An Oxford lady named Sarah Outen

In the website of Richard Dawkins, there's a charming presentation of a smart and adventurous young Oxford lady, a graduate in biology, named Sarah Outen [click here].

In July 2009, while rowing across the Indian Ocean, she sent Dawkins an email, indicating that she liked to listen (when her solar-powered batteries were operational) to the professor and his wife reading The God Delusion. Dawkins thanked her with a poem:

I’ve received a splendid email

From a most courageous female.

Battling onward to Mauritius,

Lone among the flying fishes,

Albatrosses, giant whales,

Turning turtle in the gales.

To hell with Health and Safety rules,

She’s in tune with tuna schools.

She’ll dance, while others dance in bars,

With pilot fish and Pilot Stars.

I have not the faintest notion

How to brave the Indian Ocean

In anything that keeps afloat,

Let alone a rowing boat.

But Sarah takes it in her stride,

And going with her, for the ride,

A book, or audio CD

Read by Lalla and by me.

To speed her trip to its conclusion

We’re reading her The God Delusion!

All godly tripe and tosh she’s doubtin’

So raise your glass to Sarah Outen.

I find these communications between Oxfordians most pleasant and stylish.