Leon McCarron’s river of emotions on 71-day expedition down the Tigris

When Leon McCarron told people he was planning to sail the length of the Tigris from source to sea, he received divergent responses.

An Iraqi warned him that his native land was “a boiling cauldron”; any travel through it would be dangerous for a foreigner. Someone else echoed this advice – but only up to a point. “It is of course an insane undertaking, but those are the only ones worth doing,” they added.

McCarron, a Northern Irish writer and explorer who lives in Iraq, has done his fair share of extreme undertakings, including…