In late January 2026, rowing crews gathered at a Marina in the Canary Islands.

It wasn't the start of a race, but the beginning of a life changing adventure.

Yeah, I think in that moment of shoving off the dock in Lanzarote was a little bit surreal.

I think you feel all the things like, am I ready?

Those are the thoughts Renee Blacken reckoned with as she pushed away from the dock in the Canary Islands.

She aimed her boat westward toward Antigua, 3200 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

Was there self-doubt anytime?

Whether or not I would be able to do it?

Like, what am I doing?

Oh, yeah.

No, I said that all the time.

What am I doing?

Yeah.

No, that was like a daily thing of, like, it just.

It was just such a wild and unbelievable thing for me.

But then you just.

You just get on with it.

I woudld row 500 miles.

The Atlantic dash is an annual event with a simple goal.

Safely cross the ocean in a custom rowboat.

Some crews leave the Canary Islands as a team.

Renee is alone in her boat, which makes her the first female to row the event solo.

Everything she needs for the two month journey, including a satellite phone, is packed on board.

Everything was packed in the boat.

There was no support or chase boat that went with us.

We had daily communication with the event, but there was no no support vessel that went along with us.

So yeah, everything we took with us and then we left.

Renee lives in Bethlehem, New Hampshire with her son, Walter.

The outdoors is her home.

It has been for most of her life.

I did a thousand miles of backpacking on the Appalachian Trail when I was younger.

And, yeah, I just find peace and gratitude in those natural spaces that's unlike anything other.

It's.

It's wild.

That's one of the reasons Renee took to the water while in high school.

So I learned to row at the Putney School in southeastern Vermont when I was in high school, and I continued on at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

And I also rode for a year at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Rowing across an ocean, powered only with oars and will is impressive.

This story, however, is about why Renee decided to do it.

I have experienced some complex trauma in my life, and I have in my adult life in the last few years, been able to kind of put that together, that some of the mental and physical health issues that I have dealt with throughout, but especially sort of in my adult life, are links to that and was able to in the last 3 to 5 years, really find some programs that did help me.

In 2024, Renee created Outdoor Adventuring for good.

It's a nonprofit that supports trauma recovery programs in northern New Hampshire.

We need more resources in this part of the state for trama recovery.

The further north you go, the more obvious that becomes.

The Atlantic Dash was a way for Renee to raise awareness and support for her program.

It was also a chance to face any self-doubt she had head on.

For me, and I think there is a general understanding that there is so much there's so much potential for healing that comes from being in the natural world and that one just by being outside.

But two, I think by by challenging ourselves to by putting ourselves in situations where we end up finding out what we're really capable of.

Good morning.

It is day 12.

Solo rowing the Atlantic Ocean.

So this morning we have some oatmeal with some freeze dried peaches.

When I came across the Atlantic dash, it was pretty much like immediately I knew I was going to do it.

I knew I was going to do it solo, and I knew I was going to row to support trauma recovery programs, because it was this idea of not letting the mental and physical health issues or the trauma that I had experienced be the sum total of my story.

Like, did I get into that boat with mental and physical health issues?

Yes, yes I did, but I got into the boat.

A beautiful day on the Atlantic Ocean.

Training for a long distance ocean road takes time.

25 months for Renee.

Besides a lot of rowing and strength training, she had to learn to survive at sea.

There was definitely like some technical skill training that I had to do.

I did VHF radio training, survival at sea, marine first aid, navigation.

So I had to take all those courses to be able to go.

And then, yeah, it is the training of the mind.

Renee rode alone.

But with a satellite phone on board, she connected with the support team she left behind.

And then I did have communication devices that allowed me to text back and forth with with folks and occasionally like call or video chat.

If the connection was good enough.

We talked probably at least twice a week, and that was on a Garmin inReach.

So it was kind of like texting back and forth.

And then every now and then we got to call on WhatsApp like a FaceTime.

And that was really cool because like, I got to see what it was like out there from her perspective.

(Singing) Day 47 sunrise on the Atlantic.

One of the greatest challenges Renee faced was surprisingly simple, yet pivotal to her life.

I think one particular time was when I had to jump in to clean the bottom of my boat, because barnacles will build up on the bottom, and that can lead to drag and kind of slow the boat down.

So, you know, you're going to have to do this.

You know, that's part of ocean rowing, but knowing you're going to have to do it and then actually jumping into the Atlantic while you're alone on this six meter floating platform is an entirely different thing.

So I was really, really terrified.

I'm doing that.

Like really, really terrified.

But I talked to our safety officer, I talked to our event director.

They talked me through it.

And like, finally I was like, all right, harness up, tie in.

I went over the side and cleaned the bottom of the boat and got back.

Got back in the boat and was like, I did it.

It was during moments like this that Renee says she learned a lot about trust.

I think that is like the bigger idea of like, learning to trust myself, learning to trust that I can do these things, that I can solve the problems that I can figure things out in.

In ocean rowing, it's not necessarily if something goes sideways, it's when and how you figure it out.

Just because that environment is so extreme.

When you've experienced trauma, trust can be a hard thing to work on.

And so that is part of what I realized out there, is that I could rely on myself, but also that it was okay to trust my boat, and it was okay to trust other people who were helping guide me along the way.

Nearly 65 days after she left the dock in the Canary Islands, Renee stepped out of her cabin onto the deck and saw the distant shores of Antigua, it's land, it's land.

It is Antigua.

I've been at sea for 64.5 days and that's Antigua.

That's incredible.

I can't believe it.

It is still about 25 miles away.

I saw it.

It was the wildest feeling.

So you could just see the outline of it on the horizon and you're like, oh my God, I've done this thing like I've done it.

You know, people would say, like, what's the first thing you want to do when you get on land?

I was like, hug my son, obviously.

I was just like amazed and like in awe because it was my mom had just rode an ocean like, I, I've never experienced something like that.

And it was just it was a really cool experience to know that my mom could do something as big as this, and that I could also go through that with her and like, be able to support her on her journey through this.

Did it change you in any way?

Did you come back a different person than when you left?

Yeah.

It's funny.

Yeah, yeah, it definitely did.

My life has it.

My life has changed.

I don't think you can do something like that and not be in some way.

(Singing) When I was out there.

It was like the days were really like.

It was just really, really hard.

There's no getting around the fact that, like, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean is really, really hard.

But every day being like, there is something beautiful in this day, there is something joyful in this day.

Letting myself see it, letting myself feel it, knowing that like I would never be in that exact time and place again.

And now that it's over.

Yeah, I think about it all the time.