Seventy-six Days at Sea, Part 1 B.C. chiropractor rows solo across the Atlantic B.C. chiropractor Dr. Paul Attalla spends Christmas in The Spirit of Fernie. “The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge “ T wenty minutes before the start of the race, I was on the water reading the instruction manuals for my boat,” says Dr. Paul Attalla, from his home in Fernie, British Colum- bia. Attalla has been home, now, for a little over a month, having completed the international At- lantic Rowing Race 2007, a solo rowing journey that took him from San Sebastian, La Gomera, in the Canary Islands, to Antigua, West Indies – a distance of 5,500 kilometres – in a seven- metre rowboat. The 36-year-old graduate of Western States Chiropractic College, and father of two, had prepared himself for seven years to challenge this race, seeing it as the hardest physi- cal endeavour that he could undertake. “To row, solo, across the Altantic Ocean is hard,” he notes, “but I thought I could do it. However, just to get to the start line was a monumental effort in itself!” TRAINING, PREPARATION AND THE ADVANTAGE OF BEING A CHIROPRACTOR “Physical and mental training went hand in hand, in preparing for this race,” says Dr. Attalla. “Over the seven years during which I trained, I did the hardest races I could fi nd. I picked these races, in particular, partly to see if I could fi nish them, but also to see if I would enjoy them.” Attalla’s history does, indeed, reveal some pretty amazing races – with some impressive fi n- ish results. The events in which Attala raced and won accolades include mountain biking and kayak racing. After placing fourth in the solo category for the 60-kilometer Yukon River Quest kayak race in 2005, he knew he was ready to undertake the rigours of rowing solo in the big- gest single rowing race he could fi nd. And then, he pulled away from the racing circuit. But Attalla proceeded with the courses 22 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | JUNE 2008 Continued on Page 26 www.canadianchiropractor.ca feature
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