A guest blog from Barry Hayes (self-confessed ‘normal person’) which, I hope, will inspire anyone vaguely pondering doing something epic with their lives…
I work in the post room for a very large corporation – it is a world of suited zombies fuelled by strong coffee – everything is very sterile, everything is very standardised, and every day is very similar.
I am also a dreamer.
I was reading Al’s blog, as I regularly do, and saw that he had written about some Irish guy who was planning to cross the Pacific in a rowing boat.
Crazy – I thought.
Then I read that the crazy Irish guy was looking for crew members…’no experience necessary’.
Suddenly it went from a casual comment about the crazy Irish guy, to me immediately battering out an e-mail at break-neck speed. I did not expect to hear back, but anything like this is an opportunity, and if I didn’t at least send an e-mail then I would be resigned to spending the rest of my days not achieving my dreams.
10 hours later I received the following e-mail:
”I’ve received quite a few responses to my mail but yours definitely hit a chord with me. You seem to be pretty much exactly what I’m looking for! I don’t mind at all about the rowing experience – that’ll come – I’m more looking for someone with a never say die attitude and someone that is strong enough for a challenge like this while at the same time able to enjoy it!”
Oh…my…god.
It was 5:30am, I was getting ready to go to work, but the e-mail saw me regress into a sugared-up eight year old. I ran into the bedroom and jumped on my long-suffering girlfriend jabbering at a hundred miles an hour, she only understood around half of what I said but she was really pleased for me. I went to work with a silly grin on my face – the dream had now become a possibility.
Over the next few weeks, several e-mails back and forth and a Skype call further cemented my potential crew membership. I booked a ferry to Dublin to meet with Philip to discuss things further.
I met Philip in a Starbucks on the Liffey, before heading into Temple Bar. A couple of beers in and I realised that whether I was going to be in the team or not I’d made a friend for life. Just as these thoughts were going through my mind, Philip turned to me and said “I’ve made my decision – if you still want to be in the team, you’re in.”
At this point there was a great deal of swearing and punching of the air.
This was my ‘Hey kids we’re going to Disney world’ moment.
I was ecstatic – and had a permanent grin fixed to me for the rest of the night (admittedly this may have been partly due to the alcohol)
I stayed at Phillip’s place for the night then met with his family before heading back to the UK.
We are currently looking for a sponsor, a documentary maker, and for as much advice as we can get hold of – if you can help with anything at all please e-mail me – bshayes@hotmail.co.uk
Wow what a fabulous experience you are going to have… Take loads of pics – cant wait to see them!
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That’s the plan – other than making this an incredible adventure, we’d like to document it all so it can shared. If we can get sufficient funding then GoPro camera’s will be be high on our list of ‘desirables’ 🙂