Moving On

Thank you for all the supportive comments about the sad postponement of our North Atlantic row. The OAR team has very much appreciated your kind words at this rather trying time. After bidding a very sad farewell to our wonderful friends in St John’s, Newfoundland, I am now back in Britain, spending the weekend with my mother in Leeds while the country celebrates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Considering that my diary was, until the announcement two weeks ago, completely blank for the next two months while I expected to be at sea, it’s amazing how fast it has filled up. The big news from Team Roz is that I have secured a deal for the book based on my Pacific row. I haven’t actually signed on the dotted line yet, so I won’t jinx it by revealing too much, but suffice it to say that I am absolutely delighted to be working with this particular publishing house. Provisional publication date is April/May 2013, and I will be pushing ahead with rewrites and editing over the next 2 months so I can submit the final manuscript before I head off to Yale this August. More details as contracts are finalised.

There are other projects afoot, such as the humungous task of gathering and cataloging my video footage from the last 7 years, which has been shot by many different people in many different formats. Also organising an archive of around 13,000 photographs, which are semi-organised but could be much better. (I plan to use Lightroom for this – would welcome comments and suggestions from any photography enthusiasts out there.)

I am also getting lots of bookings for speaking engagements for spring 2013, which is exciting. So far mostly in Scotland and the US. I will announce dates of any public events in due course.

While the disappointment of this year’s cancellation still rankles, there is too much important work to be done for me to sit around and mope for long. World Oceans Day is coming right up (8th June) and the oceans need our help more than ever. I may not be on the water for this year’s Oceans Day, but you can be sure that the big blue bits of our planet are never far from my mind.

If you are missing your expected fix of ocean rowing adventure this summer, please do check out the blog and website of my friend Sarah Outen, who is bidding to row nonstop across the North Pacific. Good luck, Sarah!

Also wishing all the best to the spectators and the thousands of boats taking part in today’s Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames. The weather may be cold and wet, but it could be worse – just think how much colder and wetter it would be if you were rowing the North Atlantic! And congratulations to Her Majesty on 60 glorious years. I see she has just been voted Britain’s favourite monarch of all time, followed by Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth I, with a couple of kings trailing in their wake in 4th and 5th places. Go, girls!

And stay tuned. I may not be on the ocean, but will nevertheless be blogging regularly on this site over the summer. Onwards and upwards!

(Featured image: Bojangles goes into the shipping container for her journey back to Britain. Not the way we had intended her to arrive.)