Aaron Carotta has spent 604 official days at sea so far. The journey began on 10 October 2021 and covered 18,214 nautical miles across 15 countries, finishing with a 97 day nonstop crossing from Lombok to the Seychelles. That leg was a world first, the first solo crossing from Asia to Africa in an ocean rowboat. It is the culmination of 18 years of expeditions, and by his own account the first one to bring together all three things he sets out to do: “A genuine personal challenge, philanthropic work, and an effort to see God more clearly”. He rows under the theme “Rowing for Humanity”.
Rowing across an ocean is a calorie problem, which in turn becomes a water problem. Burning up to 5,000 calories a day, Aaron went through about five litres of water daily, with roughly one litre of that going into rehydrating freeze dried meals. Rain catchment contributed almost nothing, generally around one litre a week, which he readily admits is a rain catcher problem rather than a rainfall problem. Everything else had to be made on board, on a power budget of 200W of solar feeding two 100Ah lithium batteries. That was ample for an hour of Rainman watermaker run time whenever the sun was out, and he is now upgrading to two 300Ah batteries with new solar.
He had tried a few watermaker options over the course of the expedition, and the Rainman earned its place for two reasons. It runs comfortably off that modest solar and battery bank. And it is portable rather than fixed, which matters more on a rowboat than on any other vessel. Everything aboard is a weight and balance decision; there are times he needs to add ballast, shift weight for the conditions, or simply take the unit out of the boat when he is somewhere unsafe. A hull mounted system cannot do any of that.
One lesson he passes on to anyone living on desalinated water: it is essentially dead water, with no minerals in it. At 5,000 calories a day that matters. He learned it the hard way and contracted scurvy on an earlier stage of the expedition, something his missing teeth confirmed for him recently. He now carries an electrolyte, Dry Water in particular, and adds it as a matter of routine. Rainman note: This may not be an issue if living on a larger boat. Read our article on remineralisation to learn more.
The watermaker did more than keep him alive. On arrival at a small community at Costa del Sol in Central America, he was able to make fresh drinking water for the people there, from his rowboat, powered only by the sun. For him that is the point. Living at sea level at two knots for months at a time is a perspective he grows from, and being able to hand someone clean water at the end of it is, in his words, “a pretty spiritual connection”. The ability to do it anywhere in the world, off his own solar and lithium, has been worth every pull on the oars.
Rainman note (August 2026): Aaron Carotta’s expedition is still ongoing. At the time of writing, he is preparing to depart the Seychelles around 1 October for South Africa, before continuing across the Atlantic and returning to his circumnavigational point at the Panama Canal. All details above reflect his status and equipment configuration as of this date.