0:07
this is charlotte pierce i'm the producer of ready row usa we're uh embarking on our 110th
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episode and we have an exciting discussion
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centered around ocean rowing here with our guests Foar From Home the atlantic
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ocean crossing that they recently completed and we'll be talking about that
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but at ready row usa we've we've seen firsthand how rowing changes lives and
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we're on a mission to connect and collaborate with the rowing community so from trainers and ocean rowers to
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masters of a certain age like myself and boat houses we talk to vendors and
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artisans and all sorts of folks in this
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wonderful sport we love talking about rowing and our themes this year are 
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inclusion and access and diversity and fit fitness for life through rowing
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so that those will be coming in most of our episodes will be
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you know touching on those topics uh in some way so we love to have people chime in on
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our social media platforms or on our episodes on the website which uh ryan is
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showing you now um readyrowusa.com and nothing gives us a greater thrill
1:33
than seeing that little notification dot on instagram or twitter and we we try and uh
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get back to people we we uh pay a personal attention to your questions and comments
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and episode suggestions and we do a really good job um
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taking care of our sponsors so we would love to have people join us on a live live stream or join the conversation on
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one of our past episodes i'd like to acknowledge our sponsors and then we'll get into the the nitty-gritty
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here the wave coastal and offshore rowing magazine is they just put out their 10th
2:09
episode and craig chalk is the publisher of that it's a great place to get information
2:16
resources and do networking uh there's a great community around it so please
2:23
check it out and at thewaverowing.com and uh
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our our next sponsor is resolute and sykes fabio selvigus represents both of those
2:35
companies it's down here in western eastern mass and thank you fabio for
2:40
sponsoring uh kind of on a long term basis and another sponsor is burnham boatswings
2:48
we love them great company they are in our customer service hall of fame
2:55
because they just they're just outstanding it's customer service kind
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of built into the dna of that company i think a lot of people would agree with me uh goodinglings is my web designer i
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love laura i cannot produce this show without her thank you laura
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goodinklings.com excellent wordpress site
3:19
designer and now you want to flip back uh to i'll back off and do uh banners ryan and
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jason ryan and jason are jason was a coach for far from home
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and ryan is a uh man about rowing
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i think you you were on our careers in rowing episode yeah you know some people just figure
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out how to be dirt bags for life and that's all right i'm really excited to be here talking to
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this crew of four guys pretty exceptional in a few ways which we're gonna get to go into and our co-host
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tonight jason is also a rowing coach um professionally um
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that's how he and i have known each other over the last couple decades and so i got to
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luckily he called me up when this first started and it was because we were both rowing coaches and he had been approached by this crew that we're
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getting to talk to tonight and so we're going to get to see a recap not just of this crossing that they recently
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completed but also of the a lot of the process and what goes into it it gets
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said sometimes in ocean rowing that 95 of the work happens before you even leave land
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um and then do you guys also hear wow you must be so committed you cross the entire ocean
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the thing i always found funny about that is once you leave after a couple hours what else are you
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gonna do the easiest thing to do at that point is go ahead and finish the crossing and get out of the boat with everybody on the other side right but
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sure anyhow um i'm just recalling as we have this conversation
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tonight also my own crossing uh ten years ago on a very different type of boat so it was contrasting in a few ways
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um one of them was that the boat i did it on was a big catamaran with a crew of 16. we didn't know each other very well
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some of us had never met at all until we arrived in africa to put the boat together um and it was a
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hodgepodge of people who had been brought into the project in different ways and
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yeah so it was a totally different type of experience but there's a book about that if you're interested in it that was
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little ship of fools i'm not the author i get nothing out of that but it's a good read about ocean
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rowing especially if you want to read about some other type of ocean rowing but to that end
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the talisman whiskey atlantic challenge jason give us a quick rundown on what we're talking about here so the
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telescope whiskey atlantic hey everybody i'm jason cottingham uh and one thing i want to say first ryan it's hard to
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believe it's been literally almost two decades since we first met um that's really hard to believe but
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the talisca whiskey atlantic challenge it's a race from lagomera to antigua and
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you're in and the guys guys will be able to tell a lot more about this but the singles doubles triple squads um and scully and
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so it's a pretty grueling race and i it appears and seems like it's there are a lot of
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different ways of going about it right some people are doing it for the journey some are doing it for the race some are raising money like our guys um
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and some a little bit of both or or all of those things so one thing that i want to touch on
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before we get started right so the talisker whiskey atlantic challenge also has a
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fundraiser on top of it or an awareness of one for the sea um right so
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can can can one of you guys just tell us a little bit about one for the sea so so we hit on it i think uh
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the taosker whiskey length challenge has done a ton for ocean rowing and just awareness in
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journal so i want to make sure we we hit on that first just so we don't miss it
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what what is one for the c paul gary
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there we go so the the one for the sea is actually a really uh kind of dynamic program that
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they interlaced in in the campaign uh since everybody's going out on the ocean
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they they choose to select a few boats uh in the fleet to actually be ambassadors to
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uh campaign and highlight the sensitivity of protecting our oceans through conservation
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um every every year they'll have a main theme or a main focus uh this year they were trying to
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really highlight the preservation of the kelp forest uh down in in south africa
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uh the depletion of it and and so it was us um it was anna victorious
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and then uh migolo so we had three boats out of the fleet of
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36 votes that were out there that were uh sea ambassadors and and just to kind
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of end on our our piece of it we really um interlaced because we didn't want to move from our veteran mission
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so when we wrote our essay um to try to persuade them why we wanted to be sea ambassadors we
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we kind of interweaved the the veteran concept into it that the veteran community uses the ocean um and even the
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waterways in the backwater the intercoastal and all over lakes for mental strength and mental
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conditioning and mental awareness gotcha very cool very cool
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so your connection to the water is obviously pretty intense and paul we'll get into a little bit later but
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i think of any picture that i've seen of you you're either in the water under the water or on top of the water
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somehow your pictures are pretty incredible but um so this is four from home uh paul is
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the are we are is it official skipper is that what is that what we're going with organizer
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cam shaking his head yeah yeah he's our skipper skipper
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it seems like he's the the analytical navigator the brains of the group
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um feels the strong silent type and cams
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the muscle right like that's that's how we're how we're rolling through this it's probably pretty close um but
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one thing i like about you guys um and about four from home and your mission as a whole was
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or is um the relationship you guys have with your own community in amelia island
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right your your island and you had the shirts was it what it it takes an island across an ocean
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right and you guys absolutely adopted that and your community adopted that and it was incredible to watch
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what what sort of impact um did that have on you guys in in helping
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you get across the atlantic well i think if i could start i was
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everything i mean it was it truly is what it says i mean it takes
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an island across an ocean and that island is everybody that supported us whether they are from
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fernandina northeast florida or america or anywhere around the world for that matter because we had people from other
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countries as well um but yeah it's pretty surreal to sit here and talk about it after the fact and
