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| No Rest For The Wicked! |
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| Written by Lin & Rachel at sea | |
| Thursday, 07 February 2008 | |
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In our desperate bid to stay as close to 17 Degrees North as possible, we found the elements didn’t want to play ball and sent us 15 miles too far South. So yesterday and last night we found ourselves having to grit our teeth and row so hard to claw it all back. As usual, this meant going sideways onto the waves which in turn means getting soaked all the time.
I’m sure some of you will be thinking “Well what did you expect in the middle of the Atlantic?” and you’d be right to think that. However, the consequences of constantly getting soaked with sea water is a bit like this:- Imagine sitting on a load of that lovely sea salt that we all buy because it’s a bit posher than the regular salt!!! Now wriggle around on it for 2 hours, have 2 hours rest then repeat that 24 hours a days. Guess what? You won’t have a great deal of skin left on your bottom and it will be extremely sore. Believe us, it does bring tears to your eyes! To try to ease the enormous discomfort this brings, in our breaks we clean the salt away, add yet more Sudacreme and try to dry off the clothes we were wearing in the last session. We’ve now even taken to wearing our carrier bags around our waist to try to stop the salt water getting on our shorts and acting as a kind of spray deck that you would use in kayaking. This is working pretty well so far but some of the waves are so huge, nothing will stop them getting you. In the past 24 hours, we have managed to claw back all of the ground we lost when we drifted a couple of nights ago, but that meant rowing through the night again and being up against very high wind and huge waves. Thankfully the wind and waves are at last going in the right direction – well West anyway – so hopefully you’ll see us making faster progress again. That is until Neptune decides he’s bored with letting us go the right way again!!! Last night we encountered another ship – this one called Ice Fern with a very nice gentleman who sounded Russian on the radio. He couldn’t see us on his radar so sent someone out to see if they could see us visually. He changed course slightly after checking if we needed anything – who knows what he was thinking when he saw our little pink boat bobbing around in the huge waves!!! Whatever it was, he’s probably right…. We marked reaching 400 nautical miles with a difference last night. This time we celebrated with a mini Baileys each and Rachel opened the gift from Hilary which was a really nice make up set. Need to make sure we look our best when we get into English Harbour. Messages:- Thank you to Gordon & Dave and Mum & Wallace for reminding us that we missed pancake day. Gutted!!! Tallie, we think you got us confused with Cath & Margaret on Atlantic Jack – we haven’t had to take on a re-supply thankfully. Yachtpals.com – thank you for forwarding messages from Antigua Yacht Club and Aleida from ABSAR. Aleida it would be great to meet up when we arrive along with Caroline from ABSAR – perhaps we could all meet at the Antigua Yacht Club if they don’t mind accommodating us and our family for a few drinks. Antigua Yacht Club – we nearly contacted you recently to see if you could help us find some accommodation but a friend has managed to sort that out now. Perhaps we could come to the club with our family for a few drinks and meet up with the people from ABSAR and members of Yachtpals.com who have been supporting us throughout the race. Lin’s Mum – no outboard we promise, just pure girl power all the way! Thank you for all your messages, they really are helping us both keep going. And the thought of roast dinners – need to go to Nicky’s for that I think! To Paul Airey, the data team & Sam Jones, thank you for your messages, it’s great to know there’s support back in the office. Love and Hugs to you all from Lin & Rachel |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 07 February 2008 ) |