Explore Adventure Holidays

They’ve done it! A week ago, Mel and Annie completed their row across the Atlantic and, after some much deserved relaxation and celebration, they sent us their final blog.

Monday 29th March – Hello from ANTIGUA!

As I’m sure you’re all aware we came in last Monday to an absolutely fantastic reception. After so long at sea it was almost quite overwhelming – the last 24hrs at sea have been amazing. We had been gunning for a 60 mile day for well over a month – I know we’ve been writing about it in blogs – and then on the last day we managed a 60 miler. It’s ironic and almost a bit sad it didn’t happen earlier but it was just great that we did get to experience some decent weather behind us on the last day, although it was kind of tinged with a bit of sadness as we were enjoying it so much.

In the last week, coming up to the end, it was one long hard slog putting in the extra hours to get the record and trying to focus on finishing. But the closer to the finish you got the more you wanted to savour what you were doing. With the weather behind us we were regularly making 3 knots with just one of us on the blades – how it should have been for the last month.

Mel and Annie at sea

As the sun came up on the last morning I said to Annie as she came out from the cabin, “You know what?  I could just do this forever”. In many ways we just didn’t want to finish as the weather had turned so perfect.

But coming in and actually going over the line – what an event!

The girls coming into shore

WoodVale were out there on their ‘rib’ and our friends Barry and Lil were out on theirs too. Although we didn’t see them all until half a mile from the finish, they were there and in quite big seas, so it was good to see some familiar faces. Some big foghorns blared out as we made it over the line and then Barry and Lil passed us some Champagne so as we crossed the line we could celebrate which was amazing actually – a moment to log in our memories for ever.

Mel gets a champagne soaking

Then we had to row into the harbour and the Atlantic wasn’t letting us go without a final blast: we had some big waves hitting us side on and we were rowing into a really strong headwind – really strong. We were at maximum power to make any headway – quite hard after 77 days at sea.

When we got into the harbour though all the moored boats had people on them clapping and sounding their horns and a restaurant we went past had everyone lined up clapping us in too. Annie turned to me and asked if this was all for us.  And I just said yes of course it is. After 77 days at sea when all you’ve seen is each other it was quite overwhelming to see so many people and for them to be clapping you like that.

We carried on rowing up to the pontoon and there were even more familiar faces – brilliant to see and amazing that they included many other rowers. They were mostly boys of course who had lost 2 stone in weight and grown beards – we couldn’t recognise half of them which was quite funny.

Annie celebrates with some champagne

For our first steps onto land we had to be careful as the land felt very wobbly – even just standing was quite difficult – even more so after some champagne. We had amazing reunions with family and the other rowers too actually and it was nice to see we had all got in safely: there was a lot of emotion there at the arrival which was fantastic. Half an hour later “Reason Why” came in who we had been battling over the last few hours of the race. “Spirit of Montenaro” had overtaken us and we were absolutely determined that “Reason Why” weren’t going to pass us. It was amazing that we managed to hold them off and beat them in but it was very good to see them so close after us – literally just minutes after we got to the pontoon they were there, so double celebrations – and they are from Bristol too so more special.

Then our first meal was laid on for us which was lovely. They gave us burgers which I wolfed down – proper food at long last.

All in all a very good celebration of what we’ve achieved: Antigua put on a great display, as did the rest of the rowers and as did our friends and family who were here to see us in.

One last thing I’d like to say is a big thank you to everyone who has followed us, supported us and hve been sending messages of good luck and encouragement. Just knowing you were all there meant a lot in the middle of the ocean all alone. We were quite happy out there but it meant a huge amount knowing there were so many following us. To each and every one of you who sent a message, we read them all and appreciated them all – your support meant everything to us and we hope you’ve enjoyed following the blog. Thank you again for helping make our dream come true and being part of our dream. The enormity of what we have achieved is just starting to sink in I think. The fact we missed the record doesn’t matter any more we have rowed an ocean and we’re really happy with that and we really can’t think of any down days. We have to say we almost enjoyed every single moment of it. So thank you all again and goodbye.

Mel & Annie

Editor’s note.

This is possibly the last on-board blog from the girls. They are that close to the end. Mel mentions that they are going to be going for it in the next few days, chasing down the boys ahead and keeping in front of the boys they’ve overtaken. There will be a big update once they hit land of course!

Current Position

Mel – Blog w/c 15th March

Hurrah – we’re back in 13th place – it’s great to see the hard work we’ve put in over the last few days has paid off. We upped the hours on the blades from 12 (which was what we’d normally be doing) to 16 – and then upped it again to 18 at the weekend, which is what we feel is the absolute maximum. It’s damn hard work but we managed to “hoik” ourselves back from 17th to 13th it was all worth it.

The extra hours on the blades do have a huge impact on us as we get very little sleep now (not that we got very much before) and we still need to eat and do our daily chores; making water, navigation etc., so with any spare time, chores have to come first and sleep second. But we only have a few more days to go, so we’re hoping we can do without sleep.

