US rower speaks on final day of Atlantic Ocean solo journey from Spain to Antigua
A 25-year-old woman who has chronicled her solo rowing journey across the Atlantic Ocean has made it to shore 3,000 miles away from her launch point.
Taryn Smith paddled approximately 10 to 12 miles per day after embarking from La Gomera, Spain, 46 days ago. She arrived in the Caribbean along the shores of Antigua on Thursday morning, sharing her celebratory finish on social media and YouTube.
"I really couldn't have done it without all of the support from people back home. So thank you so much for joining me," Smith said in a video message on "Good Morning America" from the middle of the Atlantic, prior to her finish. "I have never felt less alone in my entire life."
Organized by Atlantic Campaigns, World's Toughest Row is an "extreme series of endurance races where individuals from across the globe gather annually to test themselves against Mother Nature and compete to row thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean," according to its YouTube page description.
Smith, who battled rain and rough seas during her World's Toughest Row challenge, posted daily updates on Instagram to her more than 620,000 followers, including motivational moments that have kept her going strong.
From stunning sunrises to playful pods of dolphins, Smith said the beauty along the journey got her through her most difficult days at sea.
"A pod of dolphins swam with me which was very cool. I cried because I really needed a friend in that moment and the dolphins came and they were gorgeous and happy and it was beautiful," she said in one of her daily video updates.
Smith's watercraft was complete with meals, snack packs, and a water maker, plus she had a cabin in the stern of the boat to sleep at night.
During a summer in college, Smith worked at Redfish Lake Lodge, an adventure hospitality resort in Idaho, which kept drawing her back seasonally and eventually turned into a career full of travel in the winter offseason.
Smith said when she first read about the World's Toughest Row in a Vogue article, she "thought it sounded like the most fantastic adventure in the world."
"Who wouldn't want to do that?" she recalled. "So I signed up."
Speaking about how she began her journey, Smith said in a video on Instagram earlier this month that she started her campaign to row across the Atlantic "having never rowed, never been on a rowboat in my entire life."
After being accepted to the World's Toughest Row challenge, the human resources manager and yoga instructor from Nebraska said she trained for three years to prepare herself for the journey.
Speaking with "GMA," Smith said she would save the reason why she embarked on this nautical undertaking for a story at the finish line but added that she chose to represent the nonprofit Girls on the Run, which empowers school-aged girls through physical activity and confidence building.
