PERMALINK: A journey of body and mind
Leo Rosette has always respected the ocean. Feared it, even. And that blend of respect and fear may have saved his life.
It was that mix of emotion that kept Rosette, 59, vigilant during the 101 days he spent rowing solo across the Atlantic. It made him pay attention to every step, every hand hold, knowing that at any moment a relaxed attitude -- mixed with the capricious ocean -- could relax his grip on the boat.
"I never took a relaxed breath," Rosette, of Marshfield, Mass., said of his state of mind for the journey, during which he rowed more than 2,500 nautical miles, from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to the island of Les Saintes, off the coast of Guadeloupe. "Even when you sleep, you're not relaxed."
He did relax once, and he got burned for it. Literally.
Rosette was on deck boiling water to mix with a packet of dehydrated food when, jostled by the jouncing waves, the hot liquid spilled onto his foot.
"The skin on my foot rolled off like it was wax," Rosette said. Luckily, he had antibiotics on board and was able to prevent infection, or his journey likely would've had to be abandoned. He'd already had to abandon his first attempt, the previous year, because a cocktail of seasickness, dehydration and acid reflux had Rosette coughing up blood just days into his trip.
The mishap with the jet boiler served as a painful reminder to pay attention to the ocean at all times, but it did not deter him. Before he left, Rosette wrote a motivational phrase on the bulkhead of the boat's cabin: "Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."
Leo Rosette was born in Boston in August 1950, the youngest of nine children. He went to North Quincy High School, then attended Massachusetts Maritime Academy for a year before enlisting in the Army in 1970. He received a top-secret clearance and was assigned to a unit that "dealt with nuclear weapons." He says he's not allowed to reveal more than that.
Rosette spent three years in the Army, and then bounced around a bit. He worked in construction for a while, spent some time working on a fishing boat out of Boston and worked in a steel mill. Then he applied for a job with the federal government.
After a two-year stint working in immigration in Boston, Rosette became a U.S. marshal. In his more than two decades in the job he did a little bit of everything, tracking fugitives, providing security for federal judges and witnesses, and transporting criminals. Two years ago he turned 57, the mandatory retirement age for federal law enforcement agents. But rather than put himself out to pasture because he'd reached an age the government deems unfit to continue to serve, Rosette decided he would attempt to do what he'd seen an Englishman do years before -- row solo across the Atlantic.
Rosette had a boat built: a 24-by-6-foot, fiberglass boat with no propulsion source besides two oars. It had a cramped, approximately 4-by-6-foot cabin that tapered to a point in the stern. It was equipped with all the necessary gadgets: water maker, GPS unit, Automatic Identification System (a transponder to alert other vessels to a ship's presence), compass and more. It had a power plant, consisting of three solar panels -- two on the stern, one on the bow.
It didn't have a bed or a bathroom. It had a 2-inch-thick, foam-filled mat and a bucket.
And it had the name Halcyon, which Rosette gave it in an attempt at currying favor with the wind and the waves. The name comes from Greek mythology, referring to sea birds that possessed the power to sooth the sea.
The name didn't help Rosette. He hoped for good weather; he got storms, strong winds and incredible heat, all of which slowed his progress.
It was the worst at night. Rosette slept lightly, stretched out on his back on his thin mat, elbows digging in so he didn't pitch and roll with the boat. The boat, tethered to its sea anchor, would meander this way and that on the waves.
And once in a while, it would turn just right and take a wave's full force on the broad side of the hull.
"It felt like the boat got hit with 1,000 jackhammers," Rosette said. "Just, 'Boom!' " When that happened, he could only hope that the boat hadn't sustained any serious damage.
Halcyon, after all, was more than the only thing between Rosette and the water -- it was the only company Rosette had for 101 days. Sure, he had a satellite phone he could use to call home -- Rosette talked to his longtime girlfriend, Faye Vitale, almost every night -- or to communicate with other rowers. And he had an iPod loaded with music (Meatloaf, Rod Stewart and others) and audio books (including biographies of Churchill and FDR and a collection of mystery novels). But most of the time, it was just the man and his boat -- a fact that sunk in the most at night, when he tried to sleep and the boat tried to avoid the biggest waves.
