So, (and knowing very little about rowing), I am not surprised that a woman could take the record here. You can only row so fast. Other factors like weather, currents, nutrition, mental fortitude, navigation, and boat design overcome muscle strength.

All that said: props to Kelsey Pfendler! She definitely knows how to embrace the suck.

Here's a nice diary of her trip:

https://www.kcra.com/article/kelsey-pfendler-record-breaking...

Love these updates:

> Day 21: Kelsey gave an update on a lesson learned about her mental state, saying she had beaten herself up for sleeping in. But she realized that wasn't productive thinking. "When you're out here, you're not in control," she said. "You are in control of you." She said she realized that the way to respond to problems is much more important than the problem itself.

> Day 44: Kelsey could see O'ahu as she closed in on her goal. "If any part of this made at least one person feel a little bit more powerful in their own skin, I couldn't ask for anything else and I'm happy," she said. "Think about trying to find your own big, hard, scary thing. You might not think that you are strong enough to finish it right now, but you're definitely strong enough to start it and you'll find everything else along the way."

Also, my geographical knowledge may be lacking, but it appears “to Hawaii” is essential here.

https://oceanrowing.com/filter?id=1415 shows a row from Monterey to Hanalei, Kauai in 32 days. That’s in the state of Hawaii, too, but about 200km closer.

Thought folks would be interested in her boat, built for ocean rowing:

https://yourowkelsey.com/about/

If I were to do it though, I would invest in some water filters which are fairly cheap and can remove a lot of things that you wouldn't want to be drinking.

I’ve heard this sentiment before, and can sort of intellectually follow, but man. I love scuba diving, I love the ocean and its varied and alien and multi-scale inhabitants. I’ve spent weeks on a live-aboard boat explicitly to seek out megafauna like sharks and rays (same subclass as sharks).

When I start my descent, I love to turn around and see my exhaled air bubble up, up towards the sun rays in the top layer of the water that slowly fade further away as the pressure on my ears builds and I enter the unknown ocean. It’s the most relaxing feeling, and I often remember it to go to sleep.

How beautifully individual our preferences can be. :-)

This is one of those cases where getting started is hard, but once you get started you probably can do more if you want it because you get a reputation and people will sponsor you. You end up in a lot of cases your job is to get sponsors for this trip and you live in the meantime cheaply just earn enough money that you can afford to take off a couple months to do these things.

That said, it probably isn't all that expensive. You do need to get a canoe, but those are not terribly expensive. You need enough food to last this long. The ideal way is if you're living with your parents or some other situation where you can just stop paying rent while you're on the trip. A large part of living expenses are things that she would not have when she's out on the ocean. Also, if th if this is your goal you're probably living for that so you might be working two jobs to raise money for the trip and then you quit both jobs, take your trip and then you go back to work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory

Some people are just driven to do things for the thrill of accomplishment. I don't think we need more psychologizing than that.

She spent 41 days making the same trip with 2 other people

But that which obviously means the most from the standpoint of fulfillment :)

The model of this boat:

https://www.rannochadventure.com/boats-2/r25

Daily use boats probably don’t need as much in that respect.