Annie and Mel Atlantic Crossing: Blog 10
Tuesday 2nd February 2010. What a difference a day makes! This time yesterday I was reaching the end of my tether about being on the para anchor, although our spirits remained fairly highly it was unbelievably frustrating. Today I’m happy as can be and can think of nothing better than rowing for 12 hours in a lumpy sea with very little wind making the boat feel heavy, unable to make a fast course directly for Antigua!! I really don’t care, we’re going SW, that’s good enough, we’re making progress again at long last!
This feeling of euphoria is so strong I even enjoyed my freeze dried supper last night – must be wearing off now though as breakfast wasn’t so good… I looked forward to each of my night watches, despite the lumpy sea, and realised I’d really missed them on anchor, think that’s what I will miss most at the end of all this.
I rowed purely by starlight on one watch, saw the moon rise on the next one, a deep orange to start with, then fading to a pale yellow. I really didn’t mind that I was rained on more last night than on the whole of the journey so far – it was only drizzle and I just kept thinking, we’re moving, we’re moving, we’re back in the rhythm, eating up the miles. Even one of those watches where I fall off my seat every 15 minutes would have been hard pushed to dampen my spirits.
But that’s the thing about being out at sea, you have to go through the lows to appreciate the highs, and the highs are quite simply around us all the time, but we sometimes need reminding they’re here.
Mel x
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Monday 1st February
Annie: Getting back on track
Well, like the rest of the world, we are heading back to work this Monday morning…
HAllelujah! Hallelujah! Hall…el…u…jah!!!
After 5 days on the para anchor it feels brilliant to be rowing again and to be able to actually make some progress towards Antigua for once! The worst of the low has passed us now and we’re just left dealing with the tail end of it… a bit of swell and some moderate winds – but nothing too serious.
It will be interesting to see how our bodies cope with getting back on the oars. After 5 days, everything seems to have softened somewhat so it will no doubt be a bit of a shock going straight back to a minimum of 12 hours exercise a day! (All those pain barriers will have to be broken through AGAIN. Groan!)
Our hands aren’t quite so much of a problem anymore as some serious delving to the depths of our first aid kit came up trumps – we discovered some marvelous anti inflamatory pills that work a treat. Happy pills indeed! (We just need to find a similar cure for bottom ache and we’re sorted!)
In the grand scheme of things I don’t think Explore fared too badly on anchor. I know that some of the other crews literally went backwards for a good few miles which must have been frustrating beyond belief! We’ll know more once we get our next update but we’re hoping that we’ve managed to at least maintain our position. It would be fantastic if we’d managed to gain a few miles but I suspect that might be wishful thinking!
Even after this little setback, we’re still smiling… Happy, if a little fatter!
Annie x
27th January
Well here we are sat on the para anchor again! we had a lovely day yesterday, progress was a bit slow, but was still progress, and a momentous happening occurred – I washed my hair for the first time since race start! Annie washed hers too and we felt amazing, not sure we really looked it but with no mirrors on board who cares! What little wind there had been died in the evening making progress very slow but the scenery was stunning, sea was like grey silk and the moon the brightest it has been, I could see it reflecting of fish swimming alongside.
We both had a couple of quiet watches and then when I came on at 4am the wind was beginning to fill back in from the South. I tried to get the autopilot to cope with it, bit difficult on my own to row from the bow position and mess around with the autopilot at the stroke position! I spent a fruitless 2 hours trying to make some SW ish progress and went steadily NW instead. When Annie came on watch she rowed while I tried again with the autopilot – to no avail whatsoever – the wind was coming from exactly where we were heading and although only 10 – 15 knots that’s enough to stop us.
The autopilot couldn’t cope so we tried foot steering, hand steering, Annie rowing with one blade only and me coxing by trying to look at the GPS and stars and nothing worked – after another 5 hours of determined effort on our part Explore wasn’t having it, she simply wouldn’t go S, she would only go N or NW if we fought her, so sadly it was time to put the para anchor out again. We are both very proud of the fact that not once during this 5 hour extremely frustrating battle was a cross word exchanged – team work! We knew this weather (a huge low) was on the way so it wasn’t a surprise, we had been advised to go S to try and avoid it, we had tried to put as much s as possible in our course over the last few days, but it was hard work and after several concerted efforts we decided to stop fighting conditions and head W. It looks like the whole fleet has been affected anyway so I don’t think it would have gained us too much – but we won’t know until the low passes and we’re all on our way again. THe wind is going to be SW until Fri and then move more N, we will definitely have a go at bashing on as soon as it goes N, even if we can go straight S – we are moving at 0.8 knots on the para anchor so we need to make those miles back! I think because our boat is so light compared to some of the others that we are far more prone to drifting on anchor – but we still wouldn’t swap her for the world! The low won’t totally pass until Tuesday though so we’ve got a few days to stick it out – but as long as the whole fleet is in the same position we’re not too worried. We will eat, sleep, relax, try and mend sore hands and feet and be ready to fly out of the blocks as soon as we can make some progress. But what do you do for 5 days on a 25 ft boat with less living space than a double bed?!!
Annie’s tidied up the deck and been topping up her tan, vaguely comfortable leaning against the liferaft and only getting marginally wet, I’ve been keeping track of our competitors, we’ve eaten loads already, we’ve exhausted the only trivia game on board so will have to come up with another use for it and tonight we’re having a rave! My sister gave us some presents for emergency situations and we thought 5 days on anchor warranted opening one – and it was some glo sticks – yippee! Thanks H, they’re fantastic, going to be cutting some shapes with them later! Anyway, I’m off to eat again, more updates from Explore, the now cruise liner, tmrw Mel x
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