Reflections at 999m to go

Well we reached the big milestone of 999 miles to go. Unfortunately we had a storm of our own brewing on board and didn’t celebrate as we had planned. Our compass light had packed up in our first week, and we had come out with no spare batteries! We had been using a head torch since, and last night that too decided it had had enough of lighting our way for us. So in the “discussion” of what our options to continue were there was no jiggy, shimmy wham dance move or a high five even to celebrate. We sat in silence eating our last luxury lindt chocolate to mark the occasion.
Like all storms though it passed. The silence gave us the time to reflect, on entering our eighth week what we had achieved so far, and what was remaining to concur. It also made me think how the ocean reflected the campaign overall. On a good day each aspect of our venture reflects in the ocean.

The current, being very much behind the scene, working away quietly to support us, the foundation of our whole efforts – without which we would have gone nowhere is Jamie Hopkin from Mapeley – our sponsor. Without Jamie’s support our venture would still be nothing more than a mere idea in our minds. THANK YOU JAMIE.

The rolling waves – which are solid, and supportive, carrying us as close to the stars as they can before safely bringing us back down to prepare for the next challenge (or wave) is our close friends and family, who continue to support our dreams and efforts tirelessly.

The wind – is all our “fans”. All of you that send endless messages of encouragement and support, pushing us along in achieving our dreams. Without which we would still have a much further journey to travel.

The wildlife, dolphins, whales, rainbows, bright stars and the shinning moon – which keep our spirits high, boosts our morale when it dares to drop, reminds us of why we are here in the first place – these are all the children that we know. Our own nieces and nephews and all the children that we care for, who forever will make you want to chase that dream.

I won’t start making comparison with the elements on a bad day (squalls, rogue waves that hit us beam on, southerly winds) or I’ll get into trouble like I usually do, but feel free to have a guess ?

A Mum of one of our metabolic patients said in a recent message to us “ It must be so frustrating to be reliant on the elements and nature. I guess that ties in nicely with what you are doing. The money you raise will go towards making important changes to peoples' lives and NOT allowing nature to take its unfortunate course with some of the children with metabolic conditions.”

So with a new boost of energy for the new week ahead we’ll aim to do just that, stop the elements from pushing us off course, and distracting us from everyone’s dream.