was a lot of self-funding that went on. But if it's something that you want to do, it was definitely worth it. I would say that.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it was amazing because there is was it four or five other boats as well that went across at the same time?
SPEAKER_00You were watching it progressively day, weren't you?
SPEAKER_02Every day, like two or three times a day, I was checking to see where you all were, and I was like, Come on now, mate, you got this.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, people have said it it got quite addictive. It was um, I mean, when we before the capsize, we had communications and stuff, and we could look at it, and we were watching because I was getting excited and competitive when we went into second. After the cap size, we lost that. And it's like, I'm not looking at this anymore, it's depressing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I think at one point you were like second or first, weren't you weren't you?
SPEAKER_03You were right up there with well, but uh and it's funny because you all leave together, but it's probably within a couple of hours you those boats disappear off in their own direction. You never see them again until the end.
SPEAKER_02Right. And you think that you guys would be sort of, you know, it looks on the on the app that you you were all quite close, and I was thinking, oh, but they're talking to each other and saying hello and things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like never again, you just wave, wave goodbye to them and then don't see them until you either they cheer you in the other end or you cheer them in, depending on who gets them first.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. And did you uh what was your favourite um creature that you saw on the ocean or thing that you saw on the ocean?
SPEAKER_01Oh well, the dolphins were amazing, but the dolphins are amazing.
SPEAKER_03What were you gonna say?
SPEAKER_01The brown noddies.
SPEAKER_03Oh, the brown noddies, these birds that would so they huddled on our boat a couple of nights in a row in bad weather, and they were so tame. There's wild birds, but they were huddled down and they were they would step onto your hands so you could bring them into a more sheltered place in the boat. Oh they were ridiculous how tame they were. They were lovely, they were hella noisy, but but yes. And for me, the flying fish, everyone said, Oh, you're gonna see loads of flying fish, they'll land on the deck, they absolutely stink. And I mean, they smell like fish, but they didn't they were that bad. Picking them up and trying to rescue them and throw them back over while they're wiggling in your hand wasn't very pleasant. But when you saw them skimming across the top of the water, they look like little fairy fish, they're so pretty with their little wings. I was amazed every time I saw them skitting across. I they were for me, I thought they were lovely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there was they were always fish following the boat underneath cleaning the bottom for us because we didn't cleaning under the boat, did we?
SPEAKER_03No, it's too rough to keep those birds.
SPEAKER_01Oh, and there was another bird, wasn't there, Emma? Emma adopted a bird out there. Did he? I think it was a tropic bird.
SPEAKER_03A white tropic bird. This long straw tail, I nicknamed it straw tail. And the first time it came, he was in the cabin and he he told me uh we had we hallucinated quite a bit out there. He said, Are you sure we weren't hallucinating? I said, No, came back the next day, and it would almost come back in the day, fly around the boat like it was going to land, and then after about 10 minutes it would disappear. And it did that daily for a couple of weeks. I was convinced it was going to come home.
SPEAKER_02That sounds really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was a cool. And we saw it diving for fish a few days. It was oh wow, it exists out in the middle of the ocean. You think, what are these birds doing?
SPEAKER_03It didn't look like uh a seafish, a seabird, really, did it? But it obviously walked, yeah, just the disappearance, then we'd never see it again until the next day, and it popped back round again.
SPEAKER_00Goodness.
SPEAKER_02What do you think the ocean is telling us, and do you think we're listening?
SPEAKER_03Honestly, when we were out there, I I think there's a total disregard for the power of the sea and the ocean, and I don't even think as a rower I really realized it properly until you're out there in the middle, and and its immensity is just it's phenomenal, really is. And I think I felt protected by it, but I also felt like it didn't necessarily want me there. Um I think it's telling us to be a lot more careful than perhaps we are. Um and I, yeah, like I said, I did sometimes have a distinct feeling that it was rather I wasn't there. I'll keep you safe, I'll get you across. Now get off of me and go away. Um and are we listening? I I don't know. Yes, some people are listening, aren't they? Some people are doing their best to, you know, keep species protected, to protect our water, to keep them clean from the plastics and the crap that we throw away so easily. But then there's many people who no aren't listening at all. I think they're completely disregarding it. And that's a shame. Um, it definitely needs to be more of a voice from the people who are trying to keep the seas clean and safe. It's it's vital, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01We need they were very from our point of view, though.
