Katie Spotz called herself this on the Joe Rogan podcast back in 2021. That was eleven years after she rowed from Dakar, Senegal to Georgetown, Guyana. The then 22 year old woman from Mentor, Ohio, and junior from Warren Wilson College became the youngest person to row the Atlantic Ocean and the first American to row from Africa to South America solo, meaning there was NO vessel following her the entire trip.
So, Katie, what is your next adventure? “I am planning to row the Pacific Ocean in December, from Lima, Peru to Papua New Guinea! Or about 11,000 miles.”
“I’ve tried to talk myself out of this, but I’d wonder too much not to!”
Katie is an adventurer, but with a key difference: she wants to bring awareness to the world things we take for granted. Namely, the importance of clear, clean water.
Katie’s adventures and her main cause stemmed from two areas: high school graduation and her overseas work in college.
“I had to take a gym class to get my high school diploma,” Katie told Joe Rogan on his podcast. “I wanted to graduate early and earned enough credits for a college degree while in high school. Funny how I got a college degree before my high school one,” she told me in our interview.
“I decided to run one mile,” she said. But when she completed the task that agonized her, she was ecstatic. “I didn’t think I could do this, but I proved myself wrong!”
From this experience she realized that this was a seminal moment that planted the seed for her adventuring nature. “I realized that [running that] one mile was like the equivalent of running a marathon.” From then on she became “achievement and goal oriented.”
Think of just one mile…
In her book, Just Keep Rowing, she shared how she would break her goals into smaller, manageable pieces. “I am not looking at my row as one 3,000 mile trip. Instead I consider it to be 3,000 one mile increments.”
The second motivation for her adventures came from a college summer study-abroad program and a simple mention by a college professor.
She spent time in Australia and at that time there was a severe drought. She thought that if a developed nation like Australia has major water issues, then this isn’t an unlimited resource. “I was studying environmental science and I remember one of my professors said the wars of the future would be on water…and that was one sentence I couldn’t unlearn. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
It was an idea for me to combine both my passion for better water and my passion for endurance…
H2OForLife is just one of 10 or 15 organizations where Katie uses her endurance adventures to raise money for projects like the Adaklu Torda School in Ghana. “We team with “implementing partners” on the ground with the funds raised.”
From Katie’s webpage
The school is part of the Volta region, a rural community, in Ghana. There is no sustainable water source on site so students must gather ground water for use in the school. Linked at the end is the actual donation site.
Katie’s incredible adventures have helped more than 50,000 people in many parts of the world. “Over one billion people are without clean water. If that’s too big a number to imagine, then imagine one in 6 people do not have access to this,” she said at the time. (The number is now roughly 1 in 10.)
Her numbers were from a Ted Talk in 2013, but according to UNICEF, that number has changed. From 2015 to 2024 roughly 1 billion people have gained access to “safely managed” drinking water services. But the organization estimates that 2.1 billion still lack safely managed water. Amazingly, in poorer countries the onus on finding and retrieving this water falls mainly on the women and young girls, often carrying water filled in ten gallon containers for over four or five miles.
The money she helps raise often will help fund new wells and pumps or newer engineering projects to make rain water, ground water, and farm or mountain range runoff healthy for consumption.
“My overall goal is to bring clean water to everyone everywhere.” Her most recent adventure of the Pacific row is attempting to bring attention to the need for clean water for the Fiji islands, “100,000 people for clean water.”
I am stronger now than I have ever been!
Katie’s new adventure seems odd for a 38 year old woman. “I train differently now. I am healthier now. I do more PT. That gives me more mobility and flexibility.”
That’s a great point. Since her trek across the Atlantic, she has focused her training and adventures on events like the following:
- Ran across Maine and New Hampshire
- Biked the Amazon and New Zealand
- In-line skated the Florida Keys
- Rode across the US
- 11 marathons in 11 days
Some people in their lifetimes maybe do ONE of the following. But Katie “need[s] a challenge to stretch me.” So how to proceed in crossing the Pacific, over three times longer than the Atlantic?
Katie’s Trip Prep
Katie plans to use the Dutch company that produced her first boat. “I use this boat since the owners have rowed the ocean before.” She has a strong weather team that helps her navigate and plan the trip. She takes her nutrition seriously both in training and on the open seas. “I’m older so I realize that I have more patience and endurance. The planning of the trip is really 90% of my efforts. The training probably the other 10%.”
“I plan to try and minimize the risks but there is always a heaviness [to any trip.]” There are so many things that can pop up. There’s mold that forms in the cabin. Tankers that take almost two miles to stop are a danger. The direct sun every day. Heck, even the unpredictability of the weather. And don’t forget scraping off the barnacles. “There are chores I have to do every day!”
Everything feels like a pop-up book in an adventure!
“I am rooted in logic,” Katie shared. “But I understand how silly this can be.” Yet her ocean trip has a serene quality to it. “It’s like a National Geographic episode every day.” She loves the quiet and peacefulness of the trip. She has mentioned in her book how amazing the evenings are.
“Day 30: Extend your hand
Such a beautiful sky tonight! The stars punctuate the darkness and the moon lights my way like a comforting spotlight that seems to shine just for me.”
Or this from Day 39. “7:45 PM, Rowing at night is fun. Hitting mysterious objects while doing so, is not!”
Take the next step…
Katie is wired differently than many of us. But the love of adventures and the cause for clean water are lessons that we can all take from her. In the TED Talks at Southern Methodist University, she shared some wisdom and encouragement with the crowd:
“It is possible if you just take one step after the other. You might not think you could run a marathon, but get out there and run a mile. You might want to travel the world. Well, get out there and explore your own backyard. You might feel stuck in a job. Just get out there and take an interview or take a class. Whatever it is, take the next step.”
Her next steps after the Pacific row? “I want to circumnavigate the world with only human power.” From one Mentor Cardinal to another, Katie, you got this! And all of Cleveland, Ohio, and the world will be following you come December, weather and country permitting!
If you wish to read more about Katie and her adventures or want to donate to her cause, here are the links for this.
One Drop Matters – official donation page
Joe Rogan Experience – the 2 hour episode with Joe Rogan
Featured photo courtesy of The Morning Journal.
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