Another hard slog at the rowing . . . . NOT. . . . we have not rowed since 03.00 because we are surfing fast enough, it is now 13.00 and we have already done 21 miles. We only have to do 36miles a day to make sure we arrive after our families and friends in Antigua on Sunday. I remember the days we rowed like mad women and only ever managed 19 miles!!! Well Elin has had a good hair wash and creamed up her spots while I have had a much needed snooze. We will be raring to go once on land!!!
Elin is sitting here wondering how many Valentine cards she has waiting for her at home(and who she would like them off), I haven't the heart to tell her it is dreams we are making come true not miracles. Nothing much else too report other than Happy Valentines to all, enjoy those chocolates.
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Thursday, 14 February 2008
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Making the most of the last few days at sea
Well having been out at sea 10+ weeks we thought we’d seen pretty muchall wave action there was, but last night we were taken by surprise. Herdip had been out on the oars, and was keen to swap after being knocked by a few express trains. I was busily trying to clean up the rice pudding from the footwell (our shared night snack) as I’d managed to spill it when hit unexpectedly by those waves. (Don’t tell Herdip but I was actually trying to scoop her share back into the pack!). Moments after I stepped out, I was stood in the gully adjusting my PVC tog when unexpectedly from no where I was hit by an almighty wave, beam on. Thank fully Dream Maker stood her ground well, but I was DRENCHED and stood, nearly knee high in water. I had to bilge pump three bucket loads of water out just to see my feet again. But despite all the sloshing noise, wind and roaring waves I could still hear Sister Sidhu laughing her head off in the cabin! It has to be said it was very funny . . . .
I’m afraid that we do have a confession to make though (you better sit down for this one Jamie!). We’re not actually rowing as hard as we should be any more! No I can assure you it’s not because we’ve given up . . . . let me explain . . .
After the bitter disappointment of missing one set of friends in Antigua having calculated our ETA sooo wrongly, when it came to doing the maths second time around we based them on the conservative average of 30 – 35 nautical miles a day. Calculations over, flights booked – job done! The very next day we started doing 40+nm a day, which has continued since! And so at this rate we would be at the airport welcoming our friends and family in rather than have them at Nelson’s dock yard welcoming us . . . . so as a result we’re taking it easy! We sleep for two shifts at night, we rest in the oppressive heat of the midday sun and we don’t row in squalls! But still we manage to row 40+nm a day … what is going on?!
We’re preparing for few days sat on anchor . . . . .
I’m afraid that we do have a confession to make though (you better sit down for this one Jamie!). We’re not actually rowing as hard as we should be any more! No I can assure you it’s not because we’ve given up . . . . let me explain . . .
After the bitter disappointment of missing one set of friends in Antigua having calculated our ETA sooo wrongly, when it came to doing the maths second time around we based them on the conservative average of 30 – 35 nautical miles a day. Calculations over, flights booked – job done! The very next day we started doing 40+nm a day, which has continued since! And so at this rate we would be at the airport welcoming our friends and family in rather than have them at Nelson’s dock yard welcoming us . . . . so as a result we’re taking it easy! We sleep for two shifts at night, we rest in the oppressive heat of the midday sun and we don’t row in squalls! But still we manage to row 40+nm a day … what is going on?!
We’re preparing for few days sat on anchor . . . . .
Monday, 11 February 2008
Allergic to land?
Well here we are – the start of our 10th week on the Atlantic, and still not a 100% sure when the referee is going to call full time on this game, but we are certainly well into injury time now.
A busy and eventful weekend was had. A good influx of emails, messages and phone calls, so thank you all for that.
Karen & Duncan (people not ducks) flew over our heads back to the UK after a lovely holiday in Antigua (thanks for rubbing it in guys!) and they didn’t even drop us a chocolate supply from the air! Can’t wait to see you though guys.
A merchant navy ship passed us in the early hours of the morning, on the way from Trinidad to Spain. The Captain was very excited about our venture and was on the radio for ages asking endless questions. I couldn’t bring myself round to asking him to be quiet because he was well and truly disturbing my precious sleep time, but when he explained that they were travelling at 18 knots (compared to our 1.5!) I did kind of go off him!! He then explained that they all spend 3 months at sea with 2 months off, to which I replied “Well we will have been at sea nearly 3 months - and when we eventually get to Antigua we plan to take 10 years off!”
Ocean Summit boys phoned us yesterday to share the delight of their landing. Well done boys, we are very pleased for you!!. It gave us a bit of a boost to push on. We’ve also been getting messages of support from No Fear, gquma, Pura Vida and The Reason Why, which already make us feel like we’ve made new firm friends, and are now in a very special “club”.