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look back on it because as it was building it was always an uh moment every time somebody joined but to sit back and look
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at the numbers and the people and the love that they shared and the support that they gave us it's
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it's uh it's not anything that i can truly wrap my mind around even at this point yeah
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where did the name for the boat come from okay i'll i'll jump on that one [Laughter]
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well there's four of us four f-f-o-u-r but to be respectable rowers you gotta
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have a a rowing reference in your name somewhere right gotcha and since none of us were actually rowers
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uh well you're rowers now we are now but we put it right up front
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we put it right up front let's just go with four from home uh it was a great play on words and it turned out there's a couple
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of other teams that ended up this year that also had a four foa rep for tomorrow also rode this
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year so we they were just as clever as we were yeah yeah and so as part of the race you
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had your team name and then you also had your boat which became your home and your vessel and everything and
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that was tagged in amelia island florida where you guys are from and what was it named
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but courageous courageous yeah that was that was given to it came with the boat although it was a great name it was a
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great fit um you got gifted a perfect book yeah the the the name i think the name
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fit the four individuals growing it uh very cool there's also it was also used in
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some selling competition right the ted turner won ago yeah um
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hub could probably highlight that a little bit better yeah yeah it was the name of the boat in the americas cup when ted turner won for two years so
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that was a great tie-in too but the boat was actually constructed for a british reality tv show called don't rock the
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boat which was from 20 20 18. no i'm not kidding they used it on a tv
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show uh it had a red team and a blue team and rowing was part of the challenge it was
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uh it was an interesting show you got to watch it on youtube if you want to see but i actually sat through all five
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episodes to get because they never called it by its name they just said blue bow red boat blue boat and at the
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very end in the the spice girl in this beautiful english accent says courageous
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courageous this is your teammate and it was nice to it was nice to hear the boat name finally after uh
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sitting through five episodes so she came with that wow you sat through all five of them i
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did just to hear the name of the boat it was fabulous nice nice nice brian let's let's let's pull
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up that picture one more time of them rowing and i got to make one comment here that's a pretty good link that's pretty
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good link this is a training row when i was out there with them you guys have probably rode a half a
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dozen times at this point maybe i don't know a dozen times that's pretty good length ryan right i
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mean yeah not that they used any of that link rowan in the ocean bounce around anything
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you get to a point where you're just kind of like in this hypnosis anyway and you're you're doing well to stay awake
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and keep your body moving right yes uh remembering anything jason ever told you about rowing more efficiently or
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effectively but um no this looks good you know and so it's really fun that you
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guys got to learn how to do this motor movement which isn't really simple it i
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think a lot of people who have been around the water assume that rowing is going to be easy to pick up like you
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learn to ride a bike you're going to figure out how to row but there's a little more to it than that before we get a little sidetracked and jason i do
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want you to talk about how the training went but um the boat itself because i think this
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is something a lot of our audience are going to be flat water rowers who already understand the rowing movement
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but these boats are fully self-contained so we are not talking about having somebody follow us and hand you food
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along the way or whatever you've got water makers you've got your navigation equipment you've got the
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power sources to run those you've got your repair work and all of your food
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any other supplies you might need and as well as where you're staying at night is all aboard this this boat which we've
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got a couple photos of here and um that's pretty cool so
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they're built in the uk mostly a lot of them but there's a photo here of the whole fleet
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and this is just trying to draw the picture what these guys just participated in
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is all the crazies in one place at one time and then and then you go somewhere
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right yeah for sure yeah i think you gotta you gotta be well
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you guys are a little crazy but you gotta be a little crazy to to do this or driven right or motivated um all right
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so let's talk a little bit about training we'll get through this so you guys came to campus we taught you
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how to row you know that was the majority of my part is is getting in
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a boat and just making sure you're kind of making the right movement going but what what was your training regime
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actually like and how long did it start right you started 12 14 months out 18 months out i forget
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what the actual date was two and a half years out well that far out right so so you know 30 months out actually training
15:58
yeah yeah so what did your weeks look like and how did it progress and
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and what was the focus well my week was uh
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monday through friday go to work monday through friday after work go to gym and then saturday sunday row
16:18
[Laughter] that was that was my schedule in a nutshell every every week
16:24
there you go yeah it transformed when we got the it changed significantly when we got when
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we actually received the vote i mean prior leading up to the boat was was basically just general fitness and
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getting ourselves i mean we're getting four older guys in shape you
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know just general physical fitness and we had a cross-train cross-trainer
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crossfit trainer that helped us out a lot um you obviously helped us out with
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going down to ju and and getting on the skulls um just getting getting the basic
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fundamentals until we got the boat once we got the boat it's really the focus was growing on the book getting as many
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hours as we could on the boat and then there was like five mandatory courses that talisker makes you do
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um just a basic um c survival class navigation class
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first aid at c class and um help me out with the other ones uh vhf radio
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operators yeah the radio you got to have a license so we had to complete those courses too
17:30
in a in a certain time period and then it was all just combined but mostly was really getting
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time on the boat because we knew that the amount of time spent on on the boat would be crucial
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um to our success so you guys ate breathe slept
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this for three years for sure yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah
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the telescope requirement the talisca requirement is 120 hours on the water
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and i think yeah we ended up at around 350. yeah which i mean it can only help right
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so absolutely yeah we thought obviously i want to pump jason up here a little
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bit um he didn't know me from adam and uh i graduated from ju in 2018 i was
18:20
a latecomer to the college graduation and uh but um this road thing didn't even exist uh it
18:26
wasn't really on my radar and i had remembered j.u had this road team and i literally googled who's the
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road coach for j.u and um i i found jason and i tracked him
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down through the uh the the phone directory there and
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honestly that first phone call i almost cried and how interested he was and how
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i'm bored he was like man i can't believe this hell yeah i'm in whatever you guys need and i mean like he had
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known us forever like we were best friends and um yeah i i i can't believe
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how fortunate we were to to find him and have him jump on board as eagerly as he did so
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uh thank him for that and and yeah we that's what got the ball rolling for sure yeah well good yeah i mean it
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was out of out of the blue really but you don't get calls every day for
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ocean not usually no um but it was
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i felt for what you were doing it means something it matters and
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there's a need and so you know it was you know to be honest like i'm super
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honored that i got to be i mean a tiny part but a part of
19:47
what you guys are doing and i think that's that was the cool and i luckily was
19:53
smart enough or i should say not dumb enough you know to to to see far enough ahead
20:00
that hey this is this is real these guys are real and this is gonna be pretty cool so
20:06
anyway let's it's not about me it's about you guys um so
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you get there you get to to la gamera and
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your boat's not there now it looks there there
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there's one thing about about this this slideshow like there are too many fixtures to actually put up but but this
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is a great one jason because if you look at this shot you have up it's 20 21 22
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and there's no 23 and then it goes to 24. we were boat number 23.
