SCOTLAND — Chris Duff is trying it again.
The Port Angeles adventurer and author is on the Outer Hebrides, a chain of islands northwest of the Scottish mainland, waiting for a weather window to make the 205-mile crossing to the Faroe Islands in his souped-up rowboat, the Northern Reach.
After exploring the Faroes, the 53-year-old will try to row — and sail — some 280 miles across the North Atlantic to the east coast of Iceland in about eight days.
His success or failure will be determined largely by the weather.
Last summer, high winds and big swells forced Duff to turn around during a bid to row the Northern Reach from the Shetland Islands to the Faroes.
He was about 40 miles offshore when conditions deteriorated.
Duff left his boat in Scotland, saving thousands in shipping costs and countless hassles for his 2012 adventure.
The Faroe Islands are between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, about halfway between Scotland and Iceland.
No one has ever attempted to row the open waters between the Faroes to Iceland alone, Duff has said.
Duff was not available for a telephone interview. However, he is posting regular updates on his blog, www.olypen.com/cduff.
Updates on blog
“I am leaving much earlier than last year in the hopes that the previous four year pattern of calm winds in the early spring will hold true,” Duff wrote in a March 25 blog entry.
“I’m quietly optimistic about this year’s attempt. The summer promises to be challenging, exciting and full of adventure.”
This year, Duff added an 18-square-foot sail to the Northern Reach to augment his rowing.
“Rowing will be the primary propulsion, but having the sail for an assist is a huge psychological help,” Duff wrote.
“I’m not expecting the sail to add any huge amount of speed to my rowing but it will give me a chance to actually pull the oars on board, eat, drink and take small breaks while still keeping the boat moving.
“I also have a parasail that I’ll be experimenting with if I get winds straight aft of my course.”
Duff arrived in Ullapool, a small village on the shores of Loch Broom on the northwest side of the Scottish mainland, on March 29.
There, he made modifications to the Northern Reach and tested her sails while staying with friends he met last year.
Crossed the Minch
He crossed the Minch, the strait that runs between the Hebrides and the west coast of Scotland, and posted a Wednesday blog entry from Stornoway, a town on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides some 50 miles from his starting point in Ullapool.
“Flat calm water for the first two hours — a crescent moon rising between bands of predawn black clouds,” Duff wrote.
“Gulls appear from nowhere — shadows silently wheeling and circling overhead [then] veering off and calling out in the darkness.
“The land slowly takes on details of rock and cleft, and further inland, fresh snow on the higher elevations.”
13-hour crossing
It took Duff about 13 hours to cross the Minch.
“Now that I am on the Isle of Lewis, I am in waiting mode — there is a series of low pressures that are stacked up behind one another but they seem to be spinning northeast and north winds . . . certainly not the winds I want for the Faeroe Crossing,” Duff wrote.
“I’ll wait for a high pressure over the North Sea and hopefully some winds from the southern quadrant.”
Tommy Cook of Port Angeles and his friend Ken Birdwell loaned Duff a satellite phone and a distress beacon, which Duff described as essential.
Cook knows a thing or two about adventures himself.
In 2009, he attempted to journey through the Great Lakes and around the vast northern edge of the continent through the fabled Northwest Passage in a Corsair F-31 sailboat called the Cap’n Lem.
Cook ended his solo journey when the Northwest Passage froze up.
When asked about the challenges that Duff will face in his bid to row to Iceland, Cook cited the fact that Duff is using manpower as his primary means of propulsion in a small boat.
“The direction of the wind is going to be the telling factor,” Cook said.
“That’s what stopped him last year. It just did not cooperate.
“He’s hoping to have better weather by starting a little earlier.”
Email updates
Karen Hanan of Arts Northwest, a friend of Duff’s, is sending email updates of Duff’s progress to his supporters as they come in.
She said Duff’s 2011 expedition cost an estimated $10,000, some of which was raised through speaking engagements in the Port Angeles area.
Hanan said this year’s journey was much less expensive for Duff because the Northern Reach was already in Scotland.
“All he had to do was get himself there,” Hanan said.
“He is funding it himself, essentially.
“He lives pretty frugally.”
Duff first
In 1985, Duff became the first person to circumnavigate Great Britain solo.
In 2003, he and a team circumnavigated Iceland and made the trip from Scotland to Iceland via kayak.
Duff has written two books — On Celtic Tides and Southern Exposure — about his adventures.
Hanan said Duff intends to write another book about his adventures on the Northern Reach.
Anyone interested in being included on Hanan’s distribution list can email karenhanan1@gmail.com.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
