Richard Jones'
Trans-Atlantic Rowing Expedition

This link will take you further into the web site, as I explore transoceanic contacts between the Old and New World.

To row across an ocean - that's preposterous!

On one occasion while attending Granite High School, (Salt Lake City, Utah 1959-1961), we had an assembly which featured the famed explorer John Goddard. Not only was John an explorer, but he was also a film maker and he traveled about the country showing his films and giving lectures to audiences. His best known film was Kayaks down the Nile, an expedition in which he related the tale of how his boating companion was killed by a large crocodile

Richard Jones training at Bear Lake, Utah

Though he was well known for his explorations, I think that for which John was really famous for, was the list of goals he had set for himself as a young man, and the fact that he had spent his entire life pursuing those goals. The list was quite long and I remember seeing it printed in Life Magazine. In 1960, of 198 goals he had written down, he had crossed off about 160 of them, including flying jet aircraft. (I know my figures are off, but they're close.) Ten years later, as a young family man, just starting into my profession as a river tour operator, I remembered John and his list of goals. Being young, full of my own goals, dreams and hopes for life, just for the fun of it, I sat down and wrote out my own list. Just recently that list resurfaced. As I reread the goals I set for myself at age 30, I could see that 27 years later, and although I had accomplished but few of them, there were none that I would have excluded from the list. Indeed, I had a few more that I would like to add. To be sure, there were many goals of adventure, like exploring the headwaters of the Amazon River, climbing Mt. Whitney, rafting the Nile, the Tigris, the Euphrates etc., but the idea of rowing a small rowboat across an ocean - it never even occurred to me. I'd never heard of such a preposterous thing.

Twenty seven years later, and barring any unforeseen events, the preposterous is about to become reality. The idea was conceived, the dream was born, hard work and determination to pursue a goal have all combined to launch the "Brother of Jared" into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, on October 7, 2000. These are the same islands from which Columbus departed on his epic voyage of discovery in 1492.

Over the last few years, ocean rowers have tended to espouse a specific cause or purpose in connection with their journeys, i.e. some draw attention to keeping the oceans clean, others seek to build awareness with school children about the realities of the oceans in general, while others seek to make these same children aware of the larger brotherhood of mankind through interaction with one another.

As for myself, I have no such reasons for attempting an ocean voyage. Plain and simple, I just want the challenge of being out there on the water, trying to make my miles every day, and enjoying the experience of a lifetime. I have hiked and bicycled a great deal, and it never ceases to amaze me at the great distances that can be covered, just by putting one foot in front of the other over the course of several weeks, or peddling 10 hours a day for a month. I expect the same to be true with rowing. At 30 miles a day, times 135 days, I should arrive at the Port of Miami, Florida in about 4 1/2 months, a distance of some 4,000 mile. No big deal, just stay on the oars every day, and the journey will eventually come to an end.

However, as long as I'm making the voyage, and because of my interest and schooling in archaeology, I thought it would be interesting to draw attention to some aspects of ocean voyaging/ocean exploration, in connection with visitations and exploration of the New World prior to Columbus's voyage of exploration in 1492. We know of Columbus's voyage because of the written accounts of his journey. But were there other voyages of exploration of which we know nothing about. Was Columbus and the sailors of his time the only ones capable of making such voyages. It seems absurd to think so, especially in light of the fact that a single rower in a small rowboat, like John Fairfax can cross the Atlantic from east to west, Don Allum can do the same but cross in both directions, while Peter Bird can row from California to Australia and Gerard d' Aboville can row from Japan to the west coast of the USA. Reason would dictate that there were voyages in antiquity to the Americas from the Old World of which we have no records, or do we.

kimball3@mindspring.com Richard Kimball Jones