Existence has become very functional – just row, eat sleep, row eat, sleep. It could easily become a chore, but we try not to let that happen. On Friday it was absolutely sweltering hot and despite the fact that we were chasing down boys, we just jumped in the sea and went swimming. It had got so hot that we didn’t know what to do with ourselves and it’s actually quite torturous to sit rowing with the sea so close so we thought, “you know what, we’re going to take 10 minutes out and go for a swim”.

On Saturday night we drank our last alcohol on board. We had white wine sachets. We very much enjoyed those, watching the sun go down, so although it’s hard work on Explore it can be fun too. As much as we want to be in Antigua, we’re very aware that we only have a few days left on Explore and we want to savour them. Despite the hardships, we really are loving this and we’ll miss it when it’s all over.

Message from Explore’s  PR & Sponsorships Manager: We’re into the final few days of Team Explore’s epic journey across the Atlantic now and they are putting everything into it as they fight to win the British Record. They need to row at least 40 nautical miles each and every day to stand a chance and at the moment they’re travelling around 42 every 24 hours. They’re doing extra shifts at the oars so sleeping less and having to get through pain barriers every day with sores, blisters and aching muscles, but as Annie says in her latest blog, “We’re on the home stretch now and the last thing I want to be saying to myself when it’s all over is, “If only”!

Again, take a few moments to send them some encouragement as every positive message they get in the next few days will spur them on. They are only 300nm from the finish line, so it could all be over by this time next week!!
http://www.atlanticworldfirst.co.uk/sayhello.php

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Annie’s Blog – Thursday 11th March

Since the last blog the weather conditions have done sort of what they were supposed to have done. But we need them to improve and improve fast if we’re to achieve that GB record.

The swell has moved behind us over night, but the wind is still blowing strongly form the south. We need every day now, to be pretty much a 40 mile+ day, so we’ll be doing everything in our capability to achieve that including extra hours on the oars. That will of course mean less sleep but the sleep we do grab in between watches will be even more appreciated. We’re on the home stretch now and the last thing I want to be saying to myself when it’s all over is, “If only”!

Nothing much changes on an ocean rowing boat, so it’s hard for me to know exactly what you might like reading. Our thoughts and decisions remain pretty much the same day by day…

”What direction shall we take? I know…let’s go west to Antigua.

What shall we eat today? I know, let’s have freeze-dried chicken or freeze-dried lamb. (Not that it matters as I can’t really tell the difference anyway.) What shall I wear? Pants or no pants?

What shall I treat my thong with? Talc, Sudocrem, TCP maybe.

Do I need to drink more water? Of course I do.

Do I need to wash my hair? Of course I do.

Can I be bothered? Of course I can’t. “

It makes you realise how utterly unpredictabl         e your life at home can be. You never know who will be on the other end of the phone, knock on the door, who you’ll meet in the street or where you’ll end up when you get in your car.

I miss home life quite a lot. But something tells me I’m going to miss life on this little red boat quite a lot too.

Annie xx

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.

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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.

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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.

Annie’s Blog – 11th Feb – A bare behind in the middle of the ocean!

Today we’ve moved to 9th place. We’re so thrilled to be in single figures. Now we just hope we can maintain pace or maybe even move up a place or two more.

On Wednesday I saw an orange jelly fish floating alongside the boat I was excited as I thought I’d discovered a new species of aquatic life: sadly though it turned out to be a Sainsbury’s shopping bag closely followed by its contents of crisp packets, sweet wrappers and empty fag packets. I really hope it all just fell off a passing yacht and that no one is actually out here polluting this beautiful and magnificent ocean.

On Explore we’re very environmentally-friendly and everything that goes overboard is bio-degradable. There has been a lot of shepherd’s pie though. All plastic is kept on board and will be disposed of once we reach land. All the food is plastic wrapped and despite carefully rinsing each out after use, they are stored in the hold and are really starting to stink. That’ll be a nice job when we reach Antigua

My bottom hurts – in fact it hurts a lot. This race involves a lot of sitting, in fact rowing for 12hrs a day in damp conditions leads to what can only be described as nappy rash. Then there are salt sores from the ocean water and pressure sores from constantly moving back and forth on the seat.  We’ve tried every combination of clothing to alleviate the problem, but the seams and labels of even the best designed sports gear have a detrimental effect. We started with leggings, moved on to shorts, then swimsuits and then just pants.

Now, (steady boys) I’m rowing with a bare behind on a sheepskin which is very comfy.

On Wednesday night it rained – and I know we didn’t order that…I wonder who did? But then it rained some more and some more – in fact it poured all night and both of us ended up soaked through without a dry sock between us..lovely!

Ocean planet – the support super-yacht turned up earlier and it was good to see them all. They were sporting beards and healthy tans – the ocean life on a nice yacht seems to agree with them.

Now the sea is calm and there is very little swell so we’re just plodding along in the sun.

We passed the half way point last night though and celebrated that milestone with a slug of whiskey. Today will be Christmas cake and flapjacks – but no shepherd’s pie – yippee!

Annie xx

…and yes mum I was wearing pants when the support crew turned up.