Moves for Seniors Blog

Back in 2001, Pavel Rezvoy was helping his son Theodore prepare for rowing from the Canary Islands to Barbados. At the time, he was in his early 60s.

“It was then that I caught insuperable desire to set out to ocean,” Ocean Rowing.

Rezvoy was born to geologist parents in Moscow in 1938. Since they were constantly on expeditions in strange and remote locations like the mountains of Turkestan-Alai and the Pamirs in Central Asia, Rezvoy was used to living in tents and getting place to place by horse. After serving in the Soviet Army as a machine gun/radio operator, Rezvoy eventually became a geologist himself.

Then, the ocean called.

In 2004, Rezvoy rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 61 days, eventually landing in Barbados. As if that weren’t enough of an accomplishment, he got right back into his boat ad rowed his way to Cuba, and then to Jamaica. That year, ExplorerWeb.com named Rezvoy one of the top adventurers of 2004.
Enter 2005: At 67 years-old, Rezvoy made his mark in rowing history by rowing over 2,800 miles across the Indian Ocean, completely alone. He was the oldest man to conquer such a feat. At the time, the solo row across the Indian Ocean had only been done twice before – once in 1971 by a man named Anders Svedlund, and again in 2003 by Simon Chalk.

Not only did Rezvoy row across the Indian Ocean, but he did it in record-breaking time. It only took him 57 days to travel from the coast of Australia to the island of Seychelles off the eastern coast of Africa.

After his Indian Ocean adventure, Rezvoy told ExplorersWeb.com that the row was much more difficult than his Atlantic Ocean row – even though the distance did not widely differ.

“I do not search for special extreme situations, but have no fear to face those unexpectedly arisen,” Pavel Rezroy Facebook. It just goes to show that if you are passionate about something, you won’t let anything hold you back – not even age.