Ten thousand miles. Six to eight months. One boat. One rower.
Mentor’s Katie Spotz is getting ready for an adventure that’s hard to wrap your head around. This December, she plans to row solo across the Pacific Ocean from Lima, Peru, to Cairns, Australia.
“OK, so I am rowing solo 10,000 miles across the Pacific from Lima, Peru to Cairns, Australia,” Spotz said. “So this is a journey that will take about six to eight months and set a record for the first woman to row from South America to Australia solo.”
For Spotz, pushing herself to the limit is nothing new.
Her adventures tied to clean water go back years. In 2009, she completed a 352-mile swim of the Allegheny River to raise awareness about the need for clean water. A year later, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean alone in a rowboat.
Now, the Pacific is next.
And while Spotz will be the only person in the boat, she won’t exactly be alone.
“My mom wrote 200 letters, so I have like a letter from home every day,” Spotz said.
That’s a little piece of home waiting for her each day, even when home is on the other side of the planet.
A 10,000-mile journey for clean water
This trip is about much more than setting a record.
Spotz is raising money for One Drop Matters, with a goal of helping communities in Fiji gain access to clean drinking water.
“There are filters that are as cheap as $10 that can help one person get clean water for a decade,” Spotz said. “So the goal is to help 100,000 people in these islands in Fiji. And if we reach that goal, that will mean that it’ll reach a point where everyone in the nation has access to it.”
The fundraising goal is just as ambitious as the journey: $1 million.
That’s a Pacific-sized challenge, but one centered around something pretty simple: clean water.
Spotz is expected to begin her journey in December.
You can follow her progress and learn more about her fundraising effort at katiespotz.com.
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