Scots to row Indian Ocean for Save the Elephants

SCOTS adventurers, Leven Brown and Jamie Douglas-Hamilton are set to sail into the record books by being part of the first team ever to successfully row across the Indian Ocean from continent to continent.

Leven Brown and Jamie Douglas-Hamilton get ready to row across the Indian Ocean. Picture: Neil Hanna

The pair will row 24 hours a day in two-hourly shifts over 5,000 miles from Geraldton, Australia to Durban, South Africa, in aid of Save the Elephants. The trip, during which they could face up to 80ft waves, is expected to take 80 to 100 days.

MR Douglas-Hamilton said: “Once we row out of Geraldton Harbour and see the outline of Australia fade, the next time we will see land will be the coastline of Africa 80 to 100 days later. I am using this voyage to highlight the ivory poaching crisis in Africa and the devastating effect it is having on African elephants.”

Save the Elephants predicts that the African elephant will be extinct in just eight years’ time. A rise in demand for ivory in China and Vietnam has caused the price of ivory to soar so dramatically it is now more expensive than gold.