Perched in a 23-foot rowboat in the Atlantic Ocean with 2,500 miles of sea behind her -- Hurricane Lenny and 425 miles looming -- Tori Murden has a unique perspective on Homer's epic "The Odyssey."
"There is a passage . . . where Odysseus (who wants desperately to go home and is foiled by the gods and by the winds) sits and weeps," Murden writes in a letter posted to her Web page. "I guess you could say 3,000 years later, 'I feel his pain.' I'm not sure I ever really understood it before."Murden, 36, is possibly two weeks from becoming the first woman and first American to row solo across the Atlantic, though her progress aboard Sector No Limits American Pearl has been slowed recently by foul weather.
"I dare not describe my mood. I am well beyond screaming at the wind," said the most recent communique, posted Sunday. "I do not think I will make any progress today. I'll be content if I do not lose miles."
She was encountering 14-foot waves last week, and winds associated with Hurricane Lenny pushed her off course. She dropped anchor and may have to stay put for a week before she can resume her historic quest.
By Tuesday, she was 425 miles from her destination, Guadeloupe in the West Indies.
Murden, who failed to cross the Atlantic from North Carolina to France last year, said her motivation for another try was a promise she made to schoolchildren.
"They understand the concept of having a dream and an inspiration and having somebody stand in front of them and say, 'Yeah, you can do it,' whatever it is," she said in an interview before she left her hometown of Louisville, Ky.
Murden shoved off from the Canary Islands near Africa on Sept. 13.
Firsts are nothing new to Murden. She was the first woman and first American to ski to the geographic South Pole and the first woman to climb Lewis Nunatuk in Antarctica. Still, friends do not describe her as an adventure-seeker.
"She's one of the most thoughtful people I've ever met in my life," said friend Barry Bingham Jr., former editor and publisher of The Courier-Journal who has known Murden since her days at Smith College in Massachusetts, where she earned an undergraduate degree in psychology.
At 6-foot, Murden doesn't look the picture of the extreme athlete, dressing conservatively in suits and wearing tiny pearl jewelry.
She has spent her career as a public servant, once working as a chaplain at a public hospital in Boston where most patients had no health insurance. She opened a shelter for homeless women and moved home to care for a brother with special needs.
She worked in city government trying to develop the poorest parts of her hometown of Louisville. While she rows across the Atlantic, she is on leave from her work at a nonprofit motivational program for underprivileged youths.
Murden earned a divinity degree from Harvard and a law degree from the University of Louisville, she said, so she could "learn the language of the enemy." Those who were in a position to make real change for those who needed it most have a legal background, she explained.
In 1991, she gave up a chance to make the U.S. Olympic rowing team when she loaned her gear to another rower who would almost certainly make the team but could not compete because of broken equipment.
"In that moment, I gained a whole lot more than she did," Murden recalled.
"It was just one of those moments when I look back with pride and say, 'I did the right thing."'
In May 1998, Peggy Bouchet of France tried to become the first woman to row the Atlantic, but she had to be rescued from raging seas just 120 miles from her goal -- Guadeloupe.
Besides the obvious athletic accomplishment if Murden completes her Atlantic crossing, she says her ocean rowing venture is a journey within herself.
"If you know what it means to be out in the middle of an ocean by yourself, in the dark, scared, then it gives you a feel for what every other human being is going through," she explained. "I row an actual ocean. Other people have just as many obstacles to go through."
Murden's letters and information about her trip are available at www.adept.net/americanpearl or www.oceanrowing.com