Rowing across the Pacific requires an enormous amount of planning, organisation, and training. Many who have attempted similar challenges have said they would have thought twice had they known what was really involved.

Theoretically you don’t need any experience, or specialist knowledge, before getting in a rowing boat and setting off across thousands of miles of open ocean. In fact, many people who decide to row an ocean have neither rowed nor sailed before.

But the Pacific is a dangerous and unforgiving place. Help is rarely close by and the costs involved of sending planes out, or diverting commercial shipping is substantial. If things go wrong, we wouldn’t just be risking our own lives, but also the lives of those who might try to assist us.

It doesn’t matter how worthy the cause, or how crazy the challenge being undertaken, raising money is always difficult.

2020 has so far brought us a pandemic, a lockdown, economic recession, political unrest, growing racial tensions and the creeping environmental catastrophe of global warming and ocean plastic pollution. I think it’s fair to say that things haven’t gone as hoped so far for the year. Not quite an apocalypse, but it’s felt that way for many at various times.