2004-2005: From Liberty to Christ-the-Redeemer

On the 22nd of March 2004, aboard the boat Liberdade, a fiberglass pedal catamaran, donated by the American company Profish, Pedal Joe left from the Statue of Liberty, in New York City (USA), bound for the Marina da Glória, at the feet of the Christ the Redeemer statue, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The objective of the project called "Da Liberdade ao Cristo” ("From Liberty to Christ”) was to promote awareness about the urgent necessity of maintaining clean our rivers, lakes and oceans and, above all, our springs.

“If we keep on polluting and on not taking care of our waters, the future of life on the planet will be threatened. It ought to be every citizen's life's priority to do his/her part. Only that way will we be able to avoid wars, unbelievably, for a simple glass ... of water. For this reason, I wanted to attract the attention of the world by making, with this project, an appeal to the whole of humankind, so that the different social world organizations (governmental, non-governmental, political, intellectual and economical) would be able to join me in order to reach important and worthy results on the international arena. Only thus, by means of this interdisciplinary work, is it going to be possible to sensitize a larger number of persons on one of the basic water problems on the planet, namely pollution, through the diffusion of the photos and data results gathered by this project”, commented Joe.

The trip would have been 23 thousand kilometers long, approximately, and would have included the following countries and states: USA, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guianas, Surinam and French Guyana; and in Brazil: Amapá, Pará, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro.

Regrettably, on the 21st of September 2005, 18 months after departure from New York City, and having suffered the fury of hurricane Rita (the 5th encountered during the whole trip), the boat was totally destroyed, putting and end to the adventure.