Name: Ocean Rower Lia Ditton | This Past Weekend #126
Uploaded: 2018-08-30T13:00:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ocean Rower Lia Ditton | This Past Weekend #126' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-08-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ocean Rower Lia Ditton | This Past Weekend #126' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-08-30. Transcript available.

Ocean Rower Lia Ditton | This Past Weekend #126

This episode is brought to you by Gray Block Pizza.
Gray Block.
Mmm.
Ness, ness, ness, ness.
So good.
Also, I am back in Toronto.
Toronto dates are back on that September 20th through the 22nd.
Now, three nights I will have shows there.
As well, Phoenix, October 27th at the Orpheum Theater is on.
And Nashville, Charlotte, Appleton, Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City.
All tickets available at Theovan.com slash tour.
So I had a show at the Ice House recently and I met this beautiful group of
people and they have a small business.
And the small business is something that I love to do a bunch.
And it's basically just talk gibberish, talk smack.
And they have a new game out.
It's called Unruly Bastards.
And I'll read one of the cards to you.
Announce the slogan for your new dildo company.
Get that hitter.
That's one for sure.
Defend your right to diabetes.
Tell us about the time you saw a unicorn.
Sales pitch for a medium-sized penis.
These are all ideas and all part of the themes in the game Unruly Bastards.
And it's a hilarious party game for you and your unruly friends.
And the people that started it came out to my comedy show.
It was really, really sweet of them.
And they came out and introduced themselves and we all got a picture together.
And they gave me this game and we supported their Kickstarter.
And that's what it is.
You can go to, it's on Kickstarter.
It's live right now.
We'll put up the link below.
And this is your chance to get it and be the first to own it.
It's 20 bucks.
You support the game and you get the game.
That's it.
You want to find out how insane and fun your friends really are?
Go to unrulybastards.com and support their Kickstarter.
That's it, unrulybastards.com.
Man, get that hit up.
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Today's guest is attempting to be the first woman ever to row a boat across the
Pacific Ocean.
And that seems super intense.
She's an author.
She is really quite a damsel, I think.
She is, she's a yachts woman.
She's a captain.
She is my guest today, Miss Leah Ditton.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine that light on me.
All right, Leah Ditton.
What's up?
Very well, thank you.
Good.
And so you flew, you flew in, you live in San Francisco now?
I drove down.
Okay, you drove.
But I, this time.
Right.
But I rowed down in the summer.
You did.
I did.
And so what's the difference?
Because to drive here, if I want to drive up to San Fran, it takes me probably
maybe seven
hours, six hours or something.
It's what, so rowing is what?
It took me 12 and a half days.
Days?
To Santa Barbara and then three days on to Redondo Beach.
Okay.
Wow.
And do you stop at like a bar or like a, like do you pull over?
Like when, how do you, or not a bar, but do you pull over and like.
No.
No.
You take everything with you that you need to survive.
Right.
In fact, I arrived in Santa Barbara with no food.
Nothing at all.
No.
And so are you planning it?
Like when you take a trip, do you plan to show up with nothing?
Can you hear her okay, Nick?
She can bring it just, yeah, it'll swing all the way towards you.
Yeah.
Real close.
Yeah.
Do you, like, do you plan that when you're rowing?
Well, you'd like to come in with some spare.
You do.
But I was thinking it would take 10 days.
And it took 12 and a half to Santa Barbara.
Okay.
And.
Oh, wow.
That's a long extra time.
It's a little extra.
Yeah.
Because.
That's six or seven meals extra.
Yeah.
So I didn't go hungry, but I was going to be hungry quite soon.
Right.
And it was a stress that started.
I started to feel about halfway through the trip going, oh no, you know, like a
chef going
to run out of food.
Really?
And it's a, it's, it makes it really edgy.
You know, now you wake up that little bit earlier, you put in that little bit
of extra
effort.
Ah.
But it was a real test.
Right.
Because I'm training to row from Japan to San Francisco.
Right.
And that could take four to six months, but equally it could take eight months
if I don't wake
up that little bit early and put in that little bit extra.
And plan ahead.
Right.
So to have that edge of, of being kind of possibly hungry soon.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So you get that.
I'm sure it's like that feeling of almost like anything.
If you get lost on a hiking trail, it's probably a similar feeling where it's
like, oh man,
I thought there's going to be two mile hike and I took a different route and
now it's six
miles.
And so, you know, suddenly it's like, you know, the day is different and you
have to kind
of prepare a little bit differently and you have to wake up and you're just
more alert,
I bet.
Yeah.
You realize that you have finite resources and that you need to manage those
carefully.
And when you feel like something like that happens, do you feel like that's
almost like
an innate thing that happens inside of us that like, there's like bells and
whistles that
go off inside of us that are like, it's not even like I notice if I'm hungry, I'm
a lot
more alert, you know, or I'm a lot more clear.
I feel like I'm, I can be frantic at certain points, but I'm also a lot, I'll
get things
done a lot faster.
Yeah.
I mean, it really was no drama because essentially you could go to Monterey,
you could go to,
San Luis Obispo.
Right.
You could pull in anywhere.