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so we're not in that shot i think why i put this shot up there i
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didn't know you were 20 well i guess in the picture smug mug and you were 23. but i didn't recognize the numbers on
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the boat yeah but also well there's the the u.s flag but where our boat would have been
20:55
where it would have been but looking at all of the different flags along there yeah what was what was that like showing
21:01
up and you know and obviously you're you're in a different part of the world but
21:06
all of these different languages happening but the camaraderie that went with being
21:13
there and at all none of none of the other stuff mattered at that point like once you got there it
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was all about that what was what was that like to me the camaraderie was instant
21:24
as soon as you met other rowers i think we got we we walked off the ferry and past the cafe where they were having
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coffee and boom we we met the first couple of teams within minutes
21:36
yeah pulling wow waves yeah those rock stars and they're pulling you in let's have a coffee let's talk it was just so
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exciting to see everybody not on a talisker snapshot you know to actually start meeting people in person
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and you just got tighter and tighter as the week went on it was it was really it's an amazing community yeah and so
21:57
not having the boat i think uh huff you said most people had or most teams had their boat for nine days and you guys
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had three day a little less than three days 64 hours with your boat
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how did that effect how did that affect you guys mentally and in this like huge task right you
22:15
spent two and a half years what was that effect on you mentally and then how did the community
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help you get over that yeah i'm sick okay yeah yeah go ahead bill please yeah
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i was gonna answer the second part of the question how did the community the the other teams were phenomenal they
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from the second that they heard our boat was delayed people were reaching out to us and hey we'll help when he gets here don't worry
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about it don't worry so we never had that real worry that the boat once it got here that we
22:45
wouldn't get it ready because we we knew that we had support from from so many other people all the other rowing teams
22:52
now whether or not the boat was going to get there or not that's a different story we were all i i won't lie and say we weren't stressing it a little bit and
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paul probably more than most of us um but but you know we had confidence that it would
23:05
that it would all work out we didn't get that far without a little bit of confidence that things would work out
23:10
for the for the right reasons but now now guys i gotta i gotta ask just to make sure that we're really clear for
23:16
the folks who might be listening and have no idea what is really entailed oh sorry yeah sorry yeah i mean
23:23
i've been to rowing regattas i've coached high school and middle school kids i've seen people take 45 minutes to
23:29
rig a boat right there's four or five knots per rigger what do you mean you mean nine days to pack this thing what
23:36
what's going in this boat after it arrives well we have about a thousand pounds
23:41
worth of food like 900 and some odd pounds close to a thousand pounds worth of food and then they you have to it's already
23:49
on the boat when it was shipped over there you go there you go yeah um so there's about 6 000 calories a day
23:56
uh give or take per rower per day and that's all in those little bundles
24:02
uh individually wrapped they were on the boat when we shipped it over there and then we have to take it
24:08
out it has to be inspected along with all of our gear you see the blue tarps there
24:15
one blue tarp was food the other blue tarp was all of our equipment and all of our personal gear
24:22
for uh yeah i mean it's just there's a lot that goes
24:27
into this boat and on the boat and gets stored away into just to make sure you could even start
24:32
the race yeah did you guys have training sessions when you got there
24:37
um with you know the the atlantic campaign's people as to what
24:43
you needed to do or by that point it was hey this all this stuff's done like let's let's get ready to go
24:52
yeah the goal there is to pass the final inspection to start so you're just focused on
24:58
getting official so that when the gun goes off you can leave the pier they don't let you put the boat in the
25:04
water until your inspection with all your gear is uh passed so they'll come through multiple times and they'll tell
25:10
you like this part of it's okay but you still have to get this and this or this piece of the puzzle isn't right you have
25:16
to go and find this and that and luckily there's obviously local uh establishments that know this race is
25:23
happening and they're um you know they they sell the odds and ends that you might need i don't know how many runs we
25:29
made for different paracores china bazaar chinese bazaar
25:35
little brushes or you know um i can't even remember flashlights or whatever we might have needed that was missing or
25:41
that was uh that we just were like oh we're gonna need this or we saw a great thing about it was we had plenty of time
25:47
to look at other people's boats because ours wasn't there and it was like you know hey we didn't think of that
25:53
this would be a great thing instead of what we're using this is a lot less cumbersome it's going to take up less space let's ditch a and go with b and
26:01
so we were able to learn i think that was something that we did well um we observed
26:06
uh and drank a lot of coffee yeah i know where the nine days came from but we did that crap in two and a
26:13
half days it wasn't nine days the nine days as every other crew all the regular crews
26:19
had nine yeah that's what he said uh yeah jason i'd also like to mention this when you talk about having a
26:25
skipper and having a crew when this when this part started i want to tell you that paul set
26:30
a calm graceful demeanor for the whole crew which was crucial it was like getting your mental game ready even before we
26:37
got on the water because we really were under a bit of adversity and and not cracking and not having that
26:43
devolve or losing focus and i think paul set a tone there that was really important right until we got up on the water
26:50
it was really really well done as the skipper you know i think as as a coach you you recognize and ryan can attest to this
26:57
right like when or sorry this is gonna go live um when the crap hits the fan at any regatta or
27:05
whatever everybody looks to the leader to the head coach the skipper and you know deep down
27:11
you're freaking out too sure but you can't portray that so paul
27:19
i know you were freaking out how did you
27:24
bring it down and tone it down um you know i i want to really throw the
27:30
football back to hop um and and and throw it back to the crew
27:36
because i i think when the crew is communicating with you and they're showing a resiliency
27:42
that no matter what obstacle is going to be thrown in front of us we're going to work together and i think
27:47
having those upfront conversations can give a skipper or a leader or a manager anybody whatever you want to
27:53
give that title to um you know about a confidence that you know we're going to make we're
27:58
going to make this happen so i think it really goes back to the crew too i mean i've had many conversations
28:04
um you know with hub during that time about the things that we that we would
28:09
have to do once once we were ready to kind of rock and lock and roll in that um but if i can jason if i can go back
28:15
to the community piece and the peace hub was building on about when we got out there with the 11
28:21
different flags from the 11 different countries um i think that's that's crucial also in what hub saying
28:27
you know when we got there the reason we felt so comfortable with everybody and the reason i really want to emphasize on
28:34
this is because if you've got any folks that are listening out there whether they're young or old but anybody
28:39
that's going to take any kind of journey like this it is so important that you focus on
28:46
the people in your journey um and that that will make all the difference in the world so just to give
28:53
you an example you know like in the beginning when hup was talking with
