Explore Adventure Holidays

Annie: Taking on the Atlantic Ocean

Well! What can I say?

It’s been quite some time since I’ve been slapped round the face with such ferocity that’s for sure!

Last night was indeed a night and a half. It all started fairly well with some nice favourable winds. The swells were taking us vaguely in the right direction so although rowing was fairly hard work, it was worth the struggle. But night soon descended upon us and brought with it some unfavourable winds. We were making progress in the right direction but it was taking all our strength to stay on course which just wasn’t sustainable all night. I couldn’t see which direction the waves were coming from and there were rogue waves crashing over the boat from all directions.

In conditions like these it’s nigh on impossible to plan or predict where or when to place your blade in the water… It feels like someone has grabbed hold of the other end and is ramming the handle into your thighs and hips with all their might! We are totally black and blue as a result but after a couple of weeks of such abuse, you don’t tend to notice anymore! We battled through a 2 hour stint each, then admitted temporary defeat and put the para anchor out
.
It’s so frustrating having to deploy the anchor as you’re constantly thinking what other crews might be doing, how much ground they might be covering whilst you’re stationary etc. However needs must…

Strangely, with the elements giving it their worst outside, we actually managed to get a good few hours sleep. Conditions this morning weren’t quite what we’d hoped for (ie: they were still bloody well the same!!) but the wind direction at least had altered to enable rowing to once again be a possibility. We’re back at it with vigour now. Trying to claw back last night’s lost ground.

I personally, am feeling physically and mentally strong. Each day is certainly proving to be a challenge but I feel I can pretty much take on whatever this big old ocean wants to throw at me. Bring it on! Rowing today is fabulous. The sea is big and boisterous but appears to be in a much friendlier mood. Last night, the sea was just plain grumpy as hell!

I’m hoping for a more peaceful night tonight as there’s lots of work that needs doing at my imaginary village. Tourism has certainly picked up and I feel that perhaps I should consider constructing my first hotel. I’m not sure though… I don’t want the place to lose its rustic charm in any way…

Annie x
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 therm here. Track their progress across the Atlantic here.

Visit from Charlie…

We’ve been at sea almost a week now but it feels as if I’ve always lived on this boat, it’s amazing how quickly you can get used to somthing!  We are well into our rhythm now with the rowing and sleeping pattern and general practicalities of life on board – Annie can make a cup of tea in only 10 minutes now!  Both of us are already totally sick of freeze dried food though (it all has the taste and texture of soggy cardboard!), eating meals isn’t something to look forward to – it’s just something to be done, thank God for Christmas cake and flapjack then! Michy also gets an 8 out of 10 – points only being deducted for the fact that it needs to be supplied with a lock and key to stop Annie eating the whole lot!!!

We’re still holding our own with the boys out here, rowing is quite tough at the moment as both the swell and the wind are against us and the boat feels really heavy – we’re desperately trying to put some West in but the weather seems to have different ideas, we’re ploughing on though and spirits are still high onboard.  Both of us are really quite competitive so thoughts of beating boys and breaking records are extremely motivating and being out near the front is a huge psychological boost, there’s now way we’re losing this pack, we’re staying with them to Antigua and hoping to use some ideal conditions at some point to put some of them behind us.

Yesterday we had a visit from Charlie, one of the solo racers.  We saw him on the horizon but he was sleeping at the time, when he woke though he paddled over to see us (he has an extremely revolutionary boat and waS annoyingly quick in reaching us!)  We had a great chat about life on board, how things were going, where all the other competitors were, weather, tactics etc etc.  It was just as if we’d bumped into each other in the supermarket, it was only when I thought about it afterwards I realised what a funny situation it was, 2 ocean rowing boats chatting away in the middle of the Atlantic wearing nothing but their underwear!  It was lovely to see Charlie and he was in fine spirits, must admit I take my hat off to the solo guys, that’s a whole different ball game and they have my upmost respect.
He invited us over for supper at his, but sadly by that time we’d both disappeared over the horizon, so it will have to wait until another time!

We also had a visit from a cargo carrier laSt night, when I was rowing I saw his lights in the distance and it looked like we were potentially on a collision course, so we radioed him up.  Despite us having AIS (a system where we appear on other boats GPSs and vice versa) he hadn’t seen us, and couldn’t at first see us after we’d given our position which was slightly alarming!  When he did see us he seemed to find our boat funny but was very courteous and altered course to avoid us.  Was a real lesson showing that we can’t rely on technology and because we are so small and vulnerable out here we have to be 101% vigilant at all times regarding other traffic.

Mel

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 therm here

Blog 18 – Annie

Well its day 6 now out here in the big wide ocean and all is well with team Explore! After the initial few days of atrocious weather, things seem to be settling down quite considerably. We’ve been informed that the next 10 days should be relatively calm by comparison. We would’ve liked a little more wind pushing us towards Antigua though as rowing this boat with no weather assistance is extremely hard work… Explore, fully laden, weighs over half a ton, and trying to move that through still waters is like trying to stir treacle with a drinking straw!

Mel’s already explained our race position. I suspect a few crews might catch us up in the next few days but we’ll be trying our hardest to keep them at bay that’s for sure!

The night before last at about 3am, our GPS informed us that there was an ‘unknown vessel’ in close proximity to us. The moon was hidden behind clouds so I was unable to see any navigational lights so I leapt to the obvious conclusion that it must indeed be pirates!

Now in my mind, there are 2 types of pirates. The first type all look like Johnny Depp, and the second type are the type to chop your head off, boil it, and then extract your teeth to make necklaces from…
I spent the rest of my watch trying to work out what we had on board that we could bribe them with and came to the conclusion that my Mum’s flapjacks would make a perfect peace offering!
An hour later and still no pirate action so I retired to bed and sacrificed Mel to the deck. I awoke 2 hours later and thankfully Mel was still there, and still in possession of her teeth.

The next night was incredible… I have never seen so many stars in my life – it was truly magical. Whilst paddling away on my own in the dark, I craned my neck so far back whilst identifying what I thought was Orion’s Belt, I literally fell off my seat and landed on the deck in a heap of giggles! (No wonder those pirates didn’t bother with me!!)

What else has happened? Oh yes, we’ve had a ‘cake off’ between Jan King (Mel’s Mum), and Michele Januszewski (Annie’s Mum). Jan made Christmas cake and Michele made flapjacks. We sampled the Christmas cake for the first time yesterday and although it was delicious, I’m only going to award Jan 8 out of 10. I’m taking a point off because there’s no way she made enough, and another point off because rowing an ocean when drunk is not an easy thing to do trust me! (How much brandy was in that cake?? At least a bottle I’m sure!). Mel will report back on the flapjack results tomorrow…

I’ll be off then – got a boat to row….
Enjoy the snow guys. It’s 29 degrees here!
Annie x

Oh no! I hear we’re missing Celebrity Big Brother? (I knew there was a reason we chose to spend so long at sea in a tiny red boat with no TV!)
Day 3 on The Good Ship Explore (to be read in the BB accent obviously!)

Well the sun is shining and life on the ocean wave is good. Conditions today aren’t too bad. The wind could be in a better direction but I guess you can’t have everything. The sea is fairly ‘lumpy’  for want of a better phrase… I’m sat in our living room writing this blog and have just heard Mel swearing at the sea as a big wave decided to crash all over her! What she doesn’t realise is that the sea can be bribed.. I complement it daily just to keep it on my side!

One of our oars broke during the night so we’ve fixed that today along with a few other bits and bobs. I’m off to cook lunch in a minute then its back on the oars for me for another 4 hours solid.

I had a strange experience during the night… Let me tell you about it but promise not to mention it to Mel as she’ll think I’m a nut-job and chuck me overboard! I swear to God at about 4am we rowed past a village! I could make out some really specific shapes in the clouds… There were buildings, cars, caravans and people on the beach. My dog was even there barking at me! I knew it was all in my imagination but at the time it all seemed so spookily real! I’m not sure if I was just so exhausted that I was actually asleep and rowing at the same time or whether I’d started hallucinating! For once I can’t even blame it on wine!

Until next time…
Nut Job Annie x

Hello everyone from the Atlantic at long last!  We’ve survived our first day at sea!

After some emotional farewells to the rest of the fleet race start was quite surreal.  We’d obviously been waiting for it for so long, and when it finally came it didn’t feel real.  There was a great atmosphere while we were all waiting for the countdown, lots of banter between the crews which is brilliant fun – and which will continue while we are at sea via our satellite phones.  The flag was lowered and we were off, we had a good start towards the front and immediately headed away from the island and the tides.  It felt amazing to be off after so many delays and straight away we got into a rhythm, all those hours training on the Bristol docks obviously paid off!  Within an hour the fleet was totally scattered, some choosing to stay inland and others out with us, I knew we would all separate fairly quickly but I was amazed at quite how quickly it happened, considering there are 30 boats in the race.  After an hour or so we saw some dolphins which was the icing on the cake, we jokingly said if everyday was like that we’d be laughing!

