GROHE Team Ocean’s Journey for Water Sustainability
We are GROHE Team Ocean, and right now, as you read this, we’re out here on the Pacific, rowing from Monterey, California to Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i — a journey of over 2,400 nautical miles across one of the world’s most unforgiving oceans.
This is no ordinary adventure. We chose this extreme challenge not just for ourselves, but to shine a light on a crisis that affects us all: the scarcity and waste of clean drinking water.
Living With Less Water to Make a Point
Out here, surrounded by endless blue, there’s irony everywhere we look: water, water everywhere — but not a drop to drink unless we work for it. Every liter we consume is produced by our onboard watermaker, turning seawater into precious fresh water, one small batch at a time.
We’ve set ourselves a limit: 6 liters per person per day. That’s everything — drinking, cooking, cleaning. This self-imposed rationing is not just about logistics; it’s about understanding, firsthand, the real value of water.
Back home, it’s so easy to take water for granted: running taps, flushing toilets, endless showers — and so much unnecessary waste. But out here, every drop is precious because every drop requires effort, planning, and respect.
This is exactly the connection we want people to make: the challenge of crossing an ocean in a rowing boat is extreme — but so is the challenge we all face to protect and preserve our limited fresh water resources.
Our Mission: Teach the Next Generation
We believe it’s not enough just to row and talk about this issue. We want to create something lasting — an educational program for young children about water sustainability.
Why children? Because we feel strongly that older generations, including our own, have grown too used to the luxury of clean, available water. Changing habits later in life is difficult. But with children, we have the chance to foster new values — respect, care, and responsibility for water — before bad habits form.
This program will help kids understand:
• How easily water can be wasted
• How pollution threatens clean water supplies
• Why we need to protect freshwater resources globally
It’s not just about statistics or warnings — it’s about creating an emotional connection to water, the same connection we feel so powerfully out here, rowing hour after hour.
A Parallel Challenge
Rowing an ocean is brutally hard. We battle exhaustion, storms, waves, salt sores, and mental fatigue. Every day demands planning, discipline, and teamwork.
But we see that same challenge reflected on land — the global effort required to manage and conserve clean water. It requires just as much discipline, planning, teamwork — and a commitment to think long-term.
We row with this message in mind:
“You don’t have to be in the middle of the ocean to recognize that water is precious. You just have to look at how much we waste every day.”
How You Can Help
We’re asking you to support our mission — not just by following our journey across the Pacific, but by helping us raise funds for this educational program. Every donation will go toward developing lessons and materials that schools can use to inspire the next generation of water stewards.
We hope our journey inspires you to think differently about water — and to help us spread that awareness to children around the world.
Just as we need teamwork and endurance to cross this ocean, we all need to work together to protect clean water for the future.
Thank you for being part of this journey with us.
— GROHE Team Ocean