Why Marc Is Doing This Again
On Christmas Day 2024, alone in the middle of the Atlantic, Marc Germiquet cried.
Not from despair. From relief. Fourteen days into a solo row across one of the toughest stretches of ocean on earth, he'd spent the whole day fighting wind and current just to nudge his boat above two knots — under four kilometres an hour.
"I had these crazy, stupid tears running down my face. It was a relief. I was so happy I got over two knots. That was the hardest day of the trip."
Forty-three days, seven hours and twenty-one minutes after leaving La Gomera in the Canary Islands, Marc rowed into Antigua — the first solo finisher in a fleet of 38 boats. Now he's doing it again. In December 2027, he sets off on the same crossing, solo and unsupported, for the same reason he did it the first time: to raise money for Bush Ways Foundation's education work in Northern Botswana.
It started in 2010
Long before any of this was a plan, it was just something Marc watched happen to someone else. In 2010, he saw extreme adventurer Peter van Kets row alone and unassisted across the Atlantic — 5,438km, 76 days at sea. Something about it stuck.
It took 14 years for that idea to turn into an actual entry. Fourteen years of running Bush Ways, building a foundation, and — as it turns out — quietly deciding this was a "must-do" he'd eventually get to.
Why do it again?
Most people who finish something this hard once are happy to leave it there. Marc finished first among solo rowers in 2024/25. He could have stopped. Instead, he's going back — partly because the cause hasn't run out of need, and partly, it seems, because of how he thinks about hard things in the first place.
"A race, like life, is not about the obstacles, but how you address them."
"Every problem is a solution in disguise."
That's not just a nice quote for a poster. On his first crossing, four days from the finish, his rudder came loose in open ocean. He fixed it himself, underwater, mid-swell, with a drill and epoxy. That's the same mindset that gets someone back in the boat a second time.
The bigger picture
Entry into the World's Toughest Row requires rowers to fundraise for a cause. For Marc, that's never been a box to tick — it's the actual point. His first crossing helped fund a pre-school for a community in Botswana. This one is aiming to do it again.
He's not chasing a faster time, or a new record. He's chasing the same two knots of speed on a hard day, for the same reason as before — because somewhere in Northern Botswana, that effort turns into a classroom.
Follow Marc's build-up to December 2027 as he starts training again — and see exactly where your support goes.
