CRESCENT CITY -- An Englishwoman woman who rowed alone across the Atlantic Ocean last year launched her effort to cross the Pacific Sunday as she headed off into glassy calm waters at Point Saint George near Crescent City.

Roz Savage, 39, a former management consultant, had planned to row under San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge on the first leg of her endurance journey -- a 2,300-mile trip to Hawaii.

But fickle summer weather forced her to begin her effort at 7 a.m. Sunday some 350 miles up the Northern California Coast.

"She has her own weather expert and he finally told her that she would not be able to leave until September if she wanted to go out of San Francisco Bay," Savage's spokeswoman Nicole L. Bilodeau told KTVU. "She needed three days of calm weather. He told her if she went north she would get it. The window opened at midnight."

The first stretch to Hawaii should take Savage two to three months, and after taking a month to rest, she will depart for the final stages -- a 2,600-mile trip to the island nation of Tuvalu, then 2,300 miles to Australia.

Her vessel is a souped-up 24-foot long rowboat named the Brocade after her corporate sponsor, San Jose-based Brocade Communications Systems Inc., which makes computer networking gear.

Savage said the goal of her journey is to raise awareness about marine conservation efforts, and she teamed up with Brocade because of its commitment to reducing power consumption in corporate data centers.

She won't be followed by a rescue boat, but will carry a satellite phone, update her blog through a PC with satellite Internet access and will be monitored online by Brocade employees and environmentalists through global positioning tracking technology.

Her rowboat is equipped with a tiny watertight cabin for sleeping, a bedpan and industrial quantities of health food bars, nuts and freeze-dried meals.

At just five-foot-five and barely 120 pounds, Savage seems an unlikely candidate to row 6,700 miles alone. In fact, the 39-year-old, who hails from Cheshire, England, is no stranger to ocean rowing.

Savage said she first took up rowing in college and last year rowed alone from Spain's Canary Islands, located off the northwest African coast, to the island of Antigua in the Caribbean, as part of a rowing race across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2005, she was the only woman to compete in the 3,000-mile Atlantic Rowing Race from the Canary Islands to Antigua. She finished in 103 days.

Savage has also teamed up with NOAA and several other environmental organizations as part of her overall commitment to ocean conservation efforts.