Father-daughter team from Ontario rowing across Atlantic
A month into trip, pair are nearly halfway through revised route
ATLANTIC OCEAN, AT SEA— An Ontario-based record-setting solo rower is back at sea on his latest cross-continental expedition — this time joined by his 20-yearold daughter.
John and Libby Beeden are nearly halfway through their 5,650-kilometre voyage from Portimao, Portugal to Antigua after setting off about a month ago.
Cheryl Beeden says her husband was ready to “hang up his oars” after becoming the first person to row solo non-stop from North America to the Australian mainland in 2015, but Libby convinced him to get back in the boat for a joint row across the Atlantic.
John Beeden, who is from the U.K. but lived in Burlington, Ont., with his family for 15 years before recently moving to Collingwood, said this crossing has been even tougher than his last, with conditions so perilous the pair decided to reroute from their original destination of Miami.
“We are at our limit most of the time, physically, mentally and struggling on little sleep,” Beeden said in an email from a satellite phone, which the pair uses to update their supporters in daily blogs.
The pair take turns at the oar and sleep in shifts for nearly round-the-clock rowing, but he said both of them have drifted off while on duty as they fight against forceful currents to maintain their course roughly 2,250 kilometres into their journey.
Shortly after departing in late November, the younger Beeden suffered a bout of sea sickness, and wrote on her blog about struggling to replenish herself with the sustenance they had on board — desalinated water, dried goods and junk food, which she told her mother was making her skin break out.
Libby Beeden said in an email that she knew she would be braving choppy waters, but didn’t anticipate how frightened she would be when their boat nearly capsized early in the journey.
“It has changed the way I look at the sea,” she said.
Libby Beeden admits there can be trying moments spending weeks at sea alone with her father, but said they’ve always been close, and she doesn’t anticipate that will change.