Inspire

For me, the wild has always been an escape from the pressures of life. That is not to say there are no pressures in the wilderness, it’s just that once they become familiar, they are less intimidating than the artificial pressures of urban life. When we talk about ‘escapism’ in the Western sense of the world, most people think of ‘escaping’ to the wilderness from the city, although there are of course still plenty of places in the world where people strive and dream of escaping rural life for the opportunity of the city.

It has always seemed strange to me that so many people dream of that escapism and yet so few actually do it. Escape? To escape implies that you are stuck somewhere that doesn’t make you happy. Why then do so many of us choose to live a life without contentment, in the hope that we will somehow, somewhere along the line, find the elusive happiness? The interpretation is that we can only ever be happy at the beginning and end of our lives, the two periods when we are free of financial burden. Is it money then that makes us happy or unhappy? The fact that so many aspire to a simpler life in the wild suggests that most of us long for a life free from those money pressures.

When you live in a city, among people, materialism and money are king. Caught in the system, we need to accumulate money to keep up with the masses. Consumerism ties us into the financial grid and we become inextricably stuck.

The wilderness requires a very different kind of finance, that of respect, knowledge and patience. Life in the wild comes with great responsibility but it is a very different kind to that of consumerism.

The wilderness in all her forms, from the jungle to the ice caps and from the mighty rivers to the vast oceans, still makes up 23 per cent of the planet. But that means 77 per cent has been tamed and touched by man. There isn’t much true wilderness left and our relationship with that sliver of real untouched nature remains complicated.

We like to take control of the flora and fauna all around us. We like to believe that we are the primary apex predator and that we have the power to tame, control and harness the landscape around us. Yet we also see the value of nature, and being out in the wild makes us happy.

I am happier outdoors than indoors. I am never more content than when I am walking or climbing, or hiking or running, or swimming. The wilderness lifts my spirits and boosts my confidence.

Over the years, through a series of expeditions, journeys, adventures and encounters, I have experienced a range of challenges that have tested my fortitude and resilience. They have inspired hope and happiness while other times eliciting despair and outrage. I have experienced courage and fear, blissful solitude and crippling loneliness. Success and failure in equal measure.

This is what I have learned along the way …

CHAPTER ONE

THE SEA

‘The sea heals all ailments of man.’

Plato

Rowing across the Atlantic Ocean was the hardest thing I have ever done. The end.

This could have been a very short chapter, but I’ll elaborate.

Rowing across the Atlantic was the hardest thing I have ever done. Really. I mean it. It tested me more than anything I have ever done before or will ever do again. Nothing will ever be as daunting, or boring, or as overwhelming, or mind-bendingly tedious.

It wasn’t the scariest thing I have ever done, it wasn’t the most dangerous thing I have ever done and it wasn’t the toughest thing I have ever done, but it broke me. It also taught me about boredom, fear, pain, frustration, perseverance, planning and preparation. In fact, it would be one of my early lessons in the six ‘P’s: Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss-Poor Performance. The ocean is almost unimaginably vast, a huge expanse of wilderness where we humans are particularly out of place. But in measuring myself against the Atlantic, I learned the value of endurance.

It had all started when an email popped into my Inbox inviting me to take part in the BBC’s Sport Relief 2004 charity boxing match. I would be paired with Aled Jones, the young Welsh chorister who found fame as a teenager with a chart-topping cover of 'Walking in the Air' from The Snowman.

In an unusual and out-of-character move, I agreed. I should probably explain here that I am not a pugilist. I have always hated contact sport, and boxing had always seemed particularly unappealing. But sometimes you just go with your instincts. That split-second decision was like a tipping point for me, and the beginning of a great personal journey.

As it transpired, Aled Jones dropped out, and instead I was paired with the actor Sid Owen. For the first time in my life, I found myself well and truly out of my comfort zone, boxing on live national television in front of an audience of millions against a hugely popular EastEnders actor, who also happened to be a former amateur boxer.

