The shore and partners.
Paddle of OS is my circumnavigation of Australia.
I basically took off from Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast
last December and I did a big clockwise loop
around Australia, which was 12,700 K.
I was as much as 500 kilometers out at sea at sometimes.
I was out at sea for weeks at a time
and I paddled my ocean ski, which weighs about nine kilos
and I got back eight months later.
So I managed to get the world record, went
to Broad Beach Library and I found a book,
it had a black cover
and had a woman with crossed paddles on the front.
It was called Fearless. I read it
and it was about Fray h Myer,
and it was about her circumnavigation Australia.
And I could not get the idea out of my head
after I was so inspired.
But for six months I went back
and forth and said, this is silly.
It’s expensive, it’s dangerous.
She was telling stories about crocodiles
and sharks falling through her for a hundred kilometers.
And I thought of every reason why not to do it,
but I just could not.
I did not wanna get to be an 80-year-old woman
and regret not having done it.
And that thought crossed my mind.
It was incredible to feel like I could be a part
of raising the bar.
And so whether that was a male
or female that had that overall record, what appealed
to me in both of them was this was the overall record.
This was the fastest anyone had Circumnavigated Australia,
the furthest anyone had gone in 24 hours.
And from a young age,
I’ve been fascinated in humans pushing the limits.
And I believe that when someone has a breakthrough
and sets a new standard, it opens that door for others.
It was about five days in. I was around Coughs Harbor.
My body was in so much pain,
it felt like my back was breaking.
And I had a moment and I was like
this, I’m not gonna make it.
This is just physically, I think my body’s gonna break down.
I thought, just get to one month.
And I thought, if you can get to one month,
you’re further down the coast.
You’ve got all these people invested, you owe it
to them to do one month.
And I got to a month and it became
for me about getting to each month.
And by the third month, I’d lost that weight.
I was so conditioned to being on the ski
and all of the hard work I’d put in made
it easier moving forward.
It was like I earned that conditioning.
If you can keep your mind in a positive state
and tell yourself the pain is a positive thing,
it’s a your friend,
because others aren’t willing to go there.
So if you go where others aren’t willing,
that’s gonna be the difference.
You can do anything. I could not have asked
for a better group of people to follow me around Australia
through the absolute hardest times.
Not once did they ever mention quitting,
but they just believed in the project and believed in me.
And I don’t even think they saw it as a male female thing.
It was like, this is the project.
This is the person who has to get on the ski
for a hundred K every day.
And they saw me for my ability and who I was as a person
and gender didn’t come into it, which was awesome.