28:58
um rhinock or hub was talking with somebody that might have had a task that he had or if billy had a
29:05
task with equipment and he was outreaching with somebody in the community or cam needed to talk to the medical officer
29:11
it was all those upfront conversations that happened on the 300th day
29:18
you know not the 90th day um you know when i say 300 it's back in the reverse you know it was those
29:24
conversations that happen in november of 2019 it's that conversation with that
29:30
young man at jacksonville university who was the head row coach named jason you know that's what kind of builds
29:36
the relationship and then that sustainability to have those continuous conversations go until the very end like
29:43
we are right now that's what is just so important that makes the experience yeah i think it's
29:50
i mean it's validating a lot of ways like again ryan our coaches but for anybody that listens listening to
29:56
this now or is going to listen this in the future right transparency honesty and love in
30:03
your communication with each other even though those conversations may be really hard
30:09
is going to be what gets you through the toughest of times like and no matter how long it actually
30:14
takes right you're because you're building a relationship you're building a trust you're building a foundation
30:20
that is what carries you through those storms right and gets and gets you onto the other side of it that's incredible
30:26
that's absolutely incredible hey jason another thing to give to the crew and you all know this i mean when you're
30:32
doing a short-term event it's okay if things go wrong and you you've got some you know backup on it but you take a
30:38
long-term high endurance event like this and the whole crew has to go out and that's what these three guys have done
30:45
i think in a very spectacular fashion is that you don't worry about what you don't have you just really focus on what
30:51
you do have and what we had at that time when we didn't have the boat is we had each other we had our plan we still had
30:58
our vision and you know you wait until that boat comes and and then you tactically move along
31:04
with it just like when you're out in the ocean if you lose your water maker you're not gonna cry and focus on
31:10
you know why did we lose the water maker you're just gonna worry about what can we do to fix the water maker
31:15
yeah paul let's say it one more time for all the athletes in the back control the controllables
31:22
you know that's what you're saying you're not you took your time to worry about what you could make changes with
31:28
and what you could affect positively and you've kept it there i do want to i
31:33
wanted i wanted to grab that i'm going to tie this into something but i want to take a quick second to remind everybody
31:38
who is listening if they're listening live that we will get any comments or questions that you send in right now
31:44
while we still have the guys from the crew on the show so we got another 20 minutes probably to get a question in
31:50
at most um we're not going to keep you guys for too long um so sorry for the quick advertisement
31:57
but is coming back to the mindset and the beginning of the row especially
32:04
one of the questions that i know a lot of people are going to ask immediately with you guys and your experience with
32:10
military service how much of that do you think was helpful in
32:15
dictating your mindset and the way you handled yourself a lot
32:21
90 percent yeah i gotta say when i came back i i've told
32:27
a lot of people i said i don't know how somebody who's pardoned the expression uh a desk jockey or because i'm one now
32:34
but uh it's uh you know somebody that just goes into this with a regular civilian mindset and just
32:41
because i mean other than our military i mean i i don't know if this has been pointed out none
32:46
of us have a rowing background i mean we do now but we we didn't we didn't beforehand so um to sit here
32:54
uh after the fact i i'm amazed that you know we met some people that are planning on doing this uh next year and
33:00
the year after and they're like a husband and wife or they're they're two friends that you know work in accounting
33:06
or something like that and i'm like wow because honestly because i really think that you
33:12
know the military bearing uh is is what for me i just and even with the goofball
33:19
that i am i mean there's still something to be said for that military bearing that you're taught and you learn and um
33:25
you carry on through life and i think you know this was something that really
33:31
helped in our journey awesome awesome so we'll keep moving like we could talk
33:39
about this all night long too um which is great but also we've we've got
33:44
a limited amount of time so uh let's go to you shove off
33:50
you say your goodbyes to everybody um which i can i i i can't even imagine
33:55
what that emotion is like shoving off from the dock and taking those strokes away from your family but
34:01
the the picture we have up here this paul sent i guess paul says he's taking the picture but the last
34:07
picture you had it's the last picture that came from you i guess on a cell phone or whatever to
34:13
facebook and then and then you were gone right
34:18
what was that feeling like especially when that last tip of land
34:23
disappeared over the horizon
34:28
it's uh it's it's really moving i mean i can just start it on this i know when
34:35
when we lost sight of tenerife um
34:40
it it was pretty it just throws a a realism into it that
34:46
we have each other right now um we definitely have our land support team but the four guys in the boat
34:53
right now is is our is our world our knowledge and our camaraderie our our ability to
35:00
communicate with each other was that just so apparent you know so needed
35:06
um and it was actually a beautiful thing i think it kind of you know tied us together i mean we always have our moments but
35:12
when it always came push to shove with anything we have even through our training when we you know i always think
35:17
of the tybee island run uh we were just always there for each other but it but it does make it real because i will tell
35:22
you jason i wrote a little piece on this uh for for your viewers to listen to
35:28
you have i gonna just say in three guys but myself also four guys you have four guys that that left
35:35
every you know we don't i could tell you right now the four of us don't like hearing the word like hero or you know
35:41
stars or anything like that we don't we're for common guys but we are four common guys that really left
35:47
everything behind to give to others so even when we you
35:53
know lost sight of the land we still knew what the mission um was about and
35:58
its importance so i guess i know if i'm really articulating that right but the mission
36:04
always came first even losing sight ashore got you yeah um
36:11
that's moving um you know like as as as cam put it which is the would
36:18
you best jockeys we can't imagine what that's like like you know and
36:25
being able to finally hear somebody that's that's done it in in this format to to say something like that is is
36:31
pretty powerful and moving in a way that i hate to say it like this but there's
36:37
more out there than your desk you know what i mean like there's just there's so much more out
36:42
there than your desk and i hope that's something that we get out of this conversation too um
36:49
so you're out there on the water you're moving what was the plan did you have a first 24 hours plan first 48 hours
36:56
don't die see what happened and the plan goes out the window like
37:02
how walk us through that first 48 hours like what what were the steps of abandoning plans sticking to plans
37:08
whatnot well the first couple days you're seasick first first couple days all
37:14
four of us were a little bit seasick okay so i i don't know i mean we still stuck to
37:20
pretty much a regiment um that we had planned like the two hours on two hours off rowing
37:25
but um i mean for the most part we stuck to that i i'm gonna say until about halfway through and then we
37:31
decided to shift up to a three hour shift at night but um yeah the first the first couple
37:37
days we i think we we ran into the through a little bit of a an issue where we had to
37:43
go on parahanker i think that was on day three if i'm not mistaken yeah so are on day three we ran into a
37:50
place where we weren't we weren't getting any anywhere um fast so it was just more beneficial for us just
37:56
to kind of hang and wait wait things out for conditions to get a little bit better yeah that that storm had kind of shifted
38:02
a little bit further south and and those uh easterly winds or from the winds out of the west were
38:08
screwing you at that at the moment um so we we we got a question in from
38:14
will from fight or die who was out there um how did you guys pass the time um
38:19
it a during i would say during the time on anchor but also like during storms and whatnot were you
