John Beeden can finally enjoy some ginger nut cookies and “a bed that doesn’t throw you against the wall” after 209 days alone at sea and becoming the first person to row solo, non-stop across the Pacific Ocean, from North America to Australia.
Beeden, 53, a self-described “Scrawny Old Yorkshireman” from Burlington, Ontario, arrived in the eastern Australian city of Cairns on Sunday morning.
The British-born man left San Francisco in June expecting to complete the 7,400-nautical mile (13,704-kilometre) journey in 180 days.
“Still feels a bit strange to be on solid ground,” Beeden tweeted to his followers shortly after being greeted by his wife Cheryl and two daughters at the Cairns marina.
Beeden, kept in contact with his family through blog posts and tweets sent from his six-metre boat, Socks II, in the middle of the ocean.
Beeden slept just seven hours in the final 90 hours of his journey as he raced to finish the journey ahead of coming monsoon rains that would have delayed him even further, his wife told RCI.
“It was flat calm, humid and the current was pulling SE, I drifted south east but did not got much closer to Cairns, it would have been nice to have drifted towards Cairns and had a couple of miles less to do but like the rest of the 209 days nothing was going to go easy,” he wrote in his blog.
Beeden rowed the final 21-nautical mile stretch in two-mile blocks resting for two minutes between each block.
“The current pulled hard south east every time I had my two-minute break so I had to keep pushing hard,” he wrote.
Eventually he saw land.
“The tip of the headland was actually the Yarrabah area (an Aboriginal community) this was a stunning backdrop for the next hours row,” Beeden wrote. “Cairns is situated in tropical mountainous rainforest and this row into the marina turned out to be set against a stunning backdrop.”
Soon after, his wife and daughters arrived by boat to greet him.
“We had an emotional reunion with all three girls trying to fight back the tears,” Beeden wrote. “We spent 20 minutes in the beautiful bay chatting in what I think is the most relaxed state I’ve been in for the last 209 days.”
He rowed in the Cairns marina surrounded by a small flotilla of boats who had come to greet him.
This was Beeden’s second ocean crossing: in 2011 he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a journey that took 53 days.
So why does he do that?
He lists some of his reasons in his blog:
“To have something worth while on your headstone.
To lead from the front and teach the kids there is no challenge too big.
To go down swinging as we age.
To break free of the mundane routine of paying the mortgage.
Just to feel alive and in control of your own destiny.”
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