And today, finally, on day 71 Herdip decided to dip her feet in the big blue. After much build up she finally went over board. Not wanting to over do it on the first time she didn’t put her head under water or get one strand of her hair wet, but she was visited by a beautiful flying fish. Neil Shah – I’m afraid that since she didn’t’ let go of he side it still doesn’t prove or disprove your theory that Indians can’t swim! Her dip in the sea did mean that she has now doubled the number of times she’s had a wash this month.
And lastly having not sneezed once for months, the last 48 hours we’ve noticed that both of us have been sneezing regularly. Now we’re sure it’s not a cold, so can only imagine that its signs of an allergy to land as we get closer …
Happy Birthday today to Lindsey, hope Mickey (the mouse) gave you everything you dreamt of.
Pen Blwydd Hapus yn 6 oed hefyd i Non Wyn, edrych ymlaen i dy weld di.
A busy and eventful weekend was had. A good influx of emails, messages and phone calls, so thank you all for that.
Karen & Duncan (people not ducks) flew over our heads back to the UK after a lovely holiday in Antigua (thanks for rubbing it in guys!) and they didn’t even drop us a chocolate supply from the air! Can’t wait to see you though guys.
A merchant navy ship passed us in the early hours of the morning, on the way from Trinidad to Spain. The Captain was very excited about our venture and was on the radio for ages asking endless questions. I couldn’t bring myself round to asking him to be quiet because he was well and truly disturbing my precious sleep time, but when he explained that they were travelling at 18 knots (compared to our 1.5!) I did kind of go off him!! He then explained that they all spend 3 months at sea with 2 months off, to which I replied “Well we will have been at sea nearly 3 months - and when we eventually get to Antigua we plan to take 10 years off!”
Ocean Summit boys phoned us yesterday to share the delight of their landing. Well done boys, we are very pleased for you!!. It gave us a bit of a boost to push on. We’ve also been getting messages of support from No Fear, gquma, Pura Vida and The Reason Why, which already make us feel like we’ve made new firm friends, and are now in a very special “club”.
And today, finally, on day 71 Herdip decided to dip her feet in the big blue. After much build up she finally went over board. Not wanting to over do it on the first time she didn’t put her head under water or get one strand of her hair wet, but she was visited by a beautiful flying fish. Neil Shah – I’m afraid that since she didn’t’ let go of he side it still doesn’t prove or disprove your theory that Indians can’t swim! Her dip in the sea did mean that she has now doubled the number of times she’s had a wash this month.
And lastly having not sneezed once for months, the last 48 hours we’ve noticed that both of us have been sneezing regularly. Now we’re sure it’s not a cold, so can only imagine that its signs of an allergy to land as we get closer …
Happy Birthday today to Lindsey, hope Mickey (the mouse) gave you everything you dreamt of.
Pen Blwydd Hapus yn 6 oed hefyd i Non Wyn, edrych ymlaen i dy weld di.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Questions to ponder
This time I’m not going to be modest …and just shout HOORAY! My boys won again! Da iawn fechgyn! Thank you Cole & Jameson reporters for such fab commentary! Luckily Herdip didn’t fall of her seat this time. Grand Slam dreams very much alive!
So our days continue, as we battle nearer towards land! 318 nm to go, we are now aiming to land late on the 17th …so fingers crossed!
Yesterday we had a casualty! Herdip snapped one of our spoon come forks in half! We considered duck tapping it back together, but thought it was a job too much for duck tape even. So now we just share the one precious spoon come fork we have left which puts much more pressure on the “licking clean” ritual! This is even more high pressure now that we have only 118 baby wipes between us left, equating roughly to six wipe each a day – so clearly not to be wasted on anything other than essential business!
For those wizards at search engines out there, and with nothing better to do on a February weekend, there are a couple of topics that we have been pondering over, and we’d love to know the answers!
Firstly, our nail beds have turned luminous white, especially on our right hands … any idea why??
Secondly, what (if any) is the difference between the hair follicles’ on your head compared to the rest of your body?! If there is no difference – why has the hair on our legs now (finally!) stopped growing?
Oh the mind of an ocean rower!!
p.s HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY SIMMY
So our days continue, as we battle nearer towards land! 318 nm to go, we are now aiming to land late on the 17th …so fingers crossed!
Yesterday we had a casualty! Herdip snapped one of our spoon come forks in half! We considered duck tapping it back together, but thought it was a job too much for duck tape even. So now we just share the one precious spoon come fork we have left which puts much more pressure on the “licking clean” ritual! This is even more high pressure now that we have only 118 baby wipes between us left, equating roughly to six wipe each a day – so clearly not to be wasted on anything other than essential business!