The odds were stacked against me. At the weigh-in, Sid had chest-butted me, sending me flying backwards. ‘IS THIS THE GREATEST SPORTING MISMATCH EVER?!’ screamed the newspaper headlines the next day. I was the underdog. Not prepared to be humiliated, I threw myself into two months of hard training. I rose to the challenge and won the fight. In the end my greatest asset was my endurance. Committing 100 per cent to my training earned me the winner’s belt.

After that, I was energised by survivor syndrome. I felt invincible. I felt that I could conquer the world. From there it was a sort of domino effect – the boxing bout was a catalyst for my increasing confidence in my own ability, and I soon found myself looking for another challenge that would really test my resilience and take me out of my comfort zone.

It was in that boxing ring, as my arm was lifted aloft and I was declared the winner, that the confidence to take on the Atlantic was kindled. Up to that point I was still a slave to the stereotyping of reality television, where my ‘fame’ had been created on BBC One’s Castaway 2000. The thing about reality-show fame is that it is very shallow – it has neither substance nor roots. You are famous because you were on a television show, not because you have any depth, ability or knowledge. This was 2004 and I was still stuck in the Heat magazine celebrity circus and I wanted to escape from that. I craved for a challenge that would help me alter the course of my life and reclaim my own narrative.

I was still seen as just a posh and pretty public school boy. But I didn’t forever want to be known as ‘Ben, that guy from the reality TV show’. I wanted people to respect me for more than that. I wanted to surprise the critics who wrote me off and prove to them that beneath my puppy-like exterior was more grit and determination than they gave me credit for. If I could prove myself by suffering and enduring, then maybe I could take control of my public persona as well as build my own self-esteem and confidence.

Deep down I wanted success, not fame. To achieve that, I needed something big, while still within the realm of achievability. Something that would test me to my absolute limits. Rowing the Atlantic looked like the answer.

The first time I heard of anyone attempting to row across the Atlantic was when the husband-and-wife team of Andrew and Debra Veal announced their intention in 2001. There was a huge amount of media interest – a married couple, with the husband an amateur rower and the wife a complete novice, was bound to cause a stir. This only intensified when Andrew was forced to retire after suffering uncontrollable anxiety just eight days into the journey.

Debra took the decision to carry on alone. Like the rest of the nation, I was captivated by the unfolding drama. Debra had never rowed before she signed up for the race. I admired her resolve to carry on when her husband was rescued, and yet despite the temptation to abandon the row, she persevered and 108 days later reached land. I was enthralled by her story, and when it came to finding a challenge of my own, rowing the Atlantic seemed like a reasonable choice.

‘Reasonable’, of course, is different for each of us. As a child, I always loved boats. I spent a great deal of time in canoes and rowing boats at my grandparents’ lakeside cabin, and while the ocean was a very different proposition to a small lake in Ontario, I knew that I felt comfortable on the water. If I’m honest, I’m not sure how I had the confidence to compare a 3,000-mile row across the stormy Atlantic Ocean with a half-mile canoe across a calm freshwater lake – I suspect the boxing match had more of a psychological effect on me than I had given it credit for.

I don’t think I really appreciated the enormity of the challenge. Debra had taken one-third of a year to row the Atlantic but even that didn’t feel daunting to me. After all, hadn’t I already endured a whole year living on an island in Castaway? Longevity was not really an issue. And as for the 3,000 miles, that also seemed abstract. I didn’t really have a reference point for the distance, the conditions, or the speed of rowing an ocean.

It was, of course, a risk. A huge one. Failure would have been mentally crushing, and potentially career suicide, as I was trying to reinvent myself as a successful adventurer. Everyone thought I was crazy. No one could believe I would really go through with it. But what I lack in confidence and self-esteem, I make up for in resilience and determination. And I have always been drawn to water.

Oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, waterfalls … I find myself mesmerised by water. I’m not sure if it’s the fluidity of the movement, or just the expanse, but I have always found myself calmed and soothed by the water. On it, under it, or in it, it doesn’t really matter. I find a spiritual draw towards water and towards oceans in particular. And there is something deeply spiritual and primitive about the ocean. Remember, humans are made up of nearly 70 per cent water. The ocean is part of us. It’s no surprise to me that the phases of the Moon can affect our moods. Once you see what it does to the tides, you can imagine the impact on the water within us.

