QLD: Bird reaches land

AAP General News (Australia)
08-02-1999
QLD: Bird reaches land

By Derek Tipper

CAIRNS, Qld, Aug 2 AAP - Mick Bird is what Australians would affectionately call mad.

For the past 22 months, 206 days of that at sea, the former US airforce pilot rowed alone
from the United States to Australia in an eight metre boat named Reach.

To put the feat in perspective, Reach looks more like a recreational sail boat without the
sail. Something you would see bobbing about on any Australian harbour on any sunny Sunday.

All this in an attempt to become the first person to circumnavigate the world by rowboat.

"I experienced the joy of rowing a 78-mile day to the anguish of rowing in the wrong
direction," said Bird, 37, of Malibu, near Los Angeles.

"I saw miles and miles of ocean as glassy as the water in a bath tub to feeling the intense
vulnerability from the power of 25 metre seas.

"I cried uncontrollably from the pain of missing my family to crying tears of joy after
making radio link with my wife on her birthday.

"I have been blessed by memorable sunrises and cursed by sleepless nights, bruises,
fatigue, aches and pains."

On August 19, 1997, he left Fort Bragg in California, on the first leg of an eight-leg
journey, landing in Hilo, Hawaii, 64 days later.

The second leg took him to the Marshall Islands in August this year.

"Hawaii to the Marshalls was hell because I had several hundred kilometres of
countercurrents," he said.

"It wasn't fun going in the wrong direction for days at a time."

The third leg was always going to be the most difficult because Bird did in fact have to
row in the wrong direction to get to Australia.

"The toughest stretch was the last 10 days in the Coral Sea. The weather really kicked my
butt but I love being at sea," Bird said.

He discovered what mariners of antiquity and modern pilots know all too well, that while
Australia might be the biggest island continent, it can prove hard to find, protected by wind
squalls, uncharted reefs, rocks and islands.

"Instead of fighting it I just decided to run with the equatorial countercurrents heading
east, away from Australia.

"I was trying to set myself up to get around the Solomon Islands."

Bird left the Marshalls heading 7 degrees north by 171 degrees east attempting to stay due
south, armed with the knowledge that for 47 per cent of the time winds blow force 4 from east
to north-east.

South of the equator the winds turned east to south-east as he headed for Darwin.

Seventy-four days and some 4500km against headwinds, current and the added hazards of
reefs, rocks and islands later, Bird arrived at the scene of a recent marine tragedy.

Port Douglas game fishing boat Weejock towed the rower into the Cairns Marina from
Agincourt Reef, the last place American divers Thomas and Eileen Lonergan were seen alive.

While the reception at the Cairns Marina was understated, Bird remembers well his arrival
in Hilo, Hawaii.

There were over 100 people, press and other medias, local media, harmonising conch shell
performers and ancestral chants of noted Hawaiian teach and chanter Pua Kanahele.

"I could hear Pua chanting and welcoming me into the islands from far out into the bay," he
said.

"Her Hawaiian chanting resonated deep within me.

"I was coming home."

One of the first things Bird does when he reaches land is fuel up on cheeseburgers and
chips in an effort to put back on some of the weight he loses during the various legs - about
20kg on the Hawaiian leg.

To keep his body together, Bird eats a diet of Spam, vitamin shakes, pasta, rice, couscous,
chocolate cookies and tuna.

Rowing around the world is, you would think, a lonely enterprise but the wonders of modern
technology keep Bird in contact with his family.

He has kept a diary, not unusual in itself, but Bird's is an Internet diary.

People interested in his voyage keep a track of him on his website and he answers E-Mails
from all over the world, including from a nine-year-old who told him the rowing adventure had
inspired him to face his fears.

After being reunited again with his wife Stacia and his twin 11-month daughters, Bird plans
to take a holiday before leaving Weipa in April for the Indian Ocean and a stop-off at the
Cocos Keeling Islands on the way to completing the circumnavigation some time in 2002.

AAP dt/nc/jnb

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