{"id":2582,"date":"2016-01-12T08:51:48","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T08:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodvale.com\/?p=2582"},"modified":"2016-01-12T08:51:48","modified_gmt":"2016-01-12T08:51:48","slug":"a-delicate-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/a-delicate-balance\/","title":{"rendered":"A Delicate Balance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Expedition 360 gave Jason Lewis an appreciation of living within finite means and limits. He talked to Katherine Locke about some of the things he hopes people can learn from his experience, and his talk at the Purbeck Literary Festival.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you are reading this with your New Year\u2019s resolutions already a distant memory, take some inspiration from Jason Lewis. He went from someone who had never crossed an ocean, roller bladed, kayaked or ridden a bike for more than a few miles to a Guinness World Record holder for the first human powered circumnavigation of the Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It wasn\u2019t even my idea\u2019, says Jason. \u2018My friend Stevie Smith had the original idea and I suppose I was open to the thought of an adventure\u2019. He was running a small cleaning company in West London at the time and definitely wasn\u2019t feeling fulfilled. \u2018When Stevie came up with the idea, it appealed to me because we didn\u2019t need to be experts at anything\u2019, he says. The pair, who met at university, had a history of taking off for weekends on random trains just to see where they would end up and they were keen walkers, but neither had ever been at sea before.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It is ironic really, as my father was in the Navy and is a very keen sailor. He had taken me with him a few times, sailing out of Lyme Regis, but I didn\u2019t like it very much\u2019. Their lack of experience created a naive innocence of the journey ahead. \u2018We looked at the land sections as the easy bits\u2019, he says, \u2018but we knew from the beginning that the sea crossings were going to be the hardest\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The pair raised the money to have a special pedal powered boat made for them by friends Hugo Burnham and Chris Tipper. The boat was built in Exeter and had a pedal mechanism devised for the purpose. \u2018We did a couple of sea trials out of Salcombe\u2019, recalls Jason, \u2018but we found it hellish\u2014difficult and boring\u2014so we thought we would save ourselves for the real thing\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The duo set off on their journey in 1994 when Jason was just twenty-four years old. \u2018The plan was a four year trip, but it ended up taking thirteen years\u2019 he says.\u00a0\u00a0 Jason explains that there were myriad reasons for the trip taking so long. \u2018Fundraising being a key issue\u2019, he says, but at the beginning they set off with the whole world ahead of them.<\/p>\n<p>The first leg of the journey was cycling overland through Europe, which was pretty straightforward, the challenge came when the pair crossed the Atlantic in their pedal powered boat. The journey took three and half months, in a tiny boat, sitting less than five feet away from each other, day and night. If just the thought of it makes you feel claustrophobic, it also took its toll on the two friends. \u2018Little things start to get to you\u2019 says Jason, \u2018things you probably wouldn\u2019t even notice on land\u2019. Small habits became unbearably irritating. \u2018For me it was the way he smelt\u2019, says Jason, \u2018after a month he smelt like old rabbits\u2019. For Stevie, the way Jason blew his nose over the side of the boat was disgusting beyond endurance.<\/p>\n<p>The breaking point came over the laundry. \u2018We did our laundry by throwing our clothes overboard and dragging them behind us on a rope\u2019, he says. One laundry session Jason forgot about his clothes and left them out there for three days. \u2018It was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back for Stevie\u2019, says Jason, \u2018he went nuts calculating the drag and how much longer the trip would take due to my thoughtlessness\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say, the pair decided to take a break from each other once they reached the States. \u2018We decided to cross America separately\u2019, says Jason, \u2018so we could regroup before the Pacific crossing, which would take even longer\u2019. It was on this leg of the journey that Jason was the victim of a hit and run car accident.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I was roller blading through Colorado at 5pm in the afternoon when I was hit by an 82 year old drunk driver\u2019 he says. Both Jason\u2019s legs were badly shattered in the accident. \u2018I didn\u2019t feel any pain\u2019, he remembers, \u2018it was only when I tried to stand up and ended up on the stumps of my lower legs did I realise how seriously hurt I was\u2019. It took months to recover, with surgery and physiotherapy, before he was able to recommence the journey.<\/p>\n<p>If these stories have whetted your appetite for more tales from an extraordinary voyage, you are in luck. Jason has written extensively about the journey, publishing a trilogy about the trip entitled The Expedition. The first of the series won the Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Bill Fisher Award for best first book (non-fiction) in 2013 as well as several other accolades.<\/p>\n<p>Jason spends much of his time these days giving talks to literary groups and schools about the venture and will be appearing at the Purbeck Literary Festival on 25th February. The audience is invited to spend the afternoon with Jason as he recounts the extraordinary feat of human powered circumnavigation. He is also keen to talk about his latest passion\u2014planetary sustainability.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018If I learnt anything from Expedition 360, it was an appreciation of living within finite means and limits\u2019, he says. \u2018During the journey, I passed through so many amazing places that I didn\u2019t have time to properly explore. I am really interested in people who live in isolated places, away from the rest of the world\u2019. There are some islands in the South Pacific that he describes as \u2018micro earths\u2019. \u2018These are people who live in simple, sustainable, traditional communities\u2019. Jason is keen to learn the lessons these people can teach us and intends to write about his findings in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We need to find ways to simplify our lives\u2019, he says. \u2018Our grandparents knew how to make things and to mend broken objects instead of just buying new\u2019. Being on the boat meant that every gallon of fresh water had to be pumped from the sea and every hour of electricity was produced via solar and wind power. \u2018It made me aware of the consequences of my actions\u2019, he says, \u2018and how consumerist and wasteful we have become as a society\u2019. Jason\u2019s next challenge is learning and teaching us about how to do more with less.<\/p>\n<p>The Purbeck Literary Festival runs from February 14 to 27. For information visit www.purbeckliteraryfestival.info.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expedition 360 gave Jason Lewis an appreciation of living within finite means and limits. He talked to Katherine Locke about some of the things he hopes people can learn from his experience, and his talk at the Purbeck Literary Festival. If you are reading this with your New Year\u2019s resolutions already a distant memory, take [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,8],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-articles","category-arts","tag-katherine-locke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}