I can still recall every childhood holiday by the sea in St Ives, in Brighton, and on the Isle of Rum in the Hebrides. The ocean was like a friend. Even in stormy weather the ocean never looked threatening; on the contrary, it almost appeared more exciting.

During my year living as a castaway on Taransay, the ocean was both a prison and an opportunity. Each evening I would sit on the top of one of the little hills and look west as the sun set over the vast, seemingly endless Atlantic Ocean. I was conflicted: I hated the artifice of our isolation and imprisonment but I also loved being a castaway. I would stare at that ocean and dream about the opportunity that lay on the horizon once we were set free from the ‘experiment’. And the ocean for me has always signified ultimate freedom.

Like a castle without a drawbridge, the island without a boat had become a prison, but with a boat you could go anywhere. I would stare at that ocean and marvel at the idea I could get all the way to Grandma and Grandpa’s little cabin on the lake in Canada, or even into Central London by boat. All from the very waters lapping the shoreline of Taransay. If you think about it, the seas are like a metaphor for life. Imagine all of humanity on a single beach; opportunity is ahead of us and it’s up to us to choose the journey. We have the option to remain on the beach, or we can set off across the ocean. We can choose our mode of transport – be it a plane, a cruise ship, or a sailing boat, we can make life as easy or as hard as we wish it to be. We can go with or against the ocean currents, with or against the prevailing winds; we can go with a motor or a sail, or we can go on a rudderless raft and allow the currents to take us where they choose. We can even swim it. You see, life can be as tough as you make it.

Maybe it was that unstoppable draw of the ocean, or perhaps it was the desire to test my resilience, but whatever the reason, the idea of rowing across the ocean never seemed too daunting or scary. It sounded more like opportunity and adventure. But while I have always been connected to the ocean, the rowing part was largely a mystery to me.

The first time I ever went sailing was awful. I was 14 and my friends, twin brothers Bruce and Russell Price, invited me to sail to France aboard their father’s sailing boat. It wasn’t flash and it certainly wasn’t ‘crewed’; in fact we did all the hard work in between vomiting and sipping cups of Bovril.

My memories were of seasickness, of being cold and wet, and yet I went back for more. Like a moth to a flame, I found myself drawn to the discomfort. There was something rather exciting about the mix of hardship and satisfaction. I had long admired the heroics of the early sailors. One of the first stories I heard as a child was that of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston who, during the late 1960s, won the Golden Globe trophy in the race to be the first person to sail single-handed, unassisted and non-stop, round the world. His achievement was made all the more memorable by the fact that he was the only one of nine entrants to complete the race, as he crossed the finish line after a mammoth 312 days at sea.

The draw of the water eventually landed me at the University of Portsmouth where my student flat overlooked the ocean. But just looking at it wasn’t enough and I soon found myself enlisting with the Royal Navy as a midshipman in the University Royal Naval Unit. We had our own ship, HMS Blazer, which we crewed each weekend for small deployments around the Solent. If there was a single series of experiences that helped build my resolve, it was those stormy, cold weekends at sea.

My time aboard HMS Blazer gave me my first real test of sleep deprivation and discomfort. We worked in shifts through the night, and we cooked in the tiny sea-sickness-inducing galley. What’s more, the permanent crew of Royal Naval sailors who joined us ensured it was no holiday. I owe my toilet-cleaning expertise and my polishing skills to those four years of scrubbing and buffing (and vomiting) aboard that little ship.

During the holidays we would leave UK waters and head down to Spain and Gibraltar, or up as far as Norway and Sweden. I loved and hated every single minute on that little ship, and when I wasn’t aboard HMS Blazer, I was sailing at the Joint Services Sailing Centre.

