COURTESY OF CINDY WAY
Cindy Way and James Caple plan to row across the Northern Atlantic Ocean.
MATTAPOISETT – A couple attempting to row across the Northern Atlantic Ocean could be leaving from Chatham by the end of the week.
Tabor Academy Graduate Cindy Way and her boyfriend James Caple have arrived in Mattapoisett from Alexandria, Virginia.
“We are looking, potentially, to launch maybe Friday,” said Way. “But we are still working with the weather and currents to figure out what is the best time.”
The rowers are continuing to make final preparations before leaving on their voyage to Dingle, Ireland, including getting their 24-foot ocean rowing boat ready.
“We unpacked the truck and are now figuring out how to officially pack the boat,” Way said. “So we are breaking it up into monthly supplies and figuring out the best method where we can reach what we need when we need it.”
The couple continues to talk with ocean rower Roz Savage, who is the first woman to row solo across three oceans, to get mentally prepared to make the trip.
Way and Caple attended a launching party Monday afternoon at Tabor Academy in Marion.
Later this week the two will scout possible launch locations off the coast of Chatham. Way said they are looking at a spot next to Ryders Cove and the Chatham Bars Inn, where British Adventurer Sarah Outen launched on her unsuccessful solo trip across the Atlantic Ocean last May.
Outen, who was on the final leg of her voyage around the world, needed to be rescued from Hurricane Joaquin after being on the open ocean for 143 days.
“I think we are really prepared for it – mentally and physically by now,” Way said. “And we are just anxious to get on the water and get across.”
Way had always wanted to be a rower after watching Rob Lowe in the 1984 move “Oxford Blues” and it was one of the reasons why she chose to attend Tabor Academy. She had always been a flat water rower until she met Caple.
Caple has been a rower since attending college at the Citadel, and later at graduate school at Boston University. He found out about ocean rowing after he moved to Northern Virginia and attempted to make the U.S. men’s National Skulling Team.
Caple has been planning to row across an ocean since 2008.
Both rowers are driven to make the trip because it would be an incredible feat.
“More people have climbed Mount Everest than have rowed an ocean,” Way said.
Way also believes it is an amazing way to experience nature.
“To really go an experience nature in a prolonged extreme environment I think is going to be extraordinary,” she said.
She said the trip also shows others in the country and our society that individuals can get away before retirement and experience life.
Their voyage can be tracked with podcasts and blog posts at 1000leagues.com.
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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