HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — After battling a local current off Ritidian through Friday night and emerging north of Tumon by the morning, solo circumnavigator and multi-Guinness World Record holder Erden Eruc finally made landfall in Guam Saturday afternoon.
He was a just a bit wobbly as he waded through the shallow water toward the Marianas Yacht Club, where he was greeted by supporters and Guam officials.
“If you want a taste of what it took here to get to Guam, last night I slept one hour and 15 minutes. The night before, five hours in one hour increments monitoring what the boat was doing the whole time,” Eruc said. “Otherwise, unless I was boiling water for my freeze-dried foods or making water, or just being busy doing what life on the boat requires, I was rowing. I was on the oars.”
While on Guam, Eruc will receive his Covid-19 booster shot and stay a few days to make repairs and assess his journey moving forward.
“I am feeling very relieved. My wife is supposed to arrive tonight and she’s going to stay a week. Monday is Valentine’s Day. So it’s all working out very well,” he said Saturday.
Eruc is on a journey to row across the Pacific. His mission is to get to the Asian mainland where he will continue his journey up to the foothills of Mt. Everest, all by human power. Eruc will attempt to climb the world’s tallest mountain in the fall as part of the “Six Summits Project,” in which he will travel to six different continents and climb the highest peak on each.
He has already climbed three peaks each in North America, Australia and Africa, leaving Everest, Aconcagua and Elbrus in Asia, South America and Europe, respectively.
He is tackling this project in memory of Göran Kropp, a late friend whom he lost while mountain climbing together in 2002.
While crossing the ocean, Eruc will be raising awareness about plastic pollution in our oceans in collaboration with Ocean Recovery Alliance, according to his website. He will also collect ambient sound data that will identify the range of beaked whales along his transect.
He began his voyage on June 22, 2021 from Crescent City, California.
The journey has seen some complications. Boat repairs and Mother Nature brought him to Waikiki, Hawaii on Sept. 10, 2021 after 80 days at sea.
He had been rowing out at sea for about 130 days after departing Hawaii and before reaching Guam.
“As I battle the fickle winds in the trenches, a decision is emerging about whether I should go to Saipan or to Guam,” Eruc wrote on his blog in late January as he made the decision to head to Guam along his route.
“We were trying all along to come up with a point and date for a Go versus No-Go decision toward Guam but our hand was forced by the weather yesterday. As the northerly then northeasterly winds filled, it became difficult to keep course for Saipan.”
Military exercises north of Guam and Rota created concern for Eruc as he approached the island.
“I looked at the distance ahead to Rota Island, then the additional 32 miles between the two that I would have to cross before the live fire exercises kicked off early on the 10th. I didn’t have any specifics about the exclusion zone. I assumed a rectangular live fire zone covering a large surface. Not knowing what the sea would offer between where I was and Rota, I could not guarantee a pace to exit at the far end of the live fire zone before the start time, which I assumed to be at o’dark hundred on Thursday the 10th,” he wrote on Feb. 8.
“So I put the brakes on, deployed my para anchor to drop my pace from almost 2 knots,” he added.
After three days on the para-anchor waiting, drifting westward and losing his positional advantage for Guam, Eruch had decided to execute a plan to reach Sasanhaya Bay and take refuge in Rota, so that he didn’t risk drifting into the live-fire exercise zone.
That’s when he received the news he’d been waiting for and was told he was clear to go straight run to Guam “without fear of getting shot at.”
Eruc said he and his team had received the following message from U.S. Naval Chief Jeffrey Gee:
“Strictly for safety purposes, I have coordinated with the unit conducting the live fire training on the 10th and they agreed to utilize the live fire air space on the east side of the island, so there will not be any live fire events occurring on his path.”
“I truly hope I will get to meet the women and men running these exercises and to thank them on behalf of the navy chief. They empathized at the highest level, took into account the limitations of this fellow mariner, and generously offered me a path forward. For all of this, I remain humbled and grateful,” Eruc wrote on his blog on Feb. 8.
Erden Eruc stands on the Westbound Rower at Apra Harbor on Saturday. Eruc was making a pit stop on Guam after being thrown off course on his journey to Hong Kong. He began his ocean rowing journey across the Pacific on June 22, 2021 from Crescent City California as part of the Great Pacific Challenge.
