The Indian Ocean has been giving rowers a mixed hand lately. Of the few crews currently out on the water, one is closing in on a record despite a major route change, while another's six-year dream ended with a snapped piece of metal.
British rower Dave 'Dinger' Bell is the one still pulling. His crossing is staggering in scale: he began in Peru, rowed the entire Pacific to Australia without touching land, then continued through the Torres Strait into the Indian Ocean. By early September he had logged 305 days at sea and more than 24,000km. If he makes land as planned, he'll hold the record for the longest known unsupported single-stage row.
The last stretch has been brutal. July and August brought repeated storms, forcing Bell to spend a week parked on his para-anchor. When he got moving again, the autopilot controls had failed — he improvised a workaround using the still-working display. With strong tailwinds finally behind him, he was clocking 120km days, but the swells were big enough to capsize the boat if one struck from the wrong angle. Too stubborn to slow down with the para-anchor, he rigged a long line off the stern for a little extra stability. By the end of August, conditions eased and, in his words of the time, rowing became enjoyable again.
There's a twist, though. Southeasterly currents have made Mauritius unreachable, so Bell has officially re-targeted Mombasa, Kenya. That detour adds roughly 1,800km and three weeks at sea, but he'll still finish on African soil as originally intended.
Bell isn't alone out there — or wasn't. The four-person Monkey Fist crew (Darren Taylor, Glyn Roberts, Lara Vafiadis and Susannah Cass) set out from Carnarvon, Australia, aiming to row 8,200km to Mombasa. On August 13, with just over 2,000km to go, their rudder pin snapped. The spare bent during the attempted repair, and rowing on without steering was too dangerous. They called for help, and an oil tanker bound for Cape Town picked them up. "This has been six years in the making," the crew wrote, calling the outcome gutting. A nice footnote: the two boats were friendly — Monkey Fist's skipper Billy Taylor and Bell are close, and he sent Bell a voice note from 300km away mentioning a pod of orcas.
Why should a holiday reader care? Mombasa keeps proving itself as a waypoint for extraordinary journeys — and if Bell's plan holds, he'll step ashore there in roughly three weeks, closing out one of the longest human-powered crossings ever attempted. Kenya's coast, with its blend of Swahili history, Indian Ocean breezes and safari access, is the kind of place that turns an arrival into a story. For anyone following ocean rowing, the next month or so is worth watching.
Story via ExplorersWeb