38:26
actively rowing during the the rough storms or did you literally just hunker in the cabinets and throw out the sea
38:31
anchor and let it pass then keep going yeah we were fortunate we only anchored
38:37
that one time and so we got through that one night paul and i we just kind of cuddled you
38:43
know it's a it's a cozy little cabin and uh and then the next day it kind of broke
38:49
and we moved on i would like to say about that part too is that if we go back to practice and the time
38:56
on the water we could have been better at a para anchor and that's a lesson that we learned while we were on the water
39:02
uh that you know once you're out there in the in ocean rowing as opposed to a coastal situation or
39:08
even icw that getting out there and understanding how to deploy a pair anchor for anybody that's
39:14
thinking about it that's the that's one you want to have in the bag for sure before you go out because uh we we under utilized that and
39:22
we could have uh we could have deployed it better lesson learned on on on me on that one too so
39:29
it was deployed at the time yeah and it was deployed at a time where it was just enough time to give us extra
39:36
rest so you know the adrenaline the seasickness was taking its toll and
39:41
um i think when we actually dropped it it was time for like where we would normally be going to sleep so we just i
39:48
think we ended up with 10 hours we were on it yeah just about it something like that 9 10 hours i forget exactly what the time
39:55
frame was but um it was just that time of the day where it was like okay your body's still kind of in
40:01
land mode and uh we were able to sleep right through it there wasn't like playing cards or
40:06
long drawn uh you know touching conversations or anything like that sorry
40:13
oh come on yeah it's not in our end i don't know i i love it yeah i slept you know i was like
40:19
snoring billy will tell you how i snore so yes you do guys you're you've thrown a
40:25
lot out there that's all happened and you're three days from the start line right right
40:32
and so there's a lot how are you making how are you trying to inform the decisions on which direction you're
40:37
pointing the boat and which way you're trying to travel and then you're when you go on sea acre when you go off how
40:43
are you making those decisions yeah so if i could throw a little bit in
40:48
there on this one the weather is is your biggest factor always you got it you got to have a great weather router anyone
40:54
will tell you me too and uh the before you leave the
41:00
campaign there's some weather coming across everyone would do best to push south but
41:06
go down you can that they give you away where they would like you to be before you
41:12
make the turn to the west uh so we really were fortunate to find out together and it kept us really
41:18
focused on direction of course and then uh i'm going to prop up paul's wife ruth
41:24
jumped on the great weather router giving her aviation experience
41:29
and was providing us some really critical data and
41:34
make that turn to the west and you can see uh for some of the other boats
41:40
uh they up in the you know the corners they got caught in some of that that we managed to avoid
41:46
so we were i think we were fortunate there that we had a great team all the way around
41:51
here and on the boat to to help you navigate that part yeah got to have somebody on that
41:56
weather yeah it's the ocean you know one thing i think that's critical also that a lot of
42:01
your viewers know yeah is um you get caught in in something in
42:07
ocean rowing and it's really hard to make up you know to make up time and i got to
42:14
give the four of us really a lot of props that after we came off that sea anchor
42:20
that we really got back into the you know into the second group of
42:25
folks because i think at that time a lot you know kind of wrote us off like well wow they're going to be way back
42:31
you know and we roped right back into um you know right into the pack even for
42:37
you know four guys that never had the mission and you know and focus on racing we just really kind of more focused on
42:43
just navigating well still kind of giving us the you know the best ride around weather and so forth
42:50
so what was it like out there that um you know and we're we're
42:56
running through this time but storms was it hot was it cold i see and then
43:01
pictures we have up with the rain and the rainbows and the rain jackets like what was it a little cooler than we
43:07
thought really i'm coming over here coming out of spain in the evening time it was cool didn't
43:12
really get warm until you they actually made that that real westerly turn um
43:19
so it was actually a little bit cooler we didn't get a whole a whole lot of rain we got maybe 10 days worth i'd say
43:25
where it actually rained and and got us wet but but um the evenings were cool daytime was temperate
43:33
so it was pretty decent and then once we got a little bit closer to antigua then it started getting hot
43:38
during the day and a lot warmer at night gotcha gotcha
43:44
so like two weeks where it's all the same you put on your cold weather gear you come out you roll for five minutes you strip off the coat five minutes
43:50
later you strip off the pants yeah and one of these pictures we got some jockeys hanging out to dry too
43:57
which is pretty good um you know so so as we as we go on i want to talk and and be a little bit specific
44:04
with each one of you individually paul you know you
44:12
as we talked about before it seemed like every picture that that i see of you is of you in the water and and whatnot what
44:18
was it like or a were you the only one that jumped in the water to clean the bottom of the boat and be
44:24
what was it like knowing as i think before this all started up and charlotte and i were talking
44:30
about you know the closest person to you outside of your the people rowing
44:36
you know in the middle of this race were people on the space station right what was it like being out there 1500 miles
44:43
from anybody any land and you jumping in the water and obviously taking these absolutely
44:48
incredible pictures um well thanks on the pictures
44:54
you know for me it was a lifelong um
44:59
a lifelong dream to be in that kind of setting to be in the middle of the
45:06
atlantic ocean and 16 000 feet of water i just knew that that
45:11
you know may never happen again in you know in my entire life um but it really kind of ties into jason
45:17
i think the piece that you brought out in the beginning about one for the sea um and i know hup recognized this and my
45:23
personality and cam definitely recognized it and uh billy always jokes with me on the island when i'm doing it actually i was
45:29
in billy's house today dripping sand and water at one of our our meetings in my wetsuit
45:35
um for me you know i find and hupp even made these comments on the boat you know he's like i bet you feel really good um which is
45:42
real perceptive of them that that the ocean for some people and maybe everybody in in different ways has a
45:51
a a health wellness property to it that just can make things really just that much better and
45:57
that's why i was really always looking for you know i was really trying to respect the guys if i was on a solo row
46:03
i probably would have been in the ocean probably twice a day um you know floating but you know you also have to take the guys and everybody
46:10
into consideration because it's you know it's a four-man crew but um yeah it was a it was a very
46:17
uh you know robust time for me mentally to be able to just jump in there and see
46:22
this this vast creation creation from god that just is so overwhelming i mean look at that
46:28
school of fish it just was mind-blowing you know that they would come up to you that close and there's just an energy
46:34
exchange that's unbelievable yeah and hup like you were
46:39
at this what professor hup series that you had going on there for a while it seems like you were you were the
46:45
navigator uh tech technology group guru what not what
46:50
was the inspiration behind uh professor hop and and all of that that you know that really just kind of
46:56
popped out organically there was there was not a plan for that except that we knew we could send contact content back
47:03
and because our community was so important to us we wanted them to feel like they were coming along on the
47:08
journey like we we really wanted to take everybody with us so
47:14
that's really what that organically grew out of i think submarining as a submariner i'm kind of
47:19
a techy nerdy kind of guy that way and so i love the pieces and the parts and the you know that trying to keep things
47:25
running but everybody honestly all the time the whole crew does that it it i hope it didn't come off as one guy but
47:32
the whole crew is taking care of everything all the time i just happen to be the guy on video to send some content
