I need to make a fairly important announcement:
Jason Lewis has just finished his human powered circumnavigation journey of 14 years! I have been following Jason since his Pacific crossing in pedal boat Moksha from California to Hawaii in 1997 with Stevie Smith and have also supported his effort periodically. Jason is an inspiration and a hero. However, I am also a supporter of Colin Angus who completed his human powered circumnavigation earlier this year.
There is an ongoing debate between the Jason Lewis and the Colin Angus camps. Colin became the first person to circumnavigate the earth by human power earlier this year, but he didn’t follow some of the rules that Jason Lewis (and Erden Eruc who is currently rowing across the Pacific ocean) says is part of a true circumnavigation. According to Jason and Erden, a true circumnavigation must pass through two antipodal points and Colin’s route, although greater than the circumference of the earth at it’s widest part of 22,858.7 miles, did not.
I’ll let you decide. Here is Colin’s justification of his circumnavigation:
http://www.angusadventures.com/circumnavigations.html
and here is Jason’s:
http://www.expedition360.com/home/circumnavigation.htm
I’m not making any judgements, as they are both hero’s to me. But, I’d like to know what you think. Send your thoughts to the comments link on this blog post, or email me at greg@justgreg.com or return reply to this email.
"the Dude" on October 10, 2007
I'm still intending to swim around the Earth. We'll see.
Alex on October 10, 2007
I'm inclined to say bravo to both, yet to think that neither have done a real human powered circumnavigation of the world, not for any geographical reasons laid down by the FIA or Guinness, but for the simple fact that they weren't totally human powered.
Not totally human powered, what do I mean? Well if you look they both cycled across land and rowed or pedalled across water. But how did their boats get across land? They were trailered across.
To mean the first person to do a true human powered circumnavigation will be the one who does it either towing their craft behind their bike or fabricating a true amphibious human powered vehicle.
So get your thinking caps on for that one.
Adventures of Greg on October 10, 2007
Alex: Actually, the most important reason neither one of them has completed a true HP circumnavigation is because each of them had help crossing oceans. Colin crossed the Baring sea with Tim sharing the rowing, and across the Atlantic with Julie who also shared the rowing. Jason always had a partner in Moksha to share the pedaling with.