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At sea and free
Feb 24, 2005 14: 08 EST
Maud is now on her 42nd day at sea. Being alone in the middle of the ocean has given Maud reason to start contemplating feelings of utter isolation and unbound freedom. Here's her latest:
Alone and free
"Maybe you also have a look at a map and ask…about what can someone think in the middle of the Pacific?
On my little OCEOR, here, really small compared to the horizon, ten thousand meters under us, ocean wherever you look, under an infinite navy sky; my head is dizzy.
How not to feel alone and at the same time free in this world?"
Be where you dream to be
"Free from the planned ways, the freedom to have decided to come there, free from all the chains we always think to be attached at.
If the happiness, what I think, is to be where you dreamt to be, then I’m happy."
Forgetting pain, remembering peace
"Like, if today the maritime atmosphere and the waves had washed us, OCEOR and myself, from the foulings of the past. Forgotten the days and days of work to achieve this, hundreds of letters without any answer, the obligatory moments of discouragement. Forgotten for a while the migraine, the waves breaking, the tendinites; the ocean, day after day has swept everything away.
It purifies soul and body and makes them essential in front of the elements.
I share with you this moment of peace."
French rower Maud Fontenoy set out from St. Pierre et Miquelon, (French) Canada on June 13, 2003 in an attempt to become the first woman to row across the Atlantic West to East. 117 days and an arduous journey later, she reached that goal on October 9th, 2003.
She had been drinking sea water, fought off sharks, and tumbled in 30 feet waves. In the final weeks she was caught up in endless circles in the North Atlantic. Cargo ships brushed pass her like giant, frightening ghosts in the night.
Injured and badly beaten she pushed hard towards east, but the strong wind and the waves took her south without mercy. She arrived at the rocky coast in agitated seas and darkness, where not even the tow ship would go out to get her. But she never gave up and she stole the heart of hard core explorers for her fighting spirit, and her romantic messages in the midst of brutal storms.
This time, Maud plans to row solo from Peru to French Polynesia, mid-Pacific to follow the route of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. She left from Callao January 12, 2005 at 17h40 (22h40 GMT).
Image courtesy of GeekPhilosopher.com
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