47:37
back you know so you're just the face and everybody else is doing everything else yeah somebody's
47:42
got to do that part somebody's got it but yeah somebody's just a row right so speaking of people rolling
47:49
i would say the majority of the pictures i saw of anybody rowing was just europe
47:54
i felt like you were the only in pictures that came back you were the only guy that was sitting there with oars in your hand rowing i thought that
48:01
was uh that was pretty interesting um but so bill you you have a different
48:08
obstacle or challenge that that you overcame while you were out there that's pretty inspiring as a whole um
48:14
and and having diabetes and how did you how were you able to to manage that and
48:20
and over overcome that that obstacle or that challenge and make it an option well it helped i was diagnosed with type
48:27
1 juvenile diabetes in 1991. um so it's i've had it for a number of
48:32
years and i've been able to kind of keep it in check and can control it that way
48:37
um i mean on the on the road it brought in a whole different challenge just because of the the food and the type of food
48:44
that we that we were subject to have on the boat there's not a lot of fresh food fruit and vegetables um
48:50
on the boat but um so that that brought it to a whole different level for me um at first
48:56
it it took a little bit of tweaking you know the first five or six days and plus the seasickness didn't help um
49:03
you know the the stomach is not wanting to eat but um but it it worked itself out after about
49:10
five days um where i was able to kind of keep it under keep it in check yeah um i
49:15
have a device called a continuous glucose monitoring system that's a dexcom system and i don't want to do an advertisement
49:22
for dexcom but um i used that the whole way and only one point
49:29
where it got wet it got saturated and it wasn't working properly so it was very thankful that i had a contact back back
49:36
in the u.s that i was able to call and help me reset and reset the dexcom
49:41
system i was also very thankful that cam was okay with having that in the cabin and beeping constantly because it would
49:47
be if my sugar got too high or beef if it got too low and and to keep it dry i had to hang it in the cabin where cam
49:54
when cam was sleeping when he was off shift so he had to listen to it all the time and and um thankfully he didn't get
50:00
so mad and throw it overboard but yeah after after i was able to after
50:07
that i was able to keep it keep it under control but you know the whole diabetes thing is just
50:14
i don't i for people that know me i i've always liked to kind of challenge challenge myself and do things that
50:20
people tell me that i can't do i mean when i first got diagnosed they told me i couldn't be in the army you know and
50:26
um from there i have gone on to do a lot of different things with with my diabetes that a lot of people say oh oh my god
50:33
you can do that with diabetes so uh running the ocean is one of them so that's another check in the book right
50:40
that's awesome and cam the youngest member the youngster of the group
50:46
um so eligible for aarp in a couple of months by the way i'm just saying
50:52
i sound like a 20. what i would consider is something pretty special um you know you you
50:58
really solidified and and and you know chiseled your your name in the history books here
51:05
um being the first uh united states air force veteran to row across the atlantic
51:10
um i knowing you i don't think you ever think about it like that but um
51:17
what what is that what do you think that means like what is what does that mean to you or what what can that mean to a
51:23
the rest of the united states air force and the youngsters coming up in it and and just you know as a whole
51:30
well first it means that the other three branches could step off and stop making fun
51:38
now um i took a lot of guff from the uh the other three branches represented on this
51:44
boat uh so no um no it
51:49
i don't think it says anything more than uh you know just the fact that anybody did it um
51:56
you know i you know there's a small part of me that's like cool uh you know that's
52:02
great um wasn't anything i set out to do it wasn't like i found out that if there was another air force guy that did it
52:08
before me i wasn't gonna do it um no i just think it's great that we had a well-rounded crew and that you know it's
52:14
the first time that four different branches have been on the the same boat at the same time and um yeah yeah i i think you know paul and
52:22
i talked about this as well as some of us but paul and i were on a specific row where we took some people out and
52:29
there was this uh one young gentleman that came out with us uh and that one particular time sticks
52:36
out in my mind and after we got done rowing with him he was going off to summer camp and paul and i actually had a really cool
52:43
conversation about you know we had taken a number of people out and people reach out to us anyway i'll come
52:48
to a conclusion here uh how great it would be if you know somehow somewhere along the line
52:54
unbeknownst to us hopefully with our knowledge that you know somehow we inspired somebody to do this and
53:00
um if it takes you know somebody from a different branch doing it you know so be
53:05
it if it takes uh being i'm also the first ju member as far as i know
53:12
i had that yeah but um no i just think that any one
53:18
of us uh if somebody sees it and they they they feel the urge they just they should just know it's you know um you
53:25
know going with the other foundation that i know we'll talk about here in a little bit across the line that that name has a meaning you know that comfort
53:32
line that what everybody or anybody's comfortable with whether they're a veteran or they're dealing with something else as a civilian
53:38
um you know things are doable and you just can't let yourself get in the way and you know just
53:45
you know if you if you have the the knack and the the mentality and the drive then uh then
53:50
do it and if you got three crazy friends that are talking into it do it anyway
53:55
even more so do it absolutely absolutely so go ahead well
54:01
we got we have another guest who's going to join the show here in in a moment and
54:06
um so what we've got is uh four different ocean crossings
54:11
uh now represented with bringing suzanne pinto in
54:18
[Music] suzanne thank you for joining us hi nice to see you
54:23
hey suzanne hi suzanne and there's a share there's a shared experience in this
54:29
and that we all did an ocean row in one way or another but this is jason this is one of
54:35
your questions and it's a simple question i'd like to ask the guys from for from home and suzanne
54:42
to describe this moment and if you you know you're able to see
54:47
that but this is the guys from four from home and in your crossings
54:54
how has that arrival before felt totally the same um
55:00
we came into court um it was a long time pitch black the port
55:05
authority didn't want us to come in um so we came in anyway we couldn't find
55:11
the shore we couldn't find the sport but i could hear my children screaming my name
55:16
wow basically followed the sound and uh arrived in port and then because we came
55:23
in illegally we were detained the next day before we're not passing inspection and
55:31
they said well you know you could have brought in a terrible disease and in fact we did but we didn't know that at
55:36
the time wow i just want to mention that uh it's
55:43
international women's day and suzanne is representing the rowing
55:50
the female rowing community um so i just want to
55:55
make sure we had somebody on who was representing women rowers and inspiring the rest of
56:01
us to do amazing things like this so oh yeah absolutely yeah i noticed you all rode
56:07
my boat you did britannia three no they weren't courageous courageous no
56:14
we weren't courageous courageous so do you all settle your boats after you're done right
56:21
no oh no my our boat went back to england oh
56:28
greater yeah we still have our boat and we're going to try to sell it release it yeah
56:34
or use it again one of the three sail but yeah i think ours is still on a container ship on its way back to the
56:40
states right paul now
56:45
hey jason brian i think and suzanne you could probably relate to this um not probably i know you can i think
56:51
what's really important that your listeners understand too is um if you could put that image back up with us
56:57
crossing the line real quick hmm so i'd i'd like you to all know that
57:03
on october 1st 2019 that all four of us
57:09
when we sat down and had no boat no money we had just pads in front of us with a
57:15
vision that all four of us we saw this image that very night
57:22
i think that's very important for yep there was never a doubt in our mind
57:27
i know other than something us you know happen along the way that we could not control that the four of us were not going to be
