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The day we met a Nobel Prize winner




'The Sea Decides' is about the Rowing from Home to Home expedition which touched so many people along its way. And that's something that Grant Rawlinson can be very proud of. Especially when one of the people his expedition touched was a Nobel Prize winner.


The Nobel Prize winner of course was Jose Ramos Horta, who camped out at the United Nations for years while East Timor fought for independence, and is one of the men credited with achieving that goal, before he became the second President of East Timor years later.


Anyway - it turned out that he'd heard about Grant and Charlie rowing to East Timor all the way from Singapore and was keen for a chat, so he invited them along to his house and I tagged along to take some pictures and film the occasion.


Unfortunately, none of the footage has made the final cut of the film, but I can report he's a very inspiring guy and it was just a real pleasure to sit with him for a bit, listen to what he had to say and hear what interested him about the expedition.


And not only that, it turned out the garden of his home where we were sitting was also the place where someone had tried to assassinate him years ago.


I didn't really say much – I just found it all enough just to sit and listen!





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