SPEAKER_03We were pleasantly surprised by how little we saw out there with regards to rubbish and things. Um, the the rowers are all very careful that everything taken out there is bagged up and taken back. You know, you take it across, nothing goes over the side. Well, there's a couple of obvious things that go over the side, like the bucket contents. But other than that, that is biodegraded. Nothing else goes over the side. So, you know, we didn't contribute to it. We saw a few things out there which was, you know, I suppose to be ex well, no, it shouldn't be expected, should it? We were in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I suppose some things come off of those ships. You can't keep everything on there. But I think we were we were pleased that we didn't see as much as perhaps we'd been told we might do. So that was one good thing.
SPEAKER_01It was a good thing. But I also thought that yeah, the we weren't we weren't wanted out in the ocean necessarily. And yeah, I don't know. It's difficult now. The things have kind of run their course, and I feel differently now. But straight after the row, I I would have said that the ocean was almost hundred percent trying to kill me on a daily basis. It's so immense. Like you can't, you know, any and you we'd be sat there and you're just in the middle, and all you can see on the horizon all around is huge waves breaking everywhere, and you think you we're we're at the totally at the mercy of this. We were powerless to do anything. And if one of those waves wanted to probably snap our little boat in half easily, and so yeah, I built up a lot of respect going across. It's my only experience of any ocean, really, in terms of being certainly being out of sight of land. I think that's the first time, probably. So, yeah, it was it was after, it was after me.
SPEAKER_03The trouble is these waves just come from nowhere and they seem to come almost time to perfection, just as you're about to go on your break, you're completely dry, and suddenly it'll just be splash, have that before your rest. Oh, now you're wet. It's laughing at you almost. So, yeah, we did take Umbridge, we did shout at it a few times, I have to admit.
SPEAKER_01We had many conversations, didn't we, about whether it was sentient, the water, the actual ocean. And I I had the impression that yes, it was. It's it's like a the actual irrespective of all the wildlife in it, that the actual water in the ocean is a living thing. That's what I came away for it with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_00I've heard lots of people saying that about water in general, you know, what rivers and lakes, and so I can imagine when you've experienced it in such an extreme way. Yeah, yeah, it probably sounds incredibly plausible, really.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's definitely what we felt, didn't we?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. We were having conversations with it daily.
SPEAKER_03We did talk to it on a regular basis. Every time I got splashed by a wave, I'd speak to it like a small child. That's not funny anymore, just stop.
SPEAKER_01We've lost the plot. You can sound start to sound a bit yeah crazy if you're not careful.
SPEAKER_02Do you want to do a little bit about people you know still being able to fund or anything like that?
SPEAKER_03And yeah, people we I mean we're called Sharkbait. Um, we're on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Um, we fundraised for um a local charity, Meghan Starr Foundation, the Wales Air Ambulance, um, the MS Society and the Robin Cancer Trust. We'd like to raise as much as possible for them. They're all great charities. There's no such thing as a bad charity, is there? And um, yeah, if anyone wants to sponsor us, that would be lovely. Or even just to have a look at what those charities do, because it's not just about the money, it's about raising awareness of them too.
SPEAKER_02We really hope you enjoyed that. What a really inspiring challenge. And I wonder if it's given you any inspiration. I know it's given us some inspiration, maybe not quite as extreme as rowing across the Atlantic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh it was really interesting, I thought, what they said about the sea being sentient. I think that's something I'd like to look into a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. And I just really enjoyed the fantastic wildlife encounters that they had, the flying fish. I mean, that would be awesome to see and the dolphins and making friends with noddies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Where can you find them if you wanted to sponsor them a bit more?
SPEAKER_02But you can check out our show no show notes because there's gonna be links to social media and the GoFundMe page. I'm sure they'd be grateful for any more donations.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, and get in touch. If you know somebody who should be on the show, if we should get on the show, or if you're interested in coming on yourself, just let us know.
SPEAKER_02Definitely. But we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, until then, get out, have some adventures, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye.