Explore Adventure Holidays

Mel’s Blog – Monday 8th

Note – due to satellite comms problems, this blog is being published a little later than it should be, but hopefully it all makes sense anyway.

Hi everyone

Hope you all had good weekends having roast dinners, reading papers, socialising, going for walks in the countryside and other things which seem a world away to us.

Unfortunately we had what has become a typical weekend of battling unfavourable weather. The wind has been going gradually south and building and by yesterday (Sunday) we had made progress west in our boat which loves to go sideways. All we could do was north-west, but that was preferable to being on para-anchor. Progress has been quite slow and has required every ounce of energy on every stroke. During the worst hours we were only moving at 0.5 of a knot and half of that was in the wrong direction. Rowing is usually a pleasurable experience and when you place the blades in the water and drive down with the legs you can feel the boat pick up and as soon as you drag the blade through the water you can feel the boat go under you as you up the slide. It was so far from that yesterday it was laughable. Forget treacle, this was like rowing in setting concrete. Moving the boat required an almighty effort and up the slide you could feel her going backwards or sideways! And all that for 0.25 of a knot!

Effort like that costs though. We’re both feeling it today, pretty much everywhere. Thankfully the wind died off early evening and we were able to make progress west again. Today has been mostly west, although the wind is still gradually forcing us north-west at times. It’s supposed to die off and then come back from the east later today. We sincerely hope it does because at the moment, conditions are making that bar in Antigua seem a long way off.

Mel. xx

Annie’s Blog – Friday 5th March: Making Progress

The wind continues to be behind us and the swell with us so Explore is still racing on towards Antigua and all is good on board.

We’re currently trying out a new watch system, 3 hours on and 3 hours off during the night  instead of 2. Mel and I are both liking it – I feel if you can manage 2 hours o the blades, there’s no reason you can’t manage one more. But the real benefit comes in the off-watch. 3 hours sleep in one stretch is absolute luxury. Saying that though we are currently finding that neither of us can get enough sleep – the second we stop rowing it seems like we’re asleep. Why we’re suddenly more tired than we have been I don’t know. I guess 2 months at sea, exercising 12 hours a day is finally getting to us.

The other thing we can’t get enough of is food. I’m sure we’d eat while still rowing and during our sleep if at all possible. We’re probably going to be the only crew that actually puts on weight rather than lose it – and there was me planning out my new size 10 wardrobe. Oh foolish me!

All things considered though we’re both holding up well. I think I can speak for Mel too when I say our bums are still our most problematic areas – even the most hardcore pain killers are not reaching the spot. Thankfully the severe pain comes and goes. Last night I was trying to devise a plan where I could row standing up, but now I feel fine. My bum obviously has a mind of its own, which is a little worrying.

One thing that happened when we both were both on deck at the same time was we were privileged to be given a display of synchronised swimming by a group of dolphins – what is the collective noun for dolphins anyhow? (it’s a pod – Ed.)

They were leaping about all in perfect harmony and seemed utterly happy and carefree. There was probably mass fishy slaughter going on under the surface that we were totally unaware of.

Anyhow, time for a quick snooze and a bite to eat before I hit the blades again

Annie xx

We will be tracking Annie and Mel’s progress and posting more of their blogs here. Keep up to date and find out why we are supporting them here. Track their progress across the Atlantic here.

Another catch up blog – find out how Annie and Mel are doing now they have less than 700 miles to go! As before I have put the most recent at the top so it stays in the same order as the rest of the blog. Find out about their frustration at not being able to pick up the trade winds, and what it is like to get really close to whales!

Annie & Mel: Sorry we have haven’t been in contact with you, we’ve been in an area of very bad satellite phone reception, but we are back in vague reception now and there has been lots going on. So here we go!

Blog 45 Monday 1st March: Going – good-to-firm

We are back to the conditions that Explore loves. Boats are like racehorses – there are conditions they love and conditions they don’t. Explore 101% loves a swell and the wind behind her and then she absolutely flies. I took the opportunity whilst swimming to see how she sat in the water, which is easier now that we are eating our way through the supplies, But sitting ‘in’ the water perhaps isn’t the right expression, more like ‘on’ the water as there were inches of the anti-foul hull above the waterline – which basically makes her a 25 foot long board and explains why she loves these downwind conditions. It also explains why we struggle with side winds as there is no resistance in the water to stop us going sideways and as people can probably see from our course we have been going sideways and backwards over the last week or so.

All’s good now though as we’re flying towards Antigua and those problems are in the dim and distant past.

---

Blog 44 Thursday 25th Feb: Going no-where. Fast.

I wrote this log on Wednesday but haven’t been able to phone it through as we have had no reception. I know since then we have posted our worst day ever in terms of mileage, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. After our talking to yesterday we tried absolutely everything. But as if to prove me wrong the weather has conspired against us. As the boat gets lighter it gets more and more susceptible to changes in conditions and with this change in weather Annie and I are constantly moving food around the boat to get her properly trimmed to take the conditions. We have it down to a fine art now!

We did that yet again and rowed hard west but the weather totally conspired against us sending us North East despite everything. Even though it’s our worst day it’s the best mileage of the boats around us, which is some reassurance.  It doesn’t do anything for our record attempt though; it just means we have to work even harder for it! This isn’t known as one of world’s toughest endurance races for nothing!

So we spent Thursday night on the para-anchor. It obviously wasn’t what we wanted at all, very disheartening to yet again be stopped and actually drifting backwards. Sill we made the most of it, which is conducive to one of us being always on deck constantly monitoring the wind and the swell to see when we could set off and the other one was sleeping. It was a beautiful night, loads of stars out, nearly a full moon. We actually found a miniature of whiskey, so I had a lovely time sat on deck watching the stars, drinking my whiskey, listening to my iPod – one that I know I will remember. Its nights like that that are half of what this race is about.

Thursday morning and conditions had changed a bit and we set off again. We were making slow progress – but we were making progress – but conditions got steadily worse. And over Friday, Saturday, Sunday had some kind of horrendous ground hog day. It Involved rowing our hardest to get Explore to move in a positive direction, putting extra hours in so that we could row two up, extra hours in the sweltering heat, I think we actually got heat exhaustion, but despite trying as hard as we could we eventually got to a point where we couldn’t get any positive direction at all and were on anchor again. By the time that conditions had changed and we could lift the anchor we had drifted back all the miles that we had made the day before. And this happened on Friday, and on Saturday, and again on Sunday. We literally ended up back at the same degree of longitude, a bit further south, but the same degree from east to west as we started.

I can’t describe how soul destroying that was; we really did try our hardest to make that westerly progress and to have it all taken away from you in 12 hours on para-anchor and just have to go out and do it again, I guess is what this race is about. It’s about just getting on with it and saying there is no point getting demoralised by it, that won’t get us to Antigua any quicker let’s just get our heads down and get on with it. When we found out on Sunday that we posted 17 miles -  it took every ounce of positive energy we’ve got left not to get demoralised. But we are not demoralised we are just plodding on. So having a fun day. We have had enough of this fighting west and so we decided to go straight south. I had avoided that up until now as I don’t want to end up south of Antigua. Winds are from the northeast in this area, now I know this isn’t a typical year but I know that it is very difficult to get north again if you end up south of Antigua. We had a policy that we wouldbn;t go below Antigua, but we decided that if rowed south all day on Sunday we wouldn’t actually yet be south of Antigua. We’d heard the wind was going to fill in so we hoped we’d get blown west before we reached the latitude of Antigua – and guess what…for once the weather p[layed ball and that did indeed happen.

---

Blog 43 Monday 22nd Feb- Having a ‘whale’ of a time
We have waited 50 days for it but it’s finally happened. We have had an up close and personal marine experience – with whales and not just once but 3 times. Annie was on deck the first time on the pre dawn watch, it was very dark as the moon had set and she woke me up to put the deck lights on. She sounded worried so I wondered what had happened: another fish down her cleavage? Nope – a whale had exhaled so close to the boat she had got wet! Sadly it was so dark we couldn’t actually see it but Annie heard it around for another 20 minutes.

And a few hours later on the next watch I was merrily going along iPod blaring when out of the corner of my eye, I saw some waves breaking near the boat. This was odd as it was fairly flat. I did a double take and realised they were breaking over the back of an enormous whale about 15ft from the boat! I shouted to Annie but by the time she was on deck it had over-taken us but we watched it head off into the distance on a mission to go somewhere. I don’t know what sort he was sadly but it had a very small dorsal fin and about 20 ft long, for anyone who can help.

The lasting impression I will have is the noise of it moving through the water. I could tell he was huge from that, it was graceful but was obviously constantly moving huge amounts of water. I have seen whales before but this was by far the best as we are so close to the water – about a foot, it was just at the end of my blade.

I was on the blades for the third sighting, yes Annie is very jealous! It was dark but the moon was out and bright and out of the corner of my eye in exactly the same place I saw a black shape – two in fact. I looked again and saw the hump of one and the tail of another and it dived – amazing. Again sadly Annie missed it.

To see so many in one day is unbelievable, it makes me think we are on a migratory route. Whatever the reason I feel very privileged to see them in their environment.

We have given ourselves a bit of a talking to on Explore: we are not happy with our recent performance – in fact I would go so far as to say we are embarrassed that so many crews have overtaken us. And we think we know what the problem is; we think it might be us. Ok, the weather and the fact that most of our competitors are boys are factors but we are beginning to wonder whether we are trying hard enough or could we do more. When lots of other crews overtake you and do more miles than you, these are the sort of questions that enter your mind.

It sounds odd to say this, but I think we have it a bit easy so far. We had a cracking start aided I think by the fact that our learning curve wasn’t as steep as some crews, and we were off. To be fair we maintained a very competitive pace and it wasn’t too difficult. Yes, we had the nights when got knocked off our seats and the sweltering days rowing through treacle but we took them in our stride.

The World record changed to the British record, but were always records. Getting to the trade winds latitude and finding them non existent has been our biggest test so far and at the moment we don’t think we have come up trumps. We plodded along, hoping they will fill in where other crews have obviously just been there and are making good miles. We’ve now got to do the same, the trade winds may never fill in!

We want that British record and we’ve got to go and get it. This isn’t a record breaking year because of the unusual weather. The 12 man crew didn’t make their speed record but Charlie did make his and we have got to give ours our absolute all and funnily enough since our talking to we have posted a much more respectable set of figures on the website.

We have been rowing at a steady, maintainable pace, after all we have to do it 12 hours a day for 70 plus days but we have upped the pace now. We have no idea if we can maintain it but we won’t know if we don’t try. And I would rather arrive in Antigua, physically broken but mentally knowing I could not have done more than physically ok but have to mentally deal with the fact that I had missed out on the record because I didn’t given it absolutely everything.

We have done the figures we know how many miles a day we have to do – 40 and what speed that requires. We now have to show what we are made of. Watch this space……..

Annie’s Blog – Monday 22nd February 2010: The Doldrums

Well this is not what it said in the sales pitch of ocean rowing I can tell you. – “Once you get south enough and start heading west towards Antigua, your pick up the trade winds and be zooming along at 25 knots“.

Erm well we’re here, so where are these allusive trade winds? Woodhousen described the sea as “a big watery desert” and Pete the skipper of Ocean Planet our support yacht says in all his years of sailing (and judging by the look of him, that quite a lot) he has never seen this part of the Atlantic so calm. Well that’s just great. This calm is predicted to stay with us for practically a week, and who knows after that. We are managing to get 2 knots out of Explore at best but only with the non-existent wind behind us. We might as well be trying to row through freeze dried porridge! And the temperatures are scorching, and with no wind to cool us down we are slowly being spit roasted here.

We have done all we can to think of how to boost our progress from redistributing the weight in the hatches, to rowing with a longer lighter set of oars more suitable to these conditions.

Mentally though we are fairly positive and determined to make the best of what we’ve got even though we do have a few crews overtaking us, which is not good but they are young-ish male pairs and to be honest they should overtake us and if they didn’t over take two old broads like us they ought to be d be ashamed of themselves!

Anyway all this plodding gives you a lot of time to reflect and concentrate on other things, such as pain in Mel’s case – she most definitely wins the biggest pain in the arse award. Mine is fairing considerably well, no doubt in thanks to Margaret and Maureen. A peeling nose is my biggest complaint at the moment, so life is pretty good it has to be said.

Obviously these arduous conditions seriously threaten our UK record attempt, but if we can still bag the UK record at the end of all of this we should be jolly proud of ourselves.

We celebrated 1000 miles to go a couple of days ago with some miniature bottles of champagne. Once the lovely contents were consumed (which took approx 30 seconds) I wrote a message and threw mine overboard. What’s the betting that bottle gets to Antigua before us?

Annie xx

Mel – Fri 19th February. Getting to the ‘bottom’ of it…

So we’re in 12th   which is disappointing and isn’t ideal for us but is indicative of the battle that has emerged between Explore and two or three other boats. Ocean Summit (from the West Country) and Reason Why, (also from Bristol) and ourselves have been trading places and I find it unbelievable that after 45 days rowing the race is so close and that there are just 2 or 3 miles between us. But it does tend to focus the mind and makes it more exciting for us and everyone following us back home.

