Two years have passed since I touched the guest dock of the Waikiki Yacht Club in Hawaii ending my time at sea. I had rowed from San Francisco alone; out under the Golden Gate Bridge and across the mid-Pacific until I made landfall on the island of Oahu. My voyage took 86 days, 10 hours and 5 minutes, breaking the previous Women’s World Record by 13 days. The record had stood for 12 years. 

Self-portrait. Photo by Lia Ditton

I felt such an upwelling of gratitude to be on dry land and able to stop rowing that if the yacht club had been deserted I would have lain on the ground and cried. Months later I wished I had, because unmoving sun-warmed concrete might have communicated to my nervous system in a way nothing else could, that I was safe and the nightmare was over. 

In the media maelstrom that followed my arrival, I gave PR answers to the same PR questions. I was a puppet in a charade, because for me the narrative was different. I had fought to save my boat and so my life. I had long stopped caring about the record. 

Rowing into Waikiki Harbor before sunrise on Sept. 12, 2020. Photo by John Climaldi

After two weeks I turned down all interview requests. My row’s happy-ever-after-ending, streamed live online and watched by 45,000, was starting to catch in my throat. 

Twice my boat had capsized. The first time, the wave broke from such a height I knew the wave was deadly. 

When I surfaced my boat was upside down. Looking at the upturned hull I had felt pleased by how few barnacles there were to remove. Upturned hull? My boat was not self-righting! I thrust my feet onto the oarlock base to launch my body up and so my arms to grab the keelson. My weight, wind or waves combined and the boat began to roll, plunging me back underwater.

The voice in my head shouted when I resurfaced. I found the rope that ran around the perimeter of my boat. “Close your hand!” screamed the same voice, and it occurred to me that the voice had never screamed before. I stared at the rope. My future lay across my open palm, because drifting away from a boat in an ocean is almost certain death. 

I deleted the words, “Close your hand!” from the blog I wrote later that night at sea. I continued with the row. 

The second time my boat capsized, she rolled back upright herself. I woke to the violence of sound and impact: my body hitting the wall, the ceiling, my bunk. I had been taking a nap at the time and allowing myself to sleep is still challenging sometimes. 

Rowing the Molokai Channel - the stretch of water between the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Oahu - known locally as the “Channel of Bones.” Photo by Wes Young

From then on and until the end, my boat was airborne many many times. I lived in a state of uncertainty, of life, of death. I should have abandoned ship, but after a career as a professional sailor, I was not an abandonner of ships. This was my 14th ocean crossing, my fourth single-handed, second rowing, but somehow this voyage was the greatest psychological challenge of my life to-date for reasons that would take time to understand. 

Nature became my comfort and my companion. The light of early morning, and sunsets; rainbows so spectacular and bright that it was hard not to believe in something greater than myself; that something was trying to communicate with me in color. 

Yellowtail tuna began to escort my boat. I enjoyed watching the tuna flit around my oars, surf waves and tuck in beside my hull at night. I vowed not to fish them out. When a tiger shark tried, and one escaped through its jaws, I could have lifted the fish clean out of the water with my hands. The fish was that close to where I stood. Instead, I watched the livery of the dying fish thunder through a carnival of color. The shark watched too. 

Celebrating arriving with a flare; the hotels of Waikiki visible in the background. Courtesy Lia Ditton 

When we zoom out for more context, I see other chain reactions. The day I launched my ocean rowboat to row to Hawaii, news reached me that a friend’s rowboat had washed up in the Philippines with his dead body inside. Two weeks into my row, Angela Madsen was found drowned attached to her boat. She had left to row to Hawaii before me. I capsized days later.

The pandemic didn’t stop us going to sea, but maybe it should have. The extent of that additional stress was unknowable and there were ramifications for after. The state of Hawaii was in lockdown. I could not walk far and when I returned to California by ship—not plane—it was only to spend another six months in relative isolation. 

For me, the record is still a pyrrhic victory, a win that feels like a defeat because the toll to succeed was too high. But as I told myself during the row, "everything will change, if you can hang on long enough." No feeling is final and in sifting through the rubble of the experience, I am discovering good memories like lost gems. I remember the pleasure of pulling my oars through a glittering inky blue; the glimpse of a flying squid, a blue marlin; the silence on rare days and epic 360 views. 

Lia rowed out under the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight on June 17, 2020. Photo by Christian Agha

87 DAYS – Alone Rowing the Pacific is a 34-minute indie film about Lia Ditton’s record-breaking solo row to Hawaii, so far selected for screening at the following film festivals: Kendal Mountain Film Festival (UK), Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (UK), Annapolis Film Festival (US), Wasatch Film Festival (US), London Mountain Film Festival (UK) and Adventure Uncovered (UK – upcoming). 

Also available to watch online at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/87daysalone.