Roz Savage and the polluted seas of Papua New Guinea

Roz Savage rowing into Madang last Friday with a Papua New Guinea flag.-Picture courtesy of SIR PETER BARTER

By MALUM NALU

It is one of the proudest moments in the life of British ocean rower and environmental campaigner, Roz Savage, when she is feted like royalty when she arrives in Madang last Friday after an epic 47-day rowing voyage from Tarawa in Kiribati.

She enters the Solomon Sea past Cape Henpan at the top of Bougainville Island, and then gets swept south a bit before starting to make more progress west.

She approaches Madang from the southeast and the full GPS record of her voyage can be found on http://rozsavage/roztracker.

Savage makes landfall last at 8am last Friday, completing her three-stage trip and becoming the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean.

Sadly, she admits, when she passes into Papua New Guinea waters, the flotsam and jetsam is beyond comprehension.

“Sad to say,” she tells The National, “I saw plastic pollution when I was still many miles from land.

“Empty water bottles, styrofoam, yogurt pots, etc.

“Also raw sewage.

“It was the worst ocean pollution that I have seen in all the time that I have spent on the Pacific since I left from San Francisco.”

Her main concern about Pacific waters, after rowing from Tarawa to Madang: “Mostly the plastic pollution, which I have seen first hand.”

This leaves Savage very much concerned about the fragile eco-system.

“This is a huge question!” she adds.

“I am writing a whole book on the subject, so it's hard to know where to begin.

“To boil it down: I am a selfish environmentalist.

“I plan to live a long life, and if we carry on as we are, by the time I am my mother's age, we are going to be living on a planet wracked by drought, famine, and massive migrations of people fleeing from rising seas as we feel the effects of climate change.

“That is not the kind of planet I want to live on.

“So I am doing my bit to encourage people to consume less - especially plastic - and to take better care of our planet.

“It's the only one we've got!”

Savage is born on Dec 23, 1967, in Cheshire, England and lives most of her adult life in London.

Now of no fixed abode, she is constantly traveling, i.e., rowing around the world.

She goes to school in various places, and given that her parents are Methodist preachers, she moves around a lot.

She starts rowing at age 18 when she starts at the University of Oxford., as she feels like “I ought to do some exercise, and want to be able to eat more without getting fat”!

Savage then gets bitten by the long distance rowing bug.

“I wanted to have an adventure, and there wasn't much else I knew how to do,” she says.

“I’d always thought you had to be a particular kind of person to be an adventurer, and didn't think I could ever do it myself.

“But then read about a married couple who set out to row the Atlantic.

“The husband couldn't handle it and had to be rescued from their boat, but she carried on and finished alone.

“So that helped give me the confidence that maybe this was something that I could do.”

Her major rowing feats since then have been:

• 2006 solo Atlantic from Canaries to Antigua;
• 2008 solo Pacific I from California to Hawaii;
• 2009 solo Pacific II from Hawaii to Kiribati; and
• 2010 solo Pacific III from Kiribati to Papua New Guinea.

She has many close calls during her time of living dangerously on the high seas.

“In 2007 I had an aborted attempt on the Pacific,” Savage reveals.

“I was 10 days out from California when I ran into heavy weather and 20 foot waves.

“My boat capsized three times in 24 hours and sustained some damage.

“I would have carried on, but somebody reading my bog decided to send out the US Coast Guard to get me, without asking me first.

“So I was airlifted, and then had to launch an urgent salvage mission to get my boat back.

“It cost me a lot of money, and I had to wait another nine months before the season was right for me to try again.”

Then, of course, there is the obvious question of whether she is married and has children.

“I was married,” she replies.

“Now divorced, but still on good terms with my ex.

“No children.”

Savage is, however, very close to her mother Rita.

“My mother, Rita, is in her seventies now,” she reveals.

“My father died in 2004, just before I started ocean rowing.

“Either through my rowing or through the loss of my father, we have become much closer.

“When I first told her that I was going to row the Atlantic, she really hoped that I would change my mind.

“But then, when she saw that I was determined to do it, she decided to give me her support.

“And ever since she has been very involved with my rowing.

“She worries less the more she is involved.”

Savage blogs and twitters from sea using her Iridium satellite phone as a data modem to post blogs and tweets.

“It is slow and expensive, but it is really important to me to share my adventure with my online audience, to encourage them to care about the oceans and the world in general.”

She will be in Madang for one month “talking at schools, exploring the area, meeting people, and getting my boat ready to be shipped to Australia”.

Her next rowing epic will be across the Indian Ocean from Perth in Western Australia to Mauritius in Africa, which she estimates “very difficult to say, as so much depends on the weather and currents in any particular year.

“I will take enough food for about 130 days”.

Savage gives kudos to Madang and PNG.

“Madang is beautiful, and the people here have been incredibly friendly and welcoming,” she says.

“Lots of people have wanted to shake my hand, take my photograph, and have me sign something.

“It is very touching.

“They really seem to understand what I have done, and why. I am very pleased that I decided to come here.

“I'd also like to say a huge thank you to the thousands of people who came to greet me last Friday.

“It was one of the most amazing days of my life.

“I have been very touched by the warmth and friendliness of the people in Madang, and hope that they will continue to follow my adventures and environmental campaigns.”