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| Daily Routine |
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| Written by Lin & Rachel at sea | |
| Tuesday, 08 January 2008 | |
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Following our previous blog in which we offered to answer your questions, here is a detailed description of a day onboard Barbara Ivy so you can get a feel for what we get up to all day and night.
Night time shifts usually start around 8pm. We will have just finished our tea and one of us will start the 2 hour session, prepared with head torch for when it gets dark so we can see the compass (GPS on deck gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago now) If it’s a nice clear night with loads of stars, we’ll find some to use to keep us on the right bearing so we don’t have to keep looking down. The rowing session will be broken up with drink and stretch stops during the 2 hours. The other one of us will try to get some sleep in the cabin. We have a sleeping bag liner each and a sleeping bag between us and two self inflating roll mats. If it’s particularly rough, we find ourselves sliding from one side of the cabin to the other. Supposedly to help us get up in time, we have a little alarm clock but the hour hand isn’t set right so in the middle of the night we both struggle to get the times right and are occasionally relying on the rower to give a 10 minute heads up that change over is due if the light hasn’t gone on by then – bearing in mind the rower will have been counting down the minutes to get back into the cosy sleeping bag! The sleeper then wakes up and puts on numerous layers as it gets pretty chilly at night - this includes a waterproof jacket and harness.There’s usually a quick loo stop due to the cold air! Keeping our centre of gravity low, we clamber one either side of the boat to opposite ends and swap places.These shifts go on until around 10am as the sun doesn’t actually show it’s face until then – we’re working on GMT still and we’ve probably gone through a few time zones by now. The daytime shifts are pretty similar with the only difference being we sleep a lot less and get some admin type things done as follows:-Around 8am we check the GPS for our position and write it in the book, then plot it on the chart. We also tell the other one how far we’ve gone since the previous day – this can be a real moral booster after a tough night. Around 10am we plug in the flexi solar panel to get best use of the rising sun – we don’t leave it plugged in as it tends to drain the batteries. We also check the battery voltage hoping for something in the region of 12.7v or more as this means we can make water. From 12 noon to 1pm we have to switch on the satellite phone as part of the race rules. This is so that race HQ, support boats and other teams know when they can contact each other. This is also when we will get our first flurry of messages for the day so we also spend that time writing them in the book and reading them out to each other. Around 12 noon if the batteries have enough energy and the sun is shining we will make water for drinking and if we’re really lucky, for washing etc. Around 2pm we will stop for lunch. One of us will sit in the rowing seat steering the boat, while the other will sit on the luggable loo (doubles as a great seat) and make up the meals – basically boil up the kettle and pour the water in the bags, mix and eat. We also fill up our water bottles. Around 3pm we’ll write the blog and or diary for the day.Around 5pm we get our position from the GPS again and record that in the book. Around 6pm we unplug the flexi solar panel as the sun is now going down and we check the batteries again to see how much power they have for running equipment during the night. Around 7pm we stop for tea. This may sound like we don’t eat much but we do snack during the day and night.And there we are back into the night time sessions. Another question that Kim in San Franciso wanted to know was ‘What has been the toughest part so far?’ We always said that getting to the start line was the toughest thing to overcome and it was, as it took over 3 years of hard slog to get us there. However, the toughest part of the actual challenge has to be over New Year when we had such awful weather. It’s difficult to explain how it was so tough as when you think about each element of what was happening, it’s not all that bad, but it was relentless and really did get us both to breaking point. Basically the waves were huge and breaking over the boat all the time, every item of clothing we had was constantly soaked and covered in salt, we couldn’t get anything dry. The wind was so strong that we had a constant fight on our hands to keep the boat going in the right direction. We were exhausted and had numerous aches and pains adding to the stress and we didn’t know when it was going to ease up. We also had constant cloud cover which meant we couldn’t make water. We were also missing home, our partners, Paul & Charles and Lin’s son, Liam. Add this little lot up and you can see how it can get you down. A couple of things really helped us to snap out of the lows though. Messages from people thanking us for doing what we’re doing to help others, the fact that there is no alternative – once you are out of sight of land, there is no turning back so if you want to stop, you have to be rescued and sink your boat, and a niggling little voice in Lin’s head from someone who said she wouldn’t do it (watch me)! We have a few messages to send ourselves now: Best wishes to all our sponsors and supporters who will be at the London Boat Show this week. We know you have a tough week ahead too. Liam, we just found some teddy bear pretzels in our food bag, thank you so much for vacuum packing those for us. Dr George, we believe if we win the bet of getting a laptop across the ocean still working, you will owe us a nice meal out – not McDonalds! Christina at BCC – thank you for the news about Arsenal covering our challenge again – that’s brilliant. Do you know if they ran the same story or updated it with our progress? If they want some photos of us at sea, you may be able to get hold of some from Amanda at Woodvale as the support boats are taking them when they visit.Perhaps we could organize a visit with the boat to the training ground to meet the players and get another story in following the challenge – what do you think? Thank you so much for all the birthday messages yesterday – we got so many we had to keep writing for ages to stop the inbox getting full up. Emma & Jason Goodwin, great to hear from you in Oz. We’ll certainly keep in mind the bird identification if we see any others. Not sure our ability to describe them will be up to much though! Debra S – We have indeed been more resourceful than we thought possible, check out our new navigation light cover (photo in gallery), fashioned from the bottom of an empty squash bottle after Neptune took the other one from my pocket! That’s all for now folks, back again soon. Love & hugs, Lin & Rachel |
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| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 January 2008 ) |