The Happy Pod: The joy of rowing solo in the Pacific

**Holly Gibbs** (0:00)
This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition...

**Kelsey Pfendler** (0:11)
If any part of this made at least one person feel a little bit more powerful in their own skin, I couldn't ask for anything else, and I'm happy. Think about trying to find your own big, hard, scary thing.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:23)
The rower who used joy to break records in the Pacific Ocean. The unlikely friendship that could become a Hollywood film.

**Rose** (0:31)
It's like a dream, and we never want to wake up from it.

**DeReiss Gordon** (0:35)
I've been able to meet some amazing people. We've had lots of fun, and now we've been able to go professional wrestling.

**Rose** (0:41)
You couldn't write it, really, could you?

**Holly Gibbs** (0:43)
Also a potential way to save the lives of identical twins. Plus the women making coats out of old blankets.

**Leonor Barreros** (0:52)
I like to say that we took bedclothes into the street. It's the way we find to use textiles that we already have.

**Holly Gibbs** (1:03)
And an increasingly popular way to work up a sweat.

**Michi** (1:07)
The heat is going to make your heart rate go up anyway, but people are dancing and enjoying it. It's just like taking a dance floor from a club and just dumping it in a sauna. It's quite surreal.

**Holly Gibbs** (1:20)
For some people, the idea of spending a month alone at sea would be gruelling. But for 32 year old Kelsey Pfendler, it was, in her words, sheer joy.
She's just completed a remarkable and record breaking journey across the Pacific Ocean, where she became the fastest person to row solo from California to Hawaii, as well as the youngest and the first American woman to do it alone. Kelsey's 4,000km adventure wasn't without its challenges, and she hopes it will inspire more women to take risks and try something new. The Happy Pod's Riley Farrell has been finding out how she kept motivated.

**Riley Farrell** (2:00)
When you imagine rowing from California to Hawaii, you probably picture blue waves. Maybe the Pacific stretching to the horizon, or the sun beating above you.
But what you probably don't picture is getting smacked in the face by a flying fish.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (2:18)
Oh, we got another one. Here, I'm sorry. Ah!
Every night was just kind of like an onslaught battle of these flying fish hitting me and jumping on the boat and trying to get them off the boat. So hard to grab without swishing. I'm so sorry. I remember as I was taking a voice note, one hit me in the face, and I was like, okay.

**Riley Farrell** (2:41)
Kelsey did it in roughly 43 days. She broke both the women's and men's speed records, according to Ocean Rowing Society International.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (2:50)
The reason I was able to go so fast is because I never woke up any of those days and didn't want to be there. I think ocean rowing is kind of like the epitome of like all the things I love packaged into one thing, endurance sports, the water, rowing, all of that just like in one piece. I mean, I was tired, of course, but like I deeply wanted this. The speed was just an extension of my joy.

**Riley Farrell** (3:17)
Kelsey was alone on the water, but she wasn't entirely isolated. Every day she posted updates online.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (3:25)
Day one of becoming the first American woman to row solo from California to Hawaii. Good morning.
Day 38

**Shi Boon** (3:33)
Woo-hoo!

**Bryony Garrett** (3:36)
We're surfing.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (3:38)
Yeah, I've been rowing against the headwind and some pretty strong, southerly current. I'm under 100 miles from Oahu. You can see land over there. That's Oahu right there.

**Riley Farrell** (3:50)
Over the course of her journey, those videos racked up nearly 300 million views on TikTok alone.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (3:57)
I had no idea that anyone else was going to care besides like my family and like the 10 people that I know that love ocean rowing.
So I feel completely humbled and grateful that so many people could find themselves in my own story because I do not see myself as this kind of like elite athlete figure or like this unreachable, unattainable concept. People are capable and people can do really hard things, especially if they really want to be there and find the joy within it.

**Riley Farrell** (4:24)
Tell me about your relationship with the water.

**Kelsey Pfendler** (4:29)
It's the massive amount of respect I have for water, but also the deep desire to be as close as possible to it pretty consistently. If you're going to spend time there, you have to acknowledge that you are not in control of the situation. The water is always going to be a lot more powerful than you, but it is such an incredible experience to be able to have a little bit of that humility and also let go of that control that we like to pretend that we have. You're not going to be able to fight the current, but you can also put your hopes and dreams into the current, and hopefully it's going to let you go that way.