Rowing through grief and giant Atlantic waves
Clare O’Reilly is battling huge waves and personal grief as she rows across the Atlantic Ocean in the World’s Toughest Row.
O’Reilly, from Wembury, Devon and teammates Rosie Tong and Mel Jarman set off on 14 December and have already covered more than 1,800 miles of the 3,600-mile race.
The hardest part came before the start, said O’Reilly, whose father died hours before she left La Gomera in Spain for Antigua.
“Sometimes it feels like the sea echoes how you feel when you’re grieving,” she said. “You can’t move through the sea quickly. You move at the pace she decides, and that feels very much like grief.”
She said it had been “incredibly difficult not having him here and not being able to send him all the pictures of the sunrise and the sunsets and everything else, but it feels very much like he’s with me”.
Despite the emotional weight, the Row with the Flow team is flying.
“We’re 17th out of 44 boats and second in the women’s class,” O’Reilly said.
“Every oar stroke brings us closer to dry land, but right now we’re closer to the humans on the International Space Station than anyone on land.”
O’Reilly admits to fearing deep water and big waves.
“The first couple of days we were looking at five, six-metre waves,” she said. “They were huge, absolutely ginormous.”
She said life on board was relentless but fun.
“Everything is a flipping chore,” O’Reilly laughed. “Going to the toilet, boiling noodles, moving up and down the boat, it’s all a chore.
“But we’re enjoying it. We’re incredibly fortunate to be out here.”
North Devon woman Jess Smiles and her race partner Beth Murphy are also taking part in the race.
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