Yeah.
But then on a bigger trip though.
You can't pull in.
Right.
You can't pull in.
No.
And if you, if you go hungry, there's an international rule of the sea, which
is that another ship
in the area will divert to help you.
Oh, that's nice.
So they will drop off whatever they want to give you.
Right.
Basically.
Oh, wow.
Have you ever had that happen?
It's really funny you ask because we came quite close to a ship in the North
Atlantic.
So I'm a captain.
Right.
That's what I do.
And then every four or five years I, I do my own crazy project.
Oh, I see.
So yeah, I thought you, I mean, I pictured you and, um, for our listeners that
don't
know, uh, Leah is an author and a, um, what is the correct term?
I saw, I've seen yacht woman written, uh, uh, it depends what country you're in.
So in England, you're a yachts woman, yachts woman, very posh.
Okay.
Yeah.
But in America, you're a captain.
Really?
I kind of like better.
Yeah.
But you have, where are you a pirate?
Well, you have captain in your name.
That's true.
That's true.
My middle name.
You were born a captain and I don't even like to swim.
I'm not that good on the water.
Um, but, and you've, you've, you haven't circumnavigated the globe.
Um, but you have gone across the Atlantic.
Nine times.
Right.
The Indian Ocean, three times, the Pacific twice.
So you've been, you've been out there.
Yeah.
I go, I like it out there.
Yeah.
It's a good start.
Right.
If you're going to do something like I'm about to.
And you're rowing.
This time.
Let me fill your hands.
Can I fill your hand?
Yeah.
Oh, I thought it would be real tougher.
Well, I have this, this hand cream that the Norwegian fishermen use.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
It's my secret.
The men use it too?
Uh, well, it was created for the Norwegian fishermen.
Oh, wow.
So I guess so.
That's pretty cool.
I could see them using it.
If I were out there, I'd probably go through a little bit of it, you know?
Well, it, you need to preserve your hands.
These are your tools.
Yeah.
It's important.
So when you get out there, so, so how long, so this, you said it could be up to
four months
or eight months, your trip, your crossing, right?
Four to six months.
Okay.
And I'm going to take food for five.
Okay.
There are two men have done it solo.
They were both French and one took 134 days and the other, the 137.
And then the next one took 134, but they both got towed in to land.
Really?
And so do you count?
So technically they didn't make it.
Well, that's what I would think.
Is that what you think?
Well, I mean, if you've rode 6,000 miles and you get towed the last 20, you
have to hand
it to the first guy at least.
Right.
That's a good point.
But the second guy, he got towed 50 miles and he got towed, he was like, I'm
going to
draw a line down, line of longitude from where he finished and call that my
finish.
And then he got towed 50 miles.
But he was, you know, suave, good looking French guy with a watch sponsor.
So French.
You know, and his PR company went into bat for him.
Oh no, you can't expect him to, you know, continue rowing after he crossed the
line of the previous
guy.
The French never finished really.
I don't know.
They never really get all the way there.
You know, they say they're coming, you know, it's so French.
They say they'll be there.
And then something that kind of happens towards the end.
Well, the first guy got towed over the Columbia river bar, which is, it is
notorious for destroying
boats.
So do you think that he took the easy way out?
No, I think that was the right solution for that particular guy.
But the second guy, I think he copped out.
Right.
But the first guy ended at Cape Disappointment.
No.
And I know this guy, the Gerard Dubbeville, and I know he would have enjoyed
the irony of
finishing at Cape Disappointment and having to get towed over the Columbia
river bar.
He would have actually enjoyed it.
He'd be like, the irony of that, you know.
So when you're out there, so you're out there on the, like how different, I've
been on a
cruise that went across the Pacific, right?
That went from, I don't even know where it was.
It was from Vancouver to Kobe, Kobe, Japan, or something, or Kyoto, something
like that.
In one go?
Yeah, in one go, right?
Wow.
So, but it was a cruise ship.
Like how different is your vessel than like a cruise?
How different is it than a cruise?
My boat's 21 feet.
So about the size of this room.
Really?
Yeah.
So that's, so you, and you do every position.
You're the, you are the rower, you're the engine, you're the bartender, you're
the DJ,
you're everything.
Right.
It's like living in your bathroom.
Yeah.
Ah, I see.
Yeah.
And you can sleep in the cabin, which is about the size of your bathtub, and
you have a rowing
seat on deck and a small compartment for storage up front.
That's it.
And are you going backwards the whole time?
Yeah.
That's crazy though.
So you get backwards across an ocean.
Oh, we had this kid when I was growing up that used to only play, he would only
run backwards
on the playground.
What?
Yeah.
Something was wrong with him.
And then some people ended up attacking him because at a certain point, it just
messes
up the flow of everything.
It's like, you know, what is this guy doing?
Was there something wrong with him or did he turn out to be a genius and you
all had it
wrong?
I mean, we get, that could have been it.
Maybe we were all going the wrong direction, you know?
He was creating his own path.
Yeah.
He may have been.
Do you feel like you like go against, like you're going against the grain?
Like what, like why, like, like what are you rowing from?
Like, do you feel like there's