I am ending my journey

Thank you for following my journey this far. You may have already seen on my social media feed that I am sending my rowboat back to the United States. I will not launch on the South China Sea from Currimao.

This also concludes my attempt to complete the Six Summits Project in memory of Göran Kropp which I struggled to keep going since 2003. I don’t have major sponsors to cover the costs; I kept this endeavor running on fumes with small contributions from sponsors and more so with precious donations from few individual supporters.

That being said, I no longer have the resources to push this proverbial boulder uphill, a sisyphean task that it has become. While I may be putting a fork in my Six Summits Project, I am not ready to burn my rowboat just yet. Therefore I will use our last bit of family funds to send my rowboat home.

As I eluded to in my recent blog posts, Myanmar turned down our visa request on account of security concerns. Then while waiting at Currimao, strong winds broke the VHF antenna on my rowboat.

Following Myanmar’s decision I immediately began communicating with the Chinese Embassy in Manila. My cycling buddy Tonguç Yaman and I needed a path to reach India from Vietnam. We would have to bicycle across southwest China, counter clockwise around Myanmar to Tibet and Nepal before entering India. We were absolutely willing to take on the brutal 100,000 meters of total climb across the grain of the Himalayas but bureaucracy had to cooperate. We needed the blessings of the Chinese government.

The Chinese Embassy in Manila first informed me on Feb 14th that they still did not issue tourist visas. I wrote to their Hanoi embassy in the hopes that they would encourage us to apply in person once in Vietnam. Having common borders with Vietnam may have allowed special regulations. But they never responded.

There was talk of visas being issued for airline arrivals. We were prepared to bicycle inside Vietnam up to the border, find transportation back to Hanoi, obtain the necessary COVID tests then fly to the nearest airport inside China before traveling back to the border from the Chinese side to tag our last waypoint, just so we could resume by bicycle on a continuous path. But even that ridiculous proposition required a visa in advance.

By March 6th, I had replaced my broken antenna and began the tiring wait for another break in the winds to launch. The delays had cost me at least one good launch window already.

During my wait here in Currimao, the winds were often strong from the N and NNE making a launch impossible. The topography of Ilocos Norte caused the winds to bend around the northwest cape of Luzon Island then rush down the coast. Besides, any episode of strong NE blows toward Singapore, was often followed by winds circling offshore toward Palawan further south.

The current runs northerly by this location then turns west typically until May. After that, in sync with the reversal of monsoon winds, the northerly current turns NE toward Luzon Strait to join the mighty Kuroshio Current running east of Taiwan toward Japan.

The northerly coastal flow off Currimao coupled with the NE monsoons, creates wind against current scenarios where the wind waves shorten in wavelength and develop steeper wavefronts. With winds gusting to over 30 knots regularly, the sea state becomes hazardous for a small rowboat. Currimao was my location of choice on the theory that I could take advantage of this current if I could get a break in the wind. In summary, to be safe, I needed to run west across this northerly current before the next NNE blow arrived…

Then came the realization that all the talk of climate change and higher than average temperatures, would have a direct impact on my journey. The Arctic and Greenland have been running 20 degrees above average in Celcius, weakening the jet stream. The consequence of that has been atmospheric instability, causing huge north-south oscillations in the jet stream, bringing unseasonably warm temperatures to Siberia among other places. Beijing just recorded 27.9C, five degrees warmer than their early March average. At the same time, the La Niña pattern which persisted over the last few years, is rapidly diminishing, giving way to an ENSO neutral state over the Pacific Ocean before an El Niño episode begins.

Ten days ago, a break in the winds appeared in the forecast for today. Ten days out is as far as I can see on Windy. My friend Jason Christensen, who has been a reliable partner during my successful Pacific Crossing from California to the Philippines, was also monitoring the region for anomalies. Jason’s wise input as a weather router had already helped me to navigate across the Pacific. However as the days passed, we saw the 10-day forecast calling for variable winds across the South China Sea then developing a trend toward mainland China. The monsoon transition was happening faster than I would have liked…

I had to commit. My likelihood of reaching Vietnam was quickly waning. Launching from Currimao no longer felt like a calculated risk but rather a gamble, where the (Chinese) house would always win.