57:33
together um and and that really coming off the boat you know there is is
57:39
a symbol of us hugging on the boat coming off and hugging you know we we did that along with the community that's
57:46
that's an amazing vision to have i think so there's there's this picture of you
57:53
oh sorry okay i was just saying how triumphant that moment was
57:59
absolutely yeah so there are these pictures of the before and after
58:05
and i know all of you and ryan included right um and helping hup and eye and charlotte
58:11
were talking beforehand that i can only imagine but
58:16
when you start and then when you finish you've got to be changed in some way obviously physically right and and and
58:24
whatnot but i would assume also assume that each one of you may have had your own journey and your own adaptation your own change
58:31
of what it meant to you um that might be slightly different and very individual to you
58:38
for for for all of you what what was that like for you how did it change you how does it how did it change
58:44
you and your outlook on life and you as a as as just a human and how you and how you see
58:52
the world now anybody that's done that i'll go first
58:58
because it's quick uh we've been back such a short time that i'm still trying to come to terms with that question
59:04
in all fairness you know i think i would love to hear suzanne's answer because she's had some time to
59:10
really reflect i think about it yeah um i i think that i learned to
59:16
live with myself be in myself understand things one of the great things i understood is that nobody cares
59:23
when i'm pissed off and that's so soft
59:29
um but just to more there's so many hours uh facing adversity and danger and
59:37
life-threatening things that just sit and know yourself better i think that was the most fun i usually am too busy
59:43
to know myself um we talked earlier i
59:50
you said you'd do it again in a heartbeat is that did i hear that correctly yeah
59:56
well in fact um i was invited to cross the pacific and i was pretty excited about that but
1:00:03
my family said no they didn't want to do this again um we were just planning a trip to be the
1:00:09
first to row from miami to foster massachusetts and that
1:00:14
fell through so now i'm going to be rowing in five days in vancouver ocean rowing but
1:00:21
i would go back and do it again any time
1:00:27
well i think for me uh sorry just real quick so um yeah i think i definitely came back with
1:00:32
a perspective of my wife says i've never seen so relaxed you know my shoulders aren't as tense
1:00:40
yeah um i think that going back to work has changed a little bit of that but um
1:00:46
you know i think if you if you learn anything it's you know uh you're uh you're uh you know that old
1:00:51
saying you're just you're a speck of sand in the grand scheme of life and i think the ocean
1:00:58
really makes you realize just how small you are and how small your problems are
1:01:04
and when you come off that boat um yeah you know ian uh one of the uh the
1:01:11
gentleman the the organizer at the organizer i'm not giving the right tail but anyway ian from
1:01:16
uh atlantic challenges and tales for whiskey uh you know he says he wants to meet everybody at the boat to see it in
1:01:22
their eyes because he can tell when he looks at you whether you you get it or not and i think you can see in that
1:01:28
after picture i think all four of us get it um you know life is life is short you
1:01:34
know and we did something that we absolutely you know we put our blood sweat and tears
1:01:40
into for three years and while we're on the water so uh yeah for me i've got
1:01:46
a 18 year old and a seven-year-old at home here and all i thought about was just wanting to
1:01:52
be a better dad and a better husband and spend as much time with them as i could um because i think you know that was
1:01:58
something that i i saw on the water was time short
1:02:04
even if it seems long on the water and suzanne i think you made history uh when you went on your road right
1:02:11
yes but i was the oldest female ever to cross an ocean that's pretty good no
1:02:17
nice i was nice i turned 59 my birthday was on the road
1:02:25
that happened to paul
1:02:31
no no no yeah i think i delivered us in the aarp magazine
1:02:36
[Laughter] so so
1:02:41
i had a question that was also asked and i want to make sure that we give both bill and um paul a chance to answer
1:02:49
that question as well of how it impacted you the return to normal that was what jonathan from
1:02:56
pacific boys asked have there been any surprises for you guys in the way that you're feeling now
1:03:03
a few weeks out of your crossing yeah we'll we'll make it the two part so i
1:03:08
can answer the first part of the question was was yeah i'm kind of in the in
1:03:13
like with cameron i'm much more relaxed when i wake up every morning i'm not i'm usually a pretty high strung person and
1:03:20
at times that i make my day i have a checklist i have to get everything done and all right freak out um
1:03:27
so i don't do that anymore so i'm much more i wake up every day and say ah okay whatever the day brings it brings
1:03:33
um you know but as far as the second part i guess is
1:03:38
is um getting back to normal life yeah i think so you know here here on
1:03:45
the island we all we live in a small community um so things are kind of starting to get back to normal um
1:03:52
at least for me anyhow but uh so i look at it
1:03:58
how about you paul um for me i i don't know maybe i'm i'm you know when you look at yourself you look at yourself
1:04:03
differently i always felt like i was kind of mellow before i feel like i'm still um
1:04:08
kind of mellow i really feel like i've i've gotten back to normal pretty quickly
1:04:14
um i think about a week when i came back i got on the erg or actually it might have been a little
1:04:19
bit sooner because i needed to go to the bathroom so the urge kind of helped that process a little bit gave me the uh the motion
1:04:26
of rowing again that helps accelerated i had a power shake and then went on the erg
1:04:32
and good things happened so the things you get used to yeah yeah yeah yeah so
1:04:38
um that but then the urge just felt good um so i've been back on the erg um really every other day
1:04:44
um i actually got on a coastal rowboat which uh i was a gentleman from ju
1:04:50
uh clint took me out i went down to jacksonville and did some uh coastal rowing i'm waiting for him to come back
1:04:56
from vacation so i can jump on his boat again um so i feel yeah i feel like a lot has
1:05:02
gone back to normal i've got a house that i'm restoring i jumped right into that i'm back surfing
1:05:08
and um the only thing i have to say that's probably not normal and maybe my crewmates can help me on
1:05:14
this one and they can send me to intervention i just been eating like a that's been like out of control
1:05:20
man i've had lucky charms punch keys you name it i've had it
1:05:26
yeah years ago i talked to the women at uh project x
1:05:31
the swiss women and they said i said what was your first meal off the boat and she said cheeseburger
1:05:37
and our second meal was a cheeseburger oh
1:05:42
i think they just kept eating cheeseburger all right so i mean to end it too i would love to
1:05:48
i like with suzanne so i would really love the opportunity again to uh you know if i had to say anything
1:05:54
probably negative about the row i like to be in the water more than i like to be on top of it but i would like to row
1:06:00
again well there's something special even for rowing
1:06:05
and it's not just there's there's a lot of shared experience for those of us that have done an ocean crossing
1:06:11
um statistically it's a big minority not a lot of people do it you know more people
1:06:16
have gone to outer space and into orbit than have road across an ocean and a lot
1:06:22
of people have sailed um relative to the number of road but you're still going there's a threshold
1:06:29
usually between rowing and sailing where you're going too fast to really be part of it
1:06:35
once you got a sail up and i think that it's it's pretty hard to describe i really appreciate the way that the five
1:06:42
of you have put some of that to words the feeling that you get
1:06:48
so hey jason and brian if i can add on there i think what makes i don't know if anybody's seen the post and i know each
1:06:54
one of the guys feel the same way um you know for we took it as like individuals like the
1:07:01
ocean really reshaped us as individuals but i think we have to put that community piece back in there i know
1:07:08
that each one of us um the community really reshaped our hearts the way they came
1:07:15
uh in and supported our role from from our vision to the to the very end and now even
1:07:22
beyond the row i mean every day we're out in the community there's just nothing but
1:07:29
yeah oh no we lost him i think he was starting to get a bad internet connection but there is one other
1:07:36
