My name is Daryl Farmer, born in Merstham, Surrey, where I lived until I moved to East Grinstead in 2004, and then ended up in Forest Row, East Sussex, on the edge of the Ashdown Forest (my favourite place) in 2013.

I've always been active and a keen sportsman, and over the years have completed The Marathon des Sables (150 miles, Sahara desert), The Jungle Marathon (140 miles, Amazon Rainforest), and covered around 1000 miles in various marathons and ultramarathons.

In 2012 I decided to take to the water, and we headed to Monterey, California in 2014 to attempt a solo row to Hawaii. Unfortunately, despite a monumental amount of effort and support, I was faced with an ocean state and weather conditions that were just impossible to beat as a solo rower and had to cut the attempt short and call it a day.

In addition to my love of sports and endurance challenges, my other great passion is the natural world and the amazing animals and plants that we are lucky enough to share this planet with.

This was instilled in me by my parents, and in particular my Mum, whom this row is dedicated to.

We lost this incredible and caring person to misdiagnosed kidney cancer in June 2012, and it was a huge loss to all who knew her. She will never be forgotten however, and I know she would be proud to know that I've stood up to help protect the animals and world that she loved so dearly.

One slightly less helpful thing that I inherited from Mum was AS, (Ankylosing Spondylitis). This is a form of inflammatory arthritis, which I was diagnosed with in my early 20's. Apart from one bad flare up at this point, which resulted in me being bed-bound for a couple of months, I found that exercise was the best way of managing the symptoms, and was back playing football and running just a few months later. Since then, I've gone on to do pretty much everything I did before, so it's not something I ever complain about as I know there are a lot of people a lot less fortunate.

Being out at sea on my own for an extended period of time will be tough, there are some very special people who will be greatly missed, as well as a very special 13 year old Collie/Labrador cross, and the new kid on the block, our re-homed 8 month old black Labrador. In fact I might try and smuggle them on-board if I can...............

Please share the challenge and spread the word, not for me, but for the cause and the messages. In terms of your own health, know your body and know what's right for you, and if you think anything is not right GET CHECKED OUT! And in terms of our planet, our wildlife is facing the biggest threat it has ever faced, but it's not a message of doom and gloom, it's a message of hope, we can still do so much to help with so little sacrifice, but we need to do it now. So there is a joint message which covers both causes..........

ACT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Thanks for your support, it's a solo row, but it couldn't be further from that in reality, I've got an army behind me, and you're more important to this challenge than you may think.