When I was younger, I was a member of a rowing club. Twice a week my friend and I rowed on the Rhine near Basel in a double scull. Later I rowed a skiff across the Greifensee near Zurich. And every now and then I rowed with my brother on vacation on one of the many lakes that there are in Switzerland.

However, I could never have imagined rowing from Lüderitz, in Namibia, to Brazil! But that’s exactly what Dimitri Kieffer, a Frenchman who lived and worked in the USA, does. Together with his wife, Gulnara, a Tatar-Russian woman he met on his travels, he is in the process of circumnavigating the earth using only human power. (That means on foot, swimming – for example from Alaska to Russia via the Bering Strait – by bike or by rowing boat!)

We met Dimitri in 2012 on our trip around the world, in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Now we met him twice in Swakopmund. A few days ago, he finally got his rowing boat, which an Australian rowed from Tasmania to Tanzania (!), released from customs in Swakopmund. Now he is working on getting himself and the boat fit for his multi-month journey from Lüderitz to Rio de Janeiro. (I’m wondering if I should hire as a helmsman!)

PS: If you want to find out more about Dimitri Kieffer and his experiences, read here.