question i think from yeah yeah for suzanne um did you follow some
1:07:43
of the other female crews in the intervening years so how how much have you paid attention to not watching
1:07:51
oh no i watched i i watched to see what they're doing where they're going
1:07:56
you know i'm part of the ocean rowing society so i get to notice this all the time about
1:08:02
where people are i mean there's not that many women's crews um so i get to watch everybody's
1:08:09
movement across the ocean but yeah i was disappointed there were some
1:08:15
people a year or two years after i went uh some women were doing a trip and they
1:08:21
disbanded they couldn't do it uh which is unfortunate yeah
1:08:26
there a lot of a lot of things can happen and hopefully paul's internet gets um
1:08:32
[Music] gets back and we're able to welcome him back but i think one of the things he was going to as he talked about
1:08:38
community was some of the causes that the four from home guys that you guys partnered with
1:08:44
and we do want to we're well over time so to anyone for listening and watching thank you for hanging with us thank you
1:08:50
very much to our guests for being here and i want to give you guys a chance to talk real quickly about let's start with
1:08:56
the um the canines for warriors
1:09:01
yeah i'll jump in and give you a quick one on that uh canines for warriors has been around for uh about 10 years
1:09:08
and in that time they've they've rescued dogs and as well as gotten them from breeders and
1:09:14
trained them uh to be partners with warriors who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and
1:09:19
other other ptsd related uh issues like suicide and they have about a 99.9
1:09:26
success rate 700 dogs in the last 10 years so originally our idea was just to
1:09:31
help train a couple dogs you know just uh raise enough money to help put a couple
1:09:37
dogs through training it's about 28 thousand dollars per dog is our was our understanding uh and then the campaign just kept
1:09:44
growing and growing and uh proud to say that we ended up building a mega kennel
1:09:50
at the canines for warriors facility in ponte vedra which was a 500 000 buy-in
1:09:56
at our level but that will train 150 dogs a year in perpetuity and that's because they
1:10:01
have currently about a four-year waiting list for folks who who need service dogs
1:10:07
um so it i feel blessed the whole campaign came together the the
1:10:13
community came together it got bigger and bigger and it's just going to make such a difference for for these veterans
1:10:19
lives and so i i i think it's amazing to take an endurance or an extreme sport
1:10:25
and have it turned into something so big and beautiful that you never really saw coming
1:10:30
you know just just because we attempted you know had had the uh idea to attempt
1:10:35
this crossing it became this really big program so quite proud of that that's courageous
1:10:41
kennel on their screen there they're gonna name it after the boat so and talking about
1:10:47
uh you know like communities and whatnot right your your veteran community is is real is is
1:10:54
the other side of this right so canines for warriors is one of them and cross the line foundation is another
1:11:01
um what what does tell us a little bit about crossline foundation as well and and what it's
1:11:07
it's doing to help that community you want me to take that yeah please cross that cross line is a local um
1:11:14
non-profit that was formed here in fernandina beach and and it actually generated the name cross the line came
1:11:20
from a kayaking event that we do here locally once a year where we ki we we find a
1:11:27
select veteran charity our veteran organization to donate to and um we do a
1:11:33
kayak battle from georgia to florida um back to fernandina it's a little nine-mile kayak paddle but that's that's
1:11:39
the cross the line signature event but across the line also um has evolved to the point where
1:11:46
we started um and i say we because paul and i are actually the co-founders across the line um
1:11:53
started a scholarship endowment where we award four scholarships to
1:11:59
the either children of veterans students that are entering the rotc
1:12:05
program or veterans um in the tap program that are
1:12:10
releasing transitioning out of the military and and looking to go to a trade school of some sort
1:12:16
so so the money that for from home raised or some of the money for from home raise went towards towards that scholarship
1:12:22
endowment to help establish that scholarship endowment um which
1:12:27
at this point is now pretty significant and will allow us to award scholarships for the next 10 years
1:12:32
um through cross the line with the cross line name um but again we also do we do different
1:12:39
different fundraisers we've we've rose to a point where now um we have a
1:12:44
veteran's day run that we're going to start doing a cross-line golf tournament and all that
1:12:50
all those funds raised it's all strictly the crossline board's four people and we're all volunteers every it's all run
1:12:56
by volunteers and uh then anything we raise goes to different veteran charities or veteran
1:13:01
organizations so and a plug for them this year's paddle if anyone's interested is june
1:13:07
25th um here so the registration goes up on monday
1:13:12
so june 25th at amelia island yeah well we both people over starts in
1:13:19
st mary's georgia and cross the line back to fernandina um
1:13:24
but but yeah we we shuttle people over the front or to st mary's all right and where can we get where can people get
1:13:30
more information on that bill it'll it'll be um up on paddle guru
1:13:35
on monday the registration site will be up and running on paddle guru monday um
1:13:41
and different on our facebook page the crossline facebook page across the line foundation website we'll have
1:13:47
information about the battle wonderful wonderful well i know we're
1:13:52
way over time at this point um but it's it's always a pleasure to talk
1:13:59
yeah talk life talk relationships talk what's what the good stuff is right um so four from home guys yeah um paul's
1:14:06
gone but at this point hup bill cam yeah this is the first time i've seen y'all since hey you've been back
1:14:13
yes i'm driving down there hopefully in the next couple weeks so i'll uh i'll stop through and and
1:14:19
and help catch uh catch a concert if possible well i i noticed the uh the the
1:14:25
next year's roller asked about the physical part that the hands are still coming around suzanne i don't know how
1:14:30
long it may have taken you and ryan to get your digits as a guitar player it's been quite the struggle i know yeah oh
1:14:38
so yeah i was going to add to that too my fingers are still a little bit screwed up yeah so there fight or die
1:14:43
guys for next year i saw your question probably there is uh man take those uh stretches seriously uh
1:14:51
when you get back start working on the other way yeah quick shout out to next year's i missed an opportunity sorry to
1:14:57
the fighter dying team but uh next year's fight or die team is slated to be an all air force team so
1:15:03
i'm pretty proud of that i'll be watching those guys so cameron said benchmark heck yeah so uh if anybody needs any
1:15:10
help on how an air force guy does it just give me a call
1:15:18
that's it aim high awesome jason i really appreciate you guys being on
1:15:24
here and coming on and sharing sharing your story we appreciate the opportunity to do so
1:15:29
and i do want to plug this too i think i haven't had anybody break this for me yet but amelia island florida is now the
1:15:36
home of more ocean rowers per capita than any state in the united states really absolutely i think at four
1:15:44
four guys all from the same zip code so unconfirmed
1:15:49
unconfirmed but no one's contested yet i can tell you uh thunder bay ontario has quite a bit per
1:15:56
capita as well in the united states so yeah yeah in the united states
1:16:02
all right we're a very small island so it's all island people wait you get a
1:16:08
bunch of weird boat people live on islands absolutely yeah let me just uh add that i'm not gonna do
1:16:14
my usual outro ryan i just i just loved having this conversation
1:16:20
you guys on it's such an interesting different aspect of rowing it's got you got the motion but it's so
1:16:26
different from anything i've experienced but anyway um we will update the show notes if you
1:16:32
want to include anything else about these uh charities and foundations that you support just let me know and
1:16:39
i'll i'll get it up there well thank you so much for yeah thank you guys and suzanne and charlotte thank
1:16:45
you and uh happy national or international women's day all right guys susan it's an honor to meet you is
1:16:51
absolutely honored thank you thank you guys appreciate it look forward to seeing you jason
1:16:56
all right yeah nice meeting you charlotte
1:17:01
stay on if you want but we're going to end the broadcast yeah all right