And as so often happens at sea things changed against us very quickly once night fell.  There hadn’t been much breeze but it suddenly got up to at least a force 5 from the West, not good when we were trying to head South West.  It was creating a fairly big sea, also from the West, with some large breakers.  A few of these caught us and soaked us to the skin while we desperately tried to battle on South, we were making painfully slow progress and being pushed East the whole time, was a very good lesson in the fact that you can’t control the weather though!  We battled on all night but at dawn when things hadn’t improved we decided to put the para anchor out and have a bit of a rest.  Almost as soon as we did that the wind changed again though and moved to the North, so we were back out there, the wind had died a bit and we had a following sea so conditions were good, boat speed was over 5 knots when surfing.

And things have continued to die down all day, there’s very little wind now and the sea has calmed down, it’s easier in some ways but I’d rather have more wind in the right direction.  It has given us a chance to get into life on the boat though, we had lots of housework to do after soaking so much of our kit and we’ve already broken one of our footstraps which we’ve had to fix.  Annie also cooked an amazing lunch of chicken and vegetable pasta!  I feel a bit tired as I haven’t slept yet and my back and hands hurt, but all that’s to be expected and we just have to work through it.  We’ve set ourselves a bit of a grueling watch system too, both of us will row 16 hours a day each rather than the usual 12, this is to get us as far down South as quickly as possible to avoid any more weather systems heading this way.

Well I’m off to get some rest before going back to the blades, will blog again v soon

Mel x

P.S. We have been clipped on at all times, those of you who made us swear we would!

I can’t believe I finally get to say this but…. we’re off!!

We will be leaving La Gomera at 1.30pm on Monday 4th January.  Although we have a clear weather window, there is a low coming in that will probably provide us with some pretty nasty storm conditions early in our second week. It’s difficult to say how badly we’ll be affected at this stage but we’ve been advised to give it some wellie and boot it south as quickly as possible so as to minimise our exposure to it. (‘Booting it’ is something that Mel and I are rather good at these days, following a rather scary close encounter with an enormous ferry last week! Ten blasts of his horn told us exactly what he thought of us being in his way! Oops!)

The race delay of a month has left us pretty frustrated it has to be said and we are now just itching to get out there. We’re both a little apprehensive but I guess it would be weird if we weren’t. Explore and her crew are as ready as we’ll ever be I think. It’s going to be a very steep learning curve for both of us  – more so for me as I don’t possess Mel’s wealth of sea knowledge and experience… but I’ll get there! (Jason – you’ll be pleased to hear that I can now tie a damned fine bowline knot so fast that it makes that poor little wabbit’s head spin!!)

I think the rest of the fleet are also pretty much ready to go too. There’s a few people still messing around with last minute boat adjustments but on the whole, the fleet is calm and looking forward to a great race. We’ve been warned that due to the poor weather conditions, this year’s crossing may be quite a slow one which is not good news for anyone with a record in their sights. Never mind. We’ll give it our best shot and sock it to ‘em good and proper regardless!

I’ve spent the afternoon saying a final batch of emotional goodbyes (again!) on the phone. I don’t think people back home will really believe we’re actually going to do this until we’re well and truly gone! La Gomera will miss us I’m quite sure… We have been somewhat of a novelty attraction for quite some time now and one thing’s for sure… beer sales at The Blue Marlin are going to plummet dramatically although I doubt the owner (Manuel, as he likes to call himself!) will be too upset… He’s probably made enough money in the last month to take the rest of 2010 off!)

On that note, I’m off out for my last supper on terra ferma. I’m thinking steak!

Our next blog will be sent direct from the ocean waves!

Annie x

Just a quickie little blogette from Annie… Guess what? Race start has been delayed AGAIN!! It’s still due to crappy weather. Our new potential start date is the 2nd or 3rd Jan but even that isn’t definite.We’ve been reliably informed that New Year’s Eve in La Gomera is pretty wicked so we’re not all that gutted truth be known! And we’ve managed to get some essential work done to Explore that we’re very happy with. We’ll also have some time to take her out and give her a thorough trial and maybe even get  some night rowing experience under our belt, but I guess that all depends upon what the wind decides to do…. conditions may well be too rough. Once again it’s a waiting game. *sigh*!
Mel and I flew back on Boxing Day. Mel’s on fine form and, all things considered, her spirits are remarkably high which is lovely to see.
I must confess I’m slightly nervous of all this atrocious weather. It’s apparently never been this bad before. I just hope it’s not illustrative of the conditions we can expect during the actual race. If you’re of religious inclination, please say a prayer. Alternatively, cross your fingers and wish upon every star you see!
Hope everyone back home is still enjoying the snow!
Annie x