For those wizards at search engines out there, and with nothing better to do on a February weekend, there are a couple of topics that we have been pondering over, and we’d love to know the answers!
Firstly, our nail beds have turned luminous white, especially on our right hands … any idea why??
Secondly, what (if any) is the difference between the hair follicles’ on your head compared to the rest of your body?! If there is no difference – why has the hair on our legs now (finally!) stopped growing?
Oh the mind of an ocean rower!!
p.s HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY SIMMY
Friday, 8 February 2008
A sponsor who's not afraid to get his hands dirty for the cause!
Well we have fantastic news to report today! (Well we actually found out a few days ago, but it’s taken till now for the news to sink in). Thanks to Jamie & Mapeley’s efforts we have a further £25,000 added to our fundraising campaign! Jamie had been busy cleaning windows at Euston tower in support of our effort and the response he received was beyond expectations. If we’d have known, we could have skipped the ocean rowing effort, and just cleaned windows ………ONCE AGAIN THANK YO SO MUCH JAMIE!
We’ve literally been blown away by the news! And now find ourselves travelling over 2 nm an hour with the help of ENE winds, Antigua is just getting that little bit closer once more! One out of every five wave catches us beam on, but hey, we’re not complaining. What’s a drenching now & again! We’ve given up on dry clothes mostly by now anyway. We rank our clothes on the following scale
1 = soaking
2 = very wet
3 = wet
4 = damp
5 = cold to touch, possibly damp.
Anything 3 and above is a bonus to wear. We now just need to develop a scale for salt encrusted clothing, might just do that over the weekend!
Night times are different however, as we have the most amazing outfit! Our PVCs! No joking! BLACK PVC on the outside, and a lovely warm fleece lining. For bottom part, we have “pre-bent shorts” which has low cut waist especially, unfortunately they were designed for men, so we do have excessive unwanted material at the front, but still they are cosy on those cold dark nights. And of course a matching top, Herdip went for the long sleeve look, while I have the short sleeved number. So at the end of her last shift in the day, Herdip steps into the cabin, and for the first shift of the night …..out steps CATWOMAN! It looks as close to a leather jumpsuit as you could get! I just hope it comes with some special powers to get us there quicker ...…
We’ve literally been blown away by the news! And now find ourselves travelling over 2 nm an hour with the help of ENE winds, Antigua is just getting that little bit closer once more! One out of every five wave catches us beam on, but hey, we’re not complaining. What’s a drenching now & again! We’ve given up on dry clothes mostly by now anyway. We rank our clothes on the following scale
1 = soaking
2 = very wet
3 = wet
4 = damp
5 = cold to touch, possibly damp.
Anything 3 and above is a bonus to wear. We now just need to develop a scale for salt encrusted clothing, might just do that over the weekend!
Night times are different however, as we have the most amazing outfit! Our PVCs! No joking! BLACK PVC on the outside, and a lovely warm fleece lining. For bottom part, we have “pre-bent shorts” which has low cut waist especially, unfortunately they were designed for men, so we do have excessive unwanted material at the front, but still they are cosy on those cold dark nights. And of course a matching top, Herdip went for the long sleeve look, while I have the short sleeved number. So at the end of her last shift in the day, Herdip steps into the cabin, and for the first shift of the night …..out steps CATWOMAN! It looks as close to a leather jumpsuit as you could get! I just hope it comes with some special powers to get us there quicker ...…
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
The secret is out! - well done dips.
Last night was spent salivating as to what topping we would have had on our pancake if we were at home! We then discussed what we would abstain from over Lent. Being Sikh means that Herdip doesn’t really need to consider it but she was very happy to come up with suggestions for me. Out of my four favourite things in life, coffee, chocolate, champagne and … oh…three I meant three favourite things in life, we tried to consider which one I should give up. But then I thought to myself, I’ve actually been without all three (four) for close on nine weeks now already, so I’m not planning to abstain from any of them for any more!
Instead I’ve decided to give up rowing . . . .
Now being in a 24 foot rowing boat means that there’s NO chance of privacy. Secrets go right out the window. I’ve tried to sneak a few in, secrets that is, but “pop” out they come! Unless you're Herdip by the looks of it! Not only has she managed to hide an Options sachets (which we ran out of on our THIRD WEEK!), today she even popped out a Haribo Supermix bag. (HOORAY! It had 11 Ginger men!). Such was my surprise and delight I’ve not thought of questioning her of how many other little “secrets” she has stored, but at least now I know why she’s been so keen to push me overboard to clean the hull, it’s to give her time to raid the treats supplies! As long as she keeps making them appear now and again, and continues to share I’m more than happy!
