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Just a man and the SEA
H
illcrest resident and Maritzburg College old boy Grant has a long history and strong passion for the sea, having been a ship’s diver in the navy for four years and then spent most holidays on or near the sea. The 59-year-old always wanted to have some sort of adventure with the ocean but, as he says, life carries on and you don’t get around to these things. The spark that changed this was a holiday to Indonesia with his wife, Adri, for their 25th wedding anniversary. “When we arrived
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story stephen smith pictures penny bird at the island everything looked beautiful, but when we woke up the tide had gone out and the beach was covered in plastic. I’d never seen anything like it – it was just unreal. It really woke me up to the problem, and when I got back to Durban I began to notice the same thing and wanted to do something about it,” he says. Grant started looking for an ocean challenge to do, to raise awareness for the plastic pollution problem. He didn’t choose an easy adventure but
GRANT BLAKEWAY SPENT 56 DAYS BOBBING ON THE OCEAN IN A CAPSULE 9M LONG, 1,8M WIDE AND 1,2M HIGH jumped in with both feet, settling on the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. And no, he had no experience rowing. At 3 000 miles (over 4 800km), the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge is known as the world’s toughest row. It starts at La Gomera in the Canary Islands and ends at English Harbour in Antigua and Barbuda. The winners, usually a team of two or four, take around 32 days to complete the arduous journey. Grant, rowing solo, took 56 days, rowing up to 18 or even 20 hours a day. Even when he slept, he had to wake up every hour to check he hadn’t drifted too far
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