Day 56 — Entertaining guests

Another late night entertaining guests. Noisy and messy ones. They flew by a bit after sunset, fought over a perching spot, and turned my boat into their nest for the night. It’s nice to meet these birds up close and personal. One picked a spot less than six inches away from me while I was rowing, clearly displaying no fear for humans. These late night visits have been more frequent and have proven my theory that it is simply not possible to sleep on this boat!

With less than two weeks until landfall, I have been kicking it up a notch and had my best week yet, one day rowing over 60 miles. Not sure if I am “zoning in” or “zoning out”, but I have certainly found a zone where I can just row and row and row. But I am still making time at the end of the day for the beautiful sunsets. Today, there were tons of dorados jumping out of the water after the sunset. Every thirty seconds or so, I would see one, sometimes several, emerge from the water and make a huge splash. Not very gracefully though; they jump several feet from the water and land right on their side, almost like a big belly-flop. They are big fish too, so I hear their splashing all the time. Actually, just heard some splashing now!

From Katie: In January, I embarked on a solo row across the Atlantic Ocean! After 2,500 miles and 70-100 days alone at sea, I will become the youngest person ever to row an ocean solo and the first American to row from Africa to South America. But this row is about something much more important: safe drinking water. Unsafe drinking water is the leading cause of sickness, disease and death worldwide ― but it's a problem that, working together, we can solve. To join me in helping the billion people around the world who lack access to safe drinking water, click here.