We have been off the pace last couple of days, but we’re not really sure why. It’s easy to plod along averaging 1.5 knots without really analysing what your doing. But I have become obsessed with what the other crews are up to. Some are performing similar to us but a lot are doing a lot better: we were one of the top performers but are now very much near the bottom.

So we have been asking questions of ourselves and the boat trying to figure out where it’s going wrong. We think there are two main reasons On the bottom front we are both suffering from pressure sores which are extremely painful and caused by sitting and rowing for 12 hours a day. It makes every stroke painful and must be slowing us down as we’re not giving it as much beef because of the pain. Our attitude has been, we just need to get on and do it but we now think that if it’s affecting our performance then we need to do something about it. So the serious painkillers are out and we’re hoping our bottoms get a rest and we can get back on form. It seems to be working so far so we hope it improves our speed. Last night I had an almost pain free row so our mileage should improve. However, we will have to ration the pills as there are not enough to last the rest of the trip. We’ll take them for a couple of days for now as things could get much worse later in the race.

The second thing is that we have retrimmed the boat again. As we eat more and more of our rations, the weight distribution changes, so we’ve moved more from the bow to stern – mostly the endless supplies of freeze-dried food which seems to go on and on. The idea is to keep the bow up and not digging into the water. It immediately feels lighter on each stroke optimising our speed – so we hope in the next 24 hrs we’ll be back on track. At the moment we’re off the British record pace, but are getting close to it again so are pressing hard.

The weather has been good but is predicted to be changeable meaning light and probably from the east. It should affect the northerly boats more and we are south. My decision to stay south might have worked – who knows. Whatever happens I don’t think there will be any 60 mile days in next few days.

The next milestone when we pass the 1000 miles to go mark tomorrow. We’re going to have a big party and get through more Christmas pressies and food. It feels as if it will all be downhill from there although it will still be a few more weeks to go. There is a psychological barrier here though, knowing there are just hundreds of miles to go rather than 1000s

Mel’s Blog  -  Fri 12^th – Sunday 14^th Feb.

Hello everyone, our new twice a week blogs are back! The laptop is definitely bust so we’re now phoning them through and thanks to Paul at Explore for typing them up. We’ll try to blog each Monday and Thursday.

Slow and painful sums up our progress at the moment: the wind died on Friday and this weekend there has been no breeze and so no swell making it hard to make headway.

The ocean is stunning – completely flat and still, like a lake which is unfortunately no good for rowing – getting just half a knot is hard work and tougher in the heat. The sun is intense and the heat is relentless – there’s no escape.

Our headgear is interesting though – Annie is wearing a red bandana constantly dipped in water and I have a beaten up old panama that’s so out of shape it makes me look like a Flower Pot Man

The pain is both mental and physical – old aches and pains are worse when the boat is heavy. Mental pain is the worst though: every 12 or 18 mile day equals another day at sea for us if you take 50 miles as an average day. The British record is always in our minds and we’re desperate to break it. We like it out here but the thought of hitting Antigua in record time drives us on. 12 mile days don’t help the cause!

The scenery is amazing. We have seen some fantastic sunsets with 360 degree horizons of oranges, yellows, pinks and purple – just breathtaking.

Phosphorescence has also been incredible. I was rowing on Friday and the puddle around the blade glowed bright yellow – like glow stick bright. The light fanned out and faded and then the droplets coming off the spoon set of more sparks making it look like it was dripping off the blade. It is truly beautiful and I spent a full hour transfixed by it – which seems slightly excessive but it took my mind off the slow pace and the fact that no matter how hard I rowed I couldn’t achieve more than half a knot.

We’ve been up and down leader board so much we don’t know if we should be eating Xmas cake or shepherd’s pie! It’s weird that after 40 or so days of rowing we’re still only a single figure miles apart from the other competitors. Being 9^th one day 13^th the next is good for motivation though, if we’re fighting to overtake someone or someone else is snapping at our heels. We’re desperate to put the miles behind us – if only the wind would cooperate.

Despite the pains and gripes we’re both fit and well and in fine form. On Friday we were the fastest boat over 6 hours. We can’t wait to punch out 60 mile days again and get to Antigua.

Mel.

We are tracking Annie and Mel’s progress and posting more of their blogs here. Keep up to date and find out why we are supporting therm here. Track their progress across the Atlantic here.