For all the other secrets we’ve made the obligatory pact “What goes on tour, stays on tour”!
The rest of the day we’ve been very busy rewiring our broken charging plug (well 12 volt socket to be precise). Now, no jokes about how many nurses does it take to change a light bulb please! When sleep deprived, wind swept and panic setting in that we would be without sat phone, laptop (our lifeline) or ipods for the reminder of the “trip” it was a high pressured job! With three pin options and only two wires there were many combinations for us to work our way around. It didn’thelp that neither of us could remember what colour the live wire should be!
Well we are blonde & dippy remember! But finally, hey presto another challenge overcome and our sat phone is now charging beautifully! Phew!
Herdip – get back on the oars, I’m abstaining for Lent remember!
P.S Now that the Coppers have landed (Mission Atlantic) we can give it some welly, we were just too scared of being done for speeding before!! Well done boys!
Instead I’ve decided to give up rowing . . . .
Now being in a 24 foot rowing boat means that there’s NO chance of privacy. Secrets go right out the window. I’ve tried to sneak a few in, secrets that is, but “pop” out they come! Unless you're Herdip by the looks of it! Not only has she managed to hide an Options sachets (which we ran out of on our THIRD WEEK!), today she even popped out a Haribo Supermix bag. (HOORAY! It had 11 Ginger men!). Such was my surprise and delight I’ve not thought of questioning her of how many other little “secrets” she has stored, but at least now I know why she’s been so keen to push me overboard to clean the hull, it’s to give her time to raid the treats supplies! As long as she keeps making them appear now and again, and continues to share I’m more than happy!
For all the other secrets we’ve made the obligatory pact “What goes on tour, stays on tour”!
The rest of the day we’ve been very busy rewiring our broken charging plug (well 12 volt socket to be precise). Now, no jokes about how many nurses does it take to change a light bulb please! When sleep deprived, wind swept and panic setting in that we would be without sat phone, laptop (our lifeline) or ipods for the reminder of the “trip” it was a high pressured job! With three pin options and only two wires there were many combinations for us to work our way around. It didn’thelp that neither of us could remember what colour the live wire should be!
Well we are blonde & dippy remember! But finally, hey presto another challenge overcome and our sat phone is now charging beautifully! Phew!
Herdip – get back on the oars, I’m abstaining for Lent remember!
P.S Now that the Coppers have landed (Mission Atlantic) we can give it some welly, we were just too scared of being done for speeding before!! Well done boys!
Tuesday, 5 February 2008
Uncomfortably close . . . . (to each other and surrounding vessels)
Last night was quite nice because we actually got to row and the bonus being we were moving in the right direction! It was a relief not to have to spend another night in the cabin with two of us in there. I'm sure I poked my toes in Elin's nostrils a few times that night, didn't dare inspect my toes in the morning!!! The other problem with sharing the cabin is that your body tends to seize up really quickly, so you get backache, your hands cramp up too, which is not particularly pleasant. Hopefully we won't have to do it again, fingers crossed.
Tomorrow (6th), is going to be an emotional day for Elin for personal reasons, we had anticipated to be on land by now but unfortunately we are not, however I have the matter in hand . . . . . I had hidden a packet of ginger haribo men for her to cheer her up so shhh don't tell her till tomorrow. The other night she was fixated on chocolate and we promised we would not have our chocolate treat ( by the way this is chocolate from the grab bag , as you know our supplies finished quite a while ago) till we had reached the 500 mile mark. I don't know how she restrained herself, it must have been torture, because it took us hours to get to the 500 mark. I did however cave in to her demands by giving her a hot chocolate drink I had stashed away for such emergencies!!!
We have also had a lot of traffic at night from one cargo ship to another, it’s a bit like the M1 down here, must be getting near land. By the way my fantastic idea of using the LED light from the bow cabin works like a dream :-)
Tomorrow (6th), is going to be an emotional day for Elin for personal reasons, we had anticipated to be on land by now but unfortunately we are not, however I have the matter in hand . . . . . I had hidden a packet of ginger haribo men for her to cheer her up so shhh don't tell her till tomorrow. The other night she was fixated on chocolate and we promised we would not have our chocolate treat ( by the way this is chocolate from the grab bag , as you know our supplies finished quite a while ago) till we had reached the 500 mile mark. I don't know how she restrained herself, it must have been torture, because it took us hours to get to the 500 mark. I did however cave in to her demands by giving her a hot chocolate drink I had stashed away for such emergencies!!!
We have also had a lot of traffic at night from one cargo ship to another, it’s a bit like the M1 down here, must be getting near land. By the way my fantastic idea of using the LED light from the bow cabin works like a dream :-)
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