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Jim Rauch, pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Escondido, rowed from Long Beach to Catalina Island on Aug. 22, one of the things he wanted to accomplish before turning 50, he said.

Escondido pastor rows
across Catalina Channel

By Pat Sherman | pat.sherman@tlnews.net

Thursday, September 4, 2008

With a little faith and the support of family and friends, Escondido pastor Jim Rauch has checked off one of the items on his “to do before turning 50” list.

On Aug. 22, Rauch took to the open sea, rowing from Long Beach to Catalina Island. Allowing for ocean currents, his trip totaled 31 miles.

“I definitely hit many walls along the way where I thought, ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to finish,’ ” said Rauch, 48, who rowed for four years while earning his economics degree at University of California San Diego.

“I made little deals with myself,” Rauch said of the journey. “I said, ‘There’s no way I can finish today, but I can go for another half hour.’ I just kept making bargains like that the whole way.”

About 50 to 75 yards from Rauch’s 24-foot scull, congregation member Dan Thigpen and Rauch’s 16-year-old son, Sam, followed along in an offshore fishing boat, tossing out sports drinks, water and energy bars.

“We had to put a floatation thing in this little mesh sack,” Rauch said. “I would kind of row toward them and fish stuff out of the water.”

Rauch’s wife, Elizabeth, gets seasick easily, so she took a cruiser to Catalina ahead of time and waited for him at Avalon Bay.

As she departed Long Beach, she watched her husband through binoculars until he faded into the distance.

“He was plodding along and it was choppy, so I knew it would be kind of hard for him, but I didn’t know what it would actually feel like,” she said. “I wasn’t really fearful for his life. I just wanted to know that he was doing well mentally.”

Rauch bolstered his mental strength through a combination of prayer and the tunes on his portable music player, which included everything from hymns by Randy Travis to rock ’n’ roll standards by Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits and Paul Simon.

A church member gave Rauch a towel to take with him that had the verse, “Dear Lord, please take care of me. My boat is so small and the sea is so wide,” stitched into it.

Rauch, the pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Escondido, thought the journey would take him six hours. It ended up taking seven and a half.

“It seemed like it was going pretty well for the first 10 miles or so, but then the winds started blowing and it got very discouraging,” Rauch said. “Then it felt like I had so far to go.”

About 13 miles into the journey, Thigpen told Rauch to come aboard and take a break.

“We got him in, hydrated him, gave him some food, got him rested a little and put him back in the water,” said Thigpen, a retired naval officer. “I was the safety guide. I told him from the beginning, ‘I make the call on whether we go or whether we stop.’ ”

When Rauch felt like giving up, his mental and physical strength were buoyed by the prayers of family, friends and congregants, he said.

“Even though I didn’t think I could make it, at the same time I would (think), ‘There’s at least 100 people out there praying for me right now.’ I really felt carried on those prayers.

“I think extreme situations just kind of pull us toward God,” Rauch said. “The ocean just has power. You can’t fight it. … When you’re out on the ocean, you realize, in the grand scheme of things, you’re very small. It humbles a person. There’s a kind of a calm and a resolve that moves in when you accept your smallness and the largeness of the ocean.”

Though physically exhausted, Rauch marveled at passing pelicans, harbor seals and a pod of dolphins that swam alongside his boat for a stretch.

“As we got near Catalina, it was very blue and just beautiful,” he said.

“There’s a real connection with God through the beauty of creation.”

Though Rauch trained at Lake Hodges and on San Diego Bay, nothing had prepared him for the choppiness of the ocean water, he said.

As he got into Avalon Bay, his wife hired a water taxi to go out and pick him up.

“He just had this big smile on his face, like ‘I did it!,’ ” Elizabeth said. “He didn’t even look tired.

“He felt woozy once he got on the dock. He thought the whole island was moving.”

During the trip back to Long Beach, Elizabeth said, the water appeared remarkably calm.

“He just kept saying, ‘How come it wasn’t this calm when I was rowing?’ ”

Thigpen, who used to row crew, said he was inspired by Rauch’s determination, persistance and physical ability.

“When he told me about this wild idea over a year ago, I said, ‘Well, let’s do it,’ ” Thigpen said. “I think he kind of sets the standard for: ‘You never know what you can do until you try.’ ”

Reach reporter Pat Sherman at (760) 752-6774.

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