My time in the Royal Naval reserves was like an apprenticeship to the ocean. She had become familiar, like a friend, but rowing 3,000 miles in a small 24-foot boat made of plywood and glue was a very different proposition to sailing aboard a Naval Fast Patrol boat with an engine and a competent crew who knew what they were doing.

Back in 2001, when Debra Veal had been catapulted into the headlines, another young sailor had also become a household name: Ellen MacArthur. She had competed in the Vendée Globe, the race to sail single-handed, non-stop around the world, just like Knox-Johnston had done some thirty years earlier. Like millions of other Brits, I had been moved and uplifted by her fighting spirit in the face of adversity. There was something so beautiful about watching this young woman take on 28,000 miles of ocean. I found it empowering and inspiring and I wanted my own challenge. It wouldn’t be on a sailing yacht though. The problem with sailing is that the costs are prohibitive; you could spend millions of pounds to get a boat fit for a circumnavigation of the world. I needed something more attainable and achievable. A rowing boat is a fraction of the cost, though at the sacrifice of security and any semblance of leisure time …

I signed up for the Atlantic Rowing Race two years ahead of the December 2005 start date, and for the first year I buried my head in the sand and pretended it wasn’t really happening. Although the ocean held a comfortable familiarity for me, spending many months at sea in a tiny wooden boat was on an entirely different scale to anything I had done before. When the clock ticked round to a year to go, I still didn’t have either a boat or, more importantly, a partner.

I was at a party in Central London when I spotted James Cracknell across the room. I recognised him because he had just won his second gold medal in the Olympic Games.

‘Now there’s a bloke who can row,’ I thought.

If you don’t ask you won’t get, my grandmother always said. Be brave.

I bounded over with Tigger-like enthusiasm and asked James if he’d like to row across the Atlantic Ocean with me.

‘Have you rowed before?’ he asked, looking at my physique suspiciously.

‘Nope. Never,’ I smiled. I should have lied.

He told me to get lost, but I persevered and a few weeks later we discussed the possibility of teaming up.

Have you ever met an Olympian? If not, then let me paint a picture. They really are a unique type of person. Stubborn, determined, focused people who have decided to sacrifice their life to the goal of winning medals. It takes a different kind of competitive confidence to embrace a life of professional sport. Imagine dedicating your life to one discipline: jumping, running, throwing, cycling, rowing. Imagine the dedication and the commitment needed to turn up at the gym 360 days of the year. Those freezing cold mornings. The sacrifice of abstaining from alcohol and parties and socialising. I may be over-egging it slightly, but you can’t overestimate an Olympian’s commitment to their sport.

And the financial rewards are slim. At best you might win a gold medal and fleeting sporting fame, until the next generation come up through the ranks. The likes of Chris Hoy, Steve Redgrave and Helen Grainger are the exceptions to the rule. They are sportsmen and women who have broken the third wall and entered the world of celebrity.

James Cracknell, even among sporting legends, had a fearsome reputation. He was famed for pushing himself and those around him harder and farther than anyone else. He was ferocious. He wanted to be the best. For James it was gold or nothing. There was no point in turning up if he was only going to come second. For 18 years of his life, James had sacrificed a normal life for rowing.

And then there was me. Mr Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. For me, variety has always been the spice of life. Oh, and I hate competition and I can’t row.

We teamed up.

James and I wrote a book about that journey (called The Crossing) but I want to talk about the experience in the context of what I learned from the sea in those seven weeks.

I’ll begin with our preparation, or lack of. On paper, we ticked all the boxes. We passed the necessary exams and became Ocean Yachtmasters. If we compare it to a driving test, we did all the theory but failed to do any of the practical. A rowing machine was as close to a rowing boat as I ever got during our preparation. In the few months leading up to the race, I was filming in the deserts of Namibia.

The morning of the race was only the third time James and I had ever been in a rowing boat together and the previous times had all been photo opportunities. Before we were allowed to start the race, we had to pass ‘scrutineering’ and here was where our shortcomings really showed. James was asked to demonstrate how to use the handheld pump to bail water out of our boat. He held it the wrong way round and ended up filling the boat with seawater instead. Lynn, the chief scrutineer, went red with rage. We had shown an early red flag and she was about to uncover the full scale of our lack of preparedness.