Seven rowers took part in the Atlantic Race 2009 solo, and the 24 other boats all had at least two competitors. Having multiple participants makes a big difference, not only in divvying up the enormous physical burden of rowing 2,500-plus nautical miles but in dividing the emotional toll such an undertaking exacts. When one rower sleeps, the other can keep watch. When Rosette slept, he had to rely on his Automatic Identification System to ensure he wasn't unwittingly straying into the path of an oncoming tanker or ocean liner.
Which meant that after rowing roughly 30 miles -- his average mileage -- Rosette would have to attempt to sleep on his thin, foam mattress while listening for an alarm that would mean he was literally on a collision course with something.
Maybe it's not surprising, then, that after 101 days on the water, Rosette had trouble sleeping through the night once he was back on land. He kept waking up, thinking the bed was rocking, that he was back on the mat, watching his boat even with both eyes closed.
When Rosette pulled into the harbor at Les Saintes on April 14, he became the fifth American to complete a solo ocean crossing. At 59 years, 257 days old, Rosette is also the oldest American to do so.
Not bad for a guy who was told he was no longer fit enough to do the job he'd done for more than 20 years.
Rosette says he averaged about nine hours in the seat, rowing in intervals of about an hour -- or one album on his iPod -- and taking breaks of varying lengths, depending on the weather and how he felt, to rehydrate and refuel. He tried to do as much of the day's rowing as he could in the morning, while it was still relatively cool. He even tried to row some at night -- anything to avoid the heat of the day -- but he didn't much like that. Couldn't get a feel for the water with only the moon for light.
When he had to row in the heat, which was often, he made sure to drink water. He drank while he was in his seat, he drank when he took his breaks. He also ate often, noshing energy bars, candy bars and dehydrated meals to keep his energy level up.
"The things that kept you going were the snacks," Rosette said. "When they ran out that's when I started to go downhill a little bit."
It didn't help that the rough weather had slowed his progress, which meant he had to cut back to half rations to ensure he'd have enough to go the distance. Toward the end, Rosette took to pawing through the boat's compartments in search of a stray candy bar.
"Occasionally I'd find a Mars bar or something wedged between a couple bottles of water. Then I'd sit there and say, 'Do I eat it now or do I wait?' " Rosette said, then laughed. "But I usually ate it right away."
Rosette said he didn't really train for his adventure, but that he's always tried to keep himself in shape. He picked up rowing after attending Mass. Maritime, but didn't start rowing regularly until later. He has a mahogany skull, which he launches from the Riverside Boat Club in Cambridge many an early morning for a session on the Charles River.
And while ocean rowing is different for obvious reasons -- big waves, more wind and much more distance -- at its core, it's still rowing. Catch, drive, return. Repeat.
The repetition is the most important part. Although rowing across an ocean is an amazing physical challenge, it may be an even greater mental challenge. There's no time to recuperate, there's only time to row, row and row some more.
But it's not all monotony, at least not after all the monotony is over.
"There were highlights," Rosette said. "Those are coming in now. When you're out there, you don't have time to experience them."
There was the wildlife. Rosette saw whales, dolphins and sea birds -- lots of sea birds. Occasionally, the birds landed on the boat. Most of the time they'd just sit for a few minutes and then fly off, but one day a bird plopped itself down and went along for the ride as Rosette rowed. After a while, the bird stirred itself and flew away. That's when Rosette realized the bird had been sitting on one of the boat's solar panels & and it had left a mess.
Rosette had to use some of his fresh-water supply to wash the panel off. He can laugh about it now, but at the time he was less than pleased.
He was also less than pleased when a 6-foot shark came by for a visit. "It came right by the boat," Rosette said. "Swam around twice, and all of a sudden the boat got real small."