I pleaded with the Chinese Embassy in Manila one more time, explaining that I would do everything in my power to reach Vietnam. I asked for empathy in case I would be swept by the seas to Chinese shores, so they would allow me time to ship my rowboat home and leave their country soonest. I also asked them to notify their coast guard and navy to gain their understanding for my intentions. Their response on March 12th was short and to the point: “Tourist visa is still suspended as of the moment. And, the Embassy will NOT contact Chinese Coast Guard and Chinese Navy for you.”

It was foretelling that I concluded an earlier message to that embassy with: “I would be grateful for your guidance in this matter. The Chinese government will have the option to help my journey or to terminate it. I look forward to your advice.” Their March 12 reply sealed the fate of my journey.

I had two options: I could (a) store the rowboat in the Philippines and return next season, or (b) ship it home ending my journey. I chose the latter and put in motion the logistics required to truck my rowboat to the Frabelle Shipyard at the Navotas Fishport Complex on the Manila waterfront. There, we will build a cradle to carry the boat which will then go into a 40-ft container destined for home.

Ironically just today, the news came out that “China will reopen to tourists, resume all visas in effort to revive tourism, economy.” As of today, one can apply for a visa. I find it difficult to believe that their Manila embassy did not have prior knowledge of this pending policy change.

To take advantage, I would have to fly to Manila, apply for a visa then wait for it to be issued. Besides the associated travel costs, a degree of uncertainty still remains and delays in this application process are evident while the season further advances to my detriment. I am not guaranteed that I can have a quick turnaround, and I will not subject myself to yet another “no exceptions” as an answer.

You see, my multiple visa inquiries to China were rejected on account of the pandemic since March 2021 when I first applied. It did not make a difference that I would arrive by rowboat after having spent months in self-isolation. I could have met all of their quarantine requirements while waiting at anchor under the yellow flag. None of that mattered to their San Francisco Consulate. “No exceptions!” was their answer. Back then, I assumed that this was a principled stand by a noble government protecting their citizens during a pandemic. I accepted this as a fact of life, I respected their policies and chose to keep my hope alive as I pushed west from North America to Asia, eventually bringing myself all the way here to Currimao.

I stopped at Hawaii in September 2021 to inquire one more time for a visa to no avail. I was willing to try for Hong Kong which would have issued a visa on arrival but I decided to route to Guam after Hong Kong also implemented tough pandemic restrictions in January 2022 after Omicron became a problem. Eventually I reached the Philippines in Asia.

It was the prerogative of these administrations to implement their own pandemic policies as they saw fit. Their bureaucracy was cold, distant and uncooperative. I was powerless.

Later, I could only follow over social media during the second half of 2022 as Ash Dykes, a Welsh adventurer was allowed to walk the length of the Great Wall of China east to west, from the shores of Yellow Sea to Dunhuang on the edge of Gobi Desert. His camera and support crew were also involved, clearly with their own respective visas while Chinese pandemic measures were still in place. All along, National Geographic’s Paul Salopek resumed his Walk out of Eden journey inside China beginning in October 2021 with a Chinese camera crew. It turned out that “no exceptions” was not a hard and fast rule written in stone as an official pandemic policy; rather that I neither had the right connections nor knew of a way to pull the right levers inside the vast Chinese bureaucracy.

At this point I am disappointed but I don’t have any regrets. To put it simply, I lost faith that my journey would be welcome in China, that I would be treated well by their coast guard or immigration officials on arrival, or that we could depend on local authorities or on their government during our long and exposed journey which we intended inside their country. Therefore, I will not try at all to seek a visa to China on this particular journey.

At the same time, storing my rowboat in the Philippines and returning next year mean keeping my life on hold yet another year. I have been spending our family resources and without sponsors, this is not sustainable.

Six Summits Project lost its luster when it became clear that even before this visa nonsense, reaching Everest by human power then climbing it was out of the question without proper funding. Also with the war in Ukraine, entering Russia further down journey to climb Elbrus appeared unwise. Even if I had all the visas, to risk myself while traveling westbound by human power, all the way from the Philippines to the foothills of Aconcagua, the only remaining summit accessible on my list at this time, would be a preposterously long approach for any worldly climb, an unreasonable and too expensive a course to follow over the next few years.

I have done what I humanly could since Göran’s fall in September 2002. The grief of that loss was mine to carry around the world like a heavy yoke since then, yet I am not alone in this. I am fully aware that I have also committed Nancy, our relationship and our family resources to this unhealthy obsession. Therefore I have decided to let it go.

When I return home, Nancy and I may plan a trip to Sweden to visit Göran at his final resting place to bring a proper closure to this whole saga. Or we may not…