Roz Savage completes 8,000-mile Pacific row

Roz Savage rowed into the harbor of the island of Malang in Papua New Guinea on Friday, completing the final stage of her solo rowing odyssey across the Pacific Ocean. Her 8,000-mile journey, which began in San Francisco, was done in three separate stages and took 250 days to complete. Since Roz embarked on her first ocean rowing stint across the Atlantic in 2005, the former London management consultant has become an environmental activist focused on climate change and ocean pollution. On her blog, Roz writes that during her Atlantic row, she regarded the ocean as “…a tough taskmaster, who occasionally tried to kill me.” But rowing across the Pacific was different. She appreciated the vast beauty of the ocean wilderness, and was distressed by her frequent encounters with plastic garbage and raw sewage. “My perception of the ocean changed: I no longer perceived her as an enemy, but rather as a mistreated environment in need of love and restoration.” Next up for Roz: a row across the Indian Ocean in 2011.