Social media star Oliver Widger, 29 years old, attempted to sail across the Pacific with just his cat Phoenix. He did this after telling his followers on Tiktok and Instagram, more than a million, that he quit his 9-5 job so he could focus on his journey.
Widger is from Oregon, but his dream is to go to Hawaii, which is where he is traveling to with his cat. “The world kind of sucks and, like, I don’t think I’m alone in how I felt with my work,” Widger, 29, told The Associated Press on Wednesday via Zoom.
Receiving a diagnosis four years prior of a syndrome that posed a potential paralysis risk helped him understand his discontent with his role as a manager at a tire company, where he was expected to maintain a clean-shaven look and overly neat shirts. Learning about individuals who navigated the waters from California to Hawaii inspired him to believe that this lifestyle was his true calling.
“Everything I’ve done I thought was impossible,” Widger said. “Sailing around the world is such a ridiculous dream. Whatever your dream is, just go, just do it.”
He reminisced about the moments of the journey to this point, just being amazed by the dolphins gliding through the sea and discovering flying fish on the deck. There have been periods when there were no birds visible for several days.
https://apnews.com/article/sailing-cat-phoenix-oregon-hawaii-31dc110bea9e2c88cebaf2474df04a6b