Then there was the vista. "You're out there in this little boat, you look around 360 degrees and you don't see anything but ocean and sky," Rosette said. "Some nights were very calm, you see some nice sunsets."
Rosette also liked cleaning the algae off the bottom of the boat -- though he often glanced around for sharks -- because he could look around and see schools of fish darting here and there through the crystal-clear, blue water. Once in a while he wouldn't see any fish, and he'd wonder where they went. "I told Faye there weren't many fish around, and she said, 'Stop singing along to your iPod and they may come back.' "
And finally there was the sense of accomplishment he felt when he looked at the map in his cabin, saw that he was close to the West Indies and realized he'd essentially already crossed the ocean. He rowed to Les Saintes, and called it an adventure. He raised the American flag and had his boat towed to Antigua, where the Atlantic Race was supposed to finish. Rosette said he didn't really care about the race, and officially he's withdrawn from the contest. He said he just wanted to cross the ocean.
He's done that.
"In Antigua, someone asked me 'How many times have you done it?' " Rosette said. "I said 'Why would I do it more than once?'
"I just did it because of the challenge. I feel good about it, and I don't need to do it again."
Rosette says he didn't do it to prove a point -- he says he's not trying to make a political statement, he just wanted to see what he's made of. But he also says things like, "And if the federal government happens to see that, jeez, they're letting people go and they're doing things like this, maybe they'll change their rules."
Rosette says he's heard from a lot of people his age, who are inspired by what he's done. That makes him feel good. "Maybe it's a lesson, when you hit 60 you're not done yet," Rosette said. "You're not over the hill."
Now Rosette is ready for a new challenge, and he's got one in mind: Everest. Before the row began, Rosette met a British doctor named Rob Casserley, a highly regarded mountaineer and expedition doctor. Casserley was preparing to row the Atlantic with a friend, and had an obligation to guide on Everest this month. Casserley invited Rosette to join him on Everest next year.
"To row the Atlantic solo is an impressive achievement -- both from a physical point of view and probably most importantly, from a psychological standpoint," Casserley wrote in an e-mail from camp at Everest. "To be honest, the latter is probably the key to success both on the Atlantic and on Everest.
"I fully believe that Leo can climb Everest on the basis of his Atlantic achievement as I reckon an Everest summit is about 65 percent psychology, 25 percent physical and 10 percent luck! So he has already demonstrated that he has that psychological edge to do it."
For now, Rosette is at home in Marshfield, recovering from the row -- he lost 30 pounds in the 101 days he was at sea, and toward the end when he was low on food his body started burning muscle because it had long since burned off any last fat reserve. "Before I left I could do 60 push-ups in a minute," Rosette said. "Know how many I can do now? Twelve."
Rosette laughed, and said he's doing well. He can feel the strength returning, and he's already put most of the weight back on.
He's also trying to find a buyer for Halcyon, which he sent back to England where it was made and where there's more of a market for ocean rowing vessels. He would've loved to keep the boat, which treated him so well on his journey, but he wouldn't have used it and he needs the money. He didn't have a sponsor for his Atlantic adventure, and he estimates it cost him more than $100,000 when all was said and done.
"I haven't done any other extreme things," Rosette said. "I have to honestly say nothing can be as tough as this." Casserley, who has done other extreme things, doesn't entirely disagree. "There's a lot more monotony in rowing," he wrote. "You really have to grind it out. But, you're almost certainly not going to die -- a realistic possibility on Everest.
"So as to what is tougher -- it's probably 50:50 -- for differing reasons."
For now, Rosette will work himself slowly back into shape and see if he can raise a little money to pay for another expedition. It may seem like a big gap to close, both physically and financially, but he's already crossed an ocean -- what's a challenge like this?
After all, pain is temporary but quitting lasts forever.
Jack McCluskey is an editor for ESPN.com
© 2010 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.