The Adventures of s/v Agave: Sayan's Blog

Interview with Andrew Abrahams

"You Gotta Wanna!"

While we were in St. Lucia we noticed an odd looking boat about 24 feet long covered with sponsors’ advertisement, no mast, no steering wheel, only oars and it had a really small room in the back. One day I was helping my dad load some food on the boat and I noticed him talking to someone. My dad introduced me to him, he is Australian and recently rowed across the Atlantic in a race and holds the world record for quickest time rowing 1 million meters he did it in 119hrs 50ms 6s. After talking to him I decided to do a full report so I interviewed him and wrote it down in my journal.

Question1.) What did you find hard about this trip?

Answer1.) Getting to the start, it was hard because I had to go through all the trouble of sponsorships.

Question2.) What did you find easy?

Answer2.) Nothing.

Question3.) How much did you practice for this race?

Answer3.) 4 years of practice it took to practice for this race and it paid off because I came in first out of all the single rowers. I did 2 sessions of 35-120 min morning and night during Monday through Saturday and 2 4-hour sessions on Sunday when I was training for the world record.

Question4.) Did anything go wrong? If so, what went wrong?

Answer4.) Yes I broke two oars and the auto-pilot broke.

Question5.) Was the race harder or easier than you expected?

Answer5.) No I was well prepared for the race.

Question6.) Are you going to do another race like this?

Answer6.) Maybe across the Pacific and Indian oceans so I can say I rowed the world.

Question7.) How many long and short distance races have you done before?

Answer7.) Thousands of short distance ones and about 15 long.

Question8.) How long have you been doing this kind of thing?

Answer8.) 20 years.

Notes: He is 40 years old, he had to pack enough food for 90 days but they didn’t bring him the food so he was left with spicy food leftover from other boats for the whole trip (57+ days), seasick for a month, he was very determined. His motto is : You gotta wanna.

Here is a video footage of Andrew Abrahams' arrival in Antigua:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efOXC3KI07I&feature=youtu.be

Sayan interviewing Andrew

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Turtle Hospital Report

On Saturday the 21^st of December 2013 my family and the Romano family went to the Turtle Hospital. The Turtle Hospital is a small hospital where rescue turtles, rehabilitate them and then release them. Their slogan is RESCUE, REHAB, RELEASE.

About Turtles

Sea turtles eat jellyfish, conch, crab, shrimp, and anything else easy to catch. But when they are older they are herbivores they eat stuff like sea grass. Turtles have really strong jaws so that they can break the shell of a conch or a crab. There are 7 types of sea turtles in the world. There is the Green, Hawksbill, Leather Back, Kemp ridley, Loggerback, Olive Ridley, and Flatback.

Injuries

Turtles can get tumors, boat strikes, intestinal blockage, and others. A tumor is a swelling part of the body. A boat strike is when a boat’s propeller hits a turtle’s shell causing spine and internal organ damage.

What the turtle hospital does to help

The turtle hospital helps by applying surgery and then lets them rest in a pool type of thing for a week to a month. Then they take the turtle back to where they found it and releases it.

Names of current patients and their injuries:

Corona: 28 lbs found floating and struggling at the surface.

Chris: 7 lbs tumors

Amethyst: 15 lbs had tumors may be released soon

Brett: 113 lbs intestinal blockage

Emerald: 13 lbs tumors

Gizmo: 80 lbs intestinal blockage

Archie: 17 lbs covered in tumors including both eyes

Ron: 10 lbs netted on a coral reef due to heavy load of tumors

Chance: 70 lbs old boat hit caused deformation of shell and has one small tumor

Augustus: 10 lbs heavy load of tumors

Moses: 14 lbs 6 inch split in shell from boat hit