I have never been good with preparation. I have always been one of those individuals who goes in with hope and a prayer. I cross my fingers and hope I’ll get through it. My frequent exam failures were proof that it rarely worked. At that stage in my life, preparation felt like extending the misery. I already knew that rowing the Atlantic wasn’t going to be easy or even much fun, so what was the point in another year of ‘suffering’ in the preparation? How wrong I was.

What followed was a baptism of fire, exaggerated because we hadn’t prepared or trained ourselves mentally or physically. Don’t get me wrong, I was in good physical shape. I had rowed for an hour or two every day for six long months, but always within the safety of my rowing machine. On my terms.

Now we were stuck on a 24-foot rowing boat, Spirit of EDF Energy, facing the pressure of expectation. We rowed a routine of two hours on, two hours off, two hours on, two hours off, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for seven weeks. We never slept for more than 40 minutes at a time and never more than three hours in any 24-hour block. Sleep deprivation became our nemesis. Our enemy. Irritability descended into madness. I have never experienced such delirium. We became irrational, emotional and vulnerable at the very time we needed to be clinical, focused and strong.

Rowing 3,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean was one thing, but doing it as part of a race with a competitive edge was another. Competition adds pressure, which changes the dynamic. Ever since I was a young boy, I have hated competition. Part of the attraction of the Atlantic Rowing Race was to confront my fears, and the competitive element was an important aspect to that. But it didn’t make life easy, particularly as I was with a fiercely competitive Olympian.

For an Olympian like James Cracknell, the race element was bigger than the challenge. Rowing the Atlantic was incidental. For me, the race was a by-product of the task itself, to row the Atlantic. What you must remember is that James wasn’t the only sportsman or woman in the race. There were semi-professional athletes from all around the world alongside everyday folk like myself. It was this heady mix of ambition and ability that made the Atlantic Rowing Race such an exciting proposition.

The first week on the ocean was the hardest as we adapted to our new routine. We were still strangers. In the year’s preparation we had never really got to know one another. It soon transpired we had two very different objectives. I was there to complete, while James was in it to win it. I didn’t care if it took us a whole year to row across that ocean as long as we did so in the spirit of the race, in good health and we arrived alive. James, on the other hand, didn’t mind if we died halfway across as long as we had put in 110 per cent effort.

We fought and we wept. That first week was misery. Utter misery, possibly the most depressed I have ever been. The satnav registered 2,995 miles to go and a speed of half a mile an hour. This was perhaps one of the single biggest learning experiences of my life. Those numbers on that machine looked impossible. It wasn’t the ocean around us nor the weather or storms that felt overwhelming and suffocating, but the scale in my head.

For the first time in my life, my brain couldn’t cope. The enormity of the task was out of my comfort zone and something I had never experienced before. It was abstract. Invisible. Unimaginable.

It was overwhelming. ‘Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five miles,’ I kept repeating over and over. It was just a number. But the figure was like a gremlin. It kept multiplying. I couldn’t break down the size of the whole thing.

What kept us both from turning about and heading back into harbour with our tails between our legs? Pride. We were both haunted by the fear of humiliation on turning around. Neither of us could stomach that prospect. Despite the misery, carrying on felt like the lesser of two evils.

I don’t remember much from those first few days. It was like waking up to a version of Groundhog Day every two hours. There was no escape. When we weren’t enduring the oars in the open water, we were worried about the ticking clock to the next session. And on top of that, there were the eyes. James was watching. I don’t know for sure that he was always staring and he probably wasn’t, but I so wanted to please him. I wanted to prove I was up to the task. I wanted to impress the Olympian. Through the tinted window of the cabin door, James was invisible from the outside, but I knew that from inside the cabin, he could watch my progress as if from a ship’s wheelhouse. I always felt those eyes boring into me as I took my turn to row.