Julie Wafaei didn’t start out as an activist. After earning a graduate degree from the University of Victoria in Molecular Biology, she developed a new interest and changed her professional direction to become a business analyst employed by a venture capital firm and, most recently, with a pharmaceutical company. But it was a passion for endurance sports—combined with the skills that she acquired in the fields of both education and business—that drove Wafaei to take part in Expedition Planet Earth in 2005. It was a journey in which teams from the United Kingdom, USA and Canada attempted to circumnavigate the planet, powered by human energy alone, to raise awareness about global warming.
Challenge #1: finding support
Wafaei explains that her business experience was especially helpful in “organizing the logistics” of the complex expedition. Surprisingly, Wafaei grew up “quite protected as an only child”; it was through school, and such programs as Girl Guides, that she “became interested in the outdoors.” In the spirit of fostering this interest in other children and in keeping with her commitment to raise environmental awareness, Wafaei and her partner, fiancé Colin Angus, included School District 51 in B.C. from the start, and ran a children’s program about their dramatic journey.
In fact, School District 51 was the expedition’s first sponsor and supporter. Upon her return, Wafaei continued to teach on a cross-Canada speaking tour about her experiences, which raised enough money to pay off an expedition-incurred loan as well as $10,000 for charity.
Although it was relatively easy to secure the initial equipment sponsorship, the couple struggled to find backers for the expedition, exhausted their savings and “maxed out” their credit limits. They also faced intense skepticism. According to Wafaei, potential backers called the expedition “impossible” and stated that “it’s unlikely that you will succeed at it so we don’t want to support something that will fail or be dangerous.”
However, once the pair was on the Atlantic Ocean, many were won over by their determination.
Challenge #2: the expedition
Their round-the-world journey started on bicycles in Vancouver, B.C. and included rowing across the icy waters between Alaska and Siberia, and had them back on bicycles across Europe to the western coast of Portugal in order to make the most grueling leg of the circumnavigation: crossing the Atlantic.
At two-hour intervals, Wafaei and Angus rowed for sixteen hours each day. Then they broke those shifts into ten-day periods, and would marvel at how far they’d travelled. Wafaei reveals “that’s really important in life as well ... sometimes a lot of the goals that we set for ourselves seem unachievable, but when broken into small steps—something you can measure and track—suddenly they seem much more manageable.”
 In her current capacity as a speaker with National Geographic’s “Adventure in Travel” North American expos, Wafaei imparts the lessons she’s learned on the expedition, where the engaged couple faced some of the “same problems that we all deal with in day-to-day life, but they’re intensified because of the extreme situations that you’re in.”
Wafaei and Angus made the five-month Atlantic crossing during the worst hurricane season in recorded history. Not only did they weather two hurricanes, close-encounters with freighters and two tropical storms in a small craft, “at times we’d be rowing as hard as we could and yet we’d be moving backwards because we’d be facing these strong [unseasonable] headwinds.... It’s important to keep your motivation up; otherwise it begins a spiral down. You’re not going to want to continue rowing, and whether you’re happy or sad, you still have to row so you might as well enjoy it.”
This unflaggingly positive mental attitude helped the couple deal with the extreme isolation—and the grueling physical demands.
Challenge #3: bringing the lessons home
Their prolonged proximity to such a comprehensive ecosystem was the highlight for Wafaei, who expresses her gratitude for having had “the privilege of witnessing different types of wildlife so intimately in that unique environment ... sharks and dolphins would come visit” (check out their photo gallery at www.expeditioncanada.com).
Weather permitting, the couple made time to “enjoy each other’s company” as well, which meant that they would occasionally stop rowing to cook a nice meal. Wafaei advises, “Leave time to relax on an expedition, and also in life, because we get so busy that we need to make time for what’s really important ... to work well as a team.” She relates their essential need for effective communication in the face of danger, and to “respect each other, always listening to the other person.”
“I’ve learned,” she stresses, “to follow your dreams and not to give up on them, and to believe in yourself. Also, try to learn from mistakes and move forward.”
March 2008: the European Tour
Next on Wafaei’s ambitious agenda is the couple’s human-powered European Tour slated for March 2008. This expedition includes the rowing of a passage from Scotland to Syria (notably linking the couple’s roots, since Angus is Scottish and Wafaei is half-Syrian). They are currently designing a boat that will pack into a bicycle-trailer system and which will allow them to row on the ocean as well to cycle on European canals: “when we can’t row, we can cycle.”
Like writer Farley Mowat, whose writing Wafaei “greatly respects,” her efforts also personalize endangered animals and raise an awareness of the effect that human activity has on their habitat. She looks up to “those who are passionate about causes and then go out and do something about it”—and sets an admirably bold example.
About their Expedition
Colin Angus and Julie Wafaei completed the expedition on May 20, 2006 after 720 days of travel. Colin travelled 43,000 km by rowboat, bicycle, canoe, ski and foot—a journey that voyaged across 3 continents, 2 oceans and 17 countries. Julie travelled with him for most of the expedition, including rowing 10,000 km unsupported across the Atlantic Ocean, making her the first woman to row across the Atlantic from mainland to mainland and the first Canadian woman to row across any ocean. For this expedition they jointly received the Adventurer of the Year Award from National Geographic Adventure. Visit Angus and Wafaei's website at http://angusadventures.com/
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