Our homecoming was a fantastic experience with surprises at the airport, a podcast on the Breast Cancer Care website and numerous celebrations with family and friends... and there's still more to come throughout the year.

As well as showing off our sun-bleached hair and impressive tans, it has been great catching up with everyone, but it does seem like the Atlantic and our love/hate relationship with the iwnd and waves is now a very distant memory. Often we both stop and think 'was it really us?' and 'did we actually do it?'. Thankfully though, the pain and discomfort is also fading from memory, allowing the positives' to take precedence.

Adjusting back to our old lives is proving a little tricky. To begin with, we had to get used to the cold (Antigua is so nice this time of year!), and crowds of people plus lots of noise proved quite overwhelming for a while. We've both found ourselves driving a lot slower - our average speed for 11 weeks was just 1.7 knots, so 70mph still seems really fast. It's probably a blessing in disguise though, as fuel is nearly 20p a litre more expensive now than when we left the UK last November! That was a shock to the system!

There's no question that we're struggling to concentrate at the moment and feeling quite unsettled - but that's probably only to be expected after such an experience. Both of us left our jobs last November with major restructures going on and neither knew quite how things would have turned out by the time we came back, which has only added to the unsettled feelings.

Plenty of poeple have expressed surprise that we have both gone straight back to work, and we frequently hear the question 'how has the experience changed you?'. But the harsh reality is that we both have bills to pay just like everyone else and at the moment we don't quite know how the challenge has changed us. It's likely to take some time to actually work this out, along with how any change will impact on our characters and outlook.

We also get asked if we did break the British Women's record. Sadly the answer is no, we missed it by just 24 hours. But while we were at sea there was for a time, the chance that we would get to Antigua before our families. When we looked at the bigger picture, it was far more important to us to have our families there to welcome us in, than taking any record. We agreed there and then, that we would rather slow ouselves down with the sea anchor than get there before them - although luckily it didn't come to this.

However, the facts and figure sof the crossing are as follows: We completed the race in 76 days, 11 hours and 12 minutes, winning the women's pairs class. We were the 43rd and 44th women to ever row any ocean and we stepped off the boat together, holding hands, as best friends - just as we'd planned to.

But we're also still having lots of fun with the challenge. We'll be working for Breast Cancer Care for some time yet, promoting their work and fundraising for them - so keep encouraging everyone to make a donation! Consequently we've got a number of fundraising events to plan and attend right through the summer months. Events will all be advertised on the website so keep watching - you might get chance to come along and meet us and Barbara Ivy.

Amongst other media interest, we've been interviewed and photographed for a feature in the Daily Express (10 April) and kicked off our public speaking careers with a presentation to 200 managers from Croydon Council. It was daunting to stand up there (we'd rather face a 30 foot wave any day!), but also very exciting and the feedback that we got from the managers was just incredible. Our story clearly has the power to motivate and inspire people and it's fantastic to be able to share it over and over again.

We've got lots more booking building up in the diary and if you are interested in hearing about the challenge, then please get in touch. All fees currently go towards the challenge, so it's a great way to hear the story first hand and contribute towards the fundraising target. For corporate conferences, we're also happy to gear the theme to meet the aims of your meeting or seminar, and stay around for a while to answer questions, adding extra value to the day for you.

Breast Cancer Care has nominated us for 'Britains most inspiring fundraisers', an award made by Everyclick.com in memory of the wonderfully inspriring Jane Tomlinson and supported by The Sun newspaper. It's a great honour to be nominated, especially by the Charity that we're fundraising for!

As for the amazing Barbara Ivy - she's now for sale. We last saw her still on the water in English Harbour, Antigua, but she is due back into the UK soon (we hope) and will then move to Salop Leisure where she'll live for the next few months. We would dearly love to keep her after she looked after us so well for so long, but she has more crossings left in her for some lucky Ocean Rowers and it would be wrong to keep her away from the Ocean tha she loves. The sale will also generate even more funds for Breast Cancer Care and settle up the final few costs of the project that are outstanding.

So that's all our news for now - we will continue to post messages on the website from time to time and will also send out newsletters when we have important stuff to tell you all. We'll also let you know when the final project report is available for viewing.

Which just leaves us to say thank you for all your support - both in donations and helping us make it across the Ocean. We couldn't have done it without you and you should all be very proud of yourselves.

Love & hugs, Rachel and Lin.