It only seems apt that an update on our last circa 4 weeks at sea comes after we have just celebrated my birthday and we are in a new year! What a difference 365 days can make as I reflect that this time last year I was wearing a “I am 40” birthday sash for my radiotherapy treatment and my long suffering friend “Donna” made me a peppermint tea and a hot water bottle which I cradled on the sofa feeling absolutely awful as the daily sessions were really giving me a battering. Yet, here I am with Abby and Charlotte in the middle of the Atlantic on a 23 foot ocean rowing boat and I was actually trying to decide whether my body felt worse now versus last year.
So, let’s keep it present and start with how the day started and finished today as aptly it was the same – me on my solo shift getting soaked by waves coming beam on under the glow of Mrs Moon and me periodically shouting “really? It is my birthday”!!! The girls sang me happy birthday in the morning and I opened presents from friends which had been told they could only be light and small 🙂 no cake was eaten and funnily enough, the girls had not offered up any time off the oars so all in a all, it was as if any other day. We got a visit from the Suntiki boat in the afternoon, which prompted us to put clothes on and put all the clothes away that were airing on the guardrails as Dolly does look like a floating laundrette most days. We were all so giddy to see the boat, in the distance with the wind seeker up that we felt we were being visited by pirates (we had been listening to treasure island on audible). Seeing other life (and human) was a real boost, with Travis calling up on the VHF after they had departed to sing Happy Birthday. In the evening, we donned our Hawaiian shirts as is the case every Friday and glitter and glow sticks for the birthday celebration. Whilst the pics on insta no doubt show us smiling and chilled, due to the punchy 15-20 knots of wind, getting ready was quite precarious and involved getting dunked by the cheeky sea and prompted us to put our splash jackets on pretty asap post pics. And so, the night drew to a close and I finished on my solo night shift, getting soaked and reflecting on the fact that I was aching, tired and a little fed up (much like last year) and in fact, this was also a birthday I would never forget!
Anyway, enough about that, let’s get back to the business of rowing in general and the last 4 weeks. Now, when you speak to people who have rowed the Atlantic, the one thing they all say is how amazing it is.
What they don’t tell you….. it is really hard work – unrelenting! Now, most of you are sat reading this thinking “duh, of course it’s going to be hard”, but it really is a slog. As a 3, we row 2 hours on and then have one hour off, with a 4 hour sleep at night where each of us has to row for 2 hours on our own. During that hour off, we have to find time to wash clothes, cook and eat, sleep, personal hygiene and occasionally try and send some content back to the masses – the latter involves holding a very heavy brick type thing up to the sky and finding a satellite which once you’ve connected, you need to keep said heavy brick raised until you’ve sent everything you need to!
Four seasons in one day. There are essentially 4 types of weather aboard our good ship: 1) ridiculously and oppressively hot (32-35 degrees and no shade and when really unlucky, no wind, 2) cold and/wet – At the start of the row, I would emerge for the evening shifts with my woolly hat on and ALL the layers – compared to the girls, it looked like I was off to the Antartic, 3) damp – not technically a type of weather but it’s damp in the air, damp in the cabins, damp clothes and you wake up not sure if you’re sweating or just sticky from the damp! 4) finally – the perfect weather – sun shining, periodic cloud cover and winds pushing you In the right direction – this is the unicorn! One thing that people also don’t mention is that given you are rowing one way (from east to west), the sun is very much on your right hand side of your body pretty much all day, This has meant our right thighs have become so brown they could be mistaken for a KFC chicken drumstick and has also required us to fashion something we have called the “thigh curtain”. This thigh curtain will no doubt be available as part of our merch in a fashionable tie-dye post row but is currently made up using either a pair of shorts, a piece of quick dry towel or what we affectionately call a bum rag (more on this later). Due to some random shin beatings from the oars and sun, it also prompted me to cut up a pair of lulu lemon leggings and use the lower part as legwarmers to shield the shins from the sun and then at night with shorts to keep them warm!
Let me entertain you: let’s face it, Rowing continuously can be pretty boring. any repetitive series of events can sometimes feel like Groundhog Day, so we have found ways to entertain us and more importantly, milestones to celebrate. We have collectively listened to hours of Spotify playlists, sometimes having them on Russian roulette (also known as shuffle) which ends up seeing Lizzo being played followed by some classical. We have listened to audible books collectively – murder mysteries and topical ones such as A Christmas Carol and Treasure Island, and both Abby and Charlotte are working their way through the Harry Potter series (just not my thing)! We have also listened to podcasts – also about murders (true crime ones) which prompts us to shout “no, don’t get in the car” – as a fair number of them start with someone seemingly getting into a car with a relative stranger. We have fun, “no pants” Fridays, which means Hawaiian shirts and games – usually beat the intro and my personal favourite “don’t show Keith your teeth”. Shapes in the clouds is also fun, with the most seen being elephants, witches on broomsticks and dogs. As we have satellite phones, we’ve also taken to calling up some of the other teams for a chat, and have played two truths and a lie with the Bubbleheads who were taking the game quite seriously.
The milestones we had set for the row were quite literally, the first night, the first 10 days, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, my birthday, halfway there, 1000 miles to go… Christmas was a fun day, in fact, it was a fun week lead up to it, with us listening to A Christmas Carol chapter everyday and Christmas number ones and carols. Christmas Eve saw us decorate the boat with tinsel and on the day itself, we had a BBC breakfast interview and then opened presents, ate pineapple lumps (Abby’s favourite kiwi snack) and spoke to loved ones before it quickly became another day rowing. New Year’s eve saw us offering up our gratitude and wish for the new year to Neptune with a bottle of champers and us singing our boat tune “Rockstar” as it hit midnight as a replacement to Auld Lang Syne!
So, the row is challenging and there have been some scary moments for me (some that still scare me): in no particular order 1) rowing at night with big waves, particularly when one hits you beam on at 7 knots and you think the boat will capsize, 2) the flying fish when they land on the deck at night and then spend the next 5 mins flapping about the place depositing their scales while (usually) Irv screams and tries to get it off the boat with a boat hook (it doesn’t work!), 3) getting into the water to clean Dolly’s bum – every shadow I think is a shark!
Things that are magical: rowing in the pitch black whilst singing 80’s power ballads at the top of your lungs (think Pat Benetar and Living on a Prayer), screaming anything at the top of your lungs into the abyss and have no one else be able to hear it, the sunsets and sunrises, the volume of stars in the night sky, the moon – we have seen a full moon to no moon and she’s back as a crescent and literally acts like a spotlight on the boat during your nighttime row, the solitude of being surrounded by nothing but sea, the aches and pains that remind you how your body is working to move a ton of boat across the water, the huge two storey waves that roll on infinitely.
Ailly Ailly Ailments (sang in the tune of Lady Gaga’s Alejandro)….. 1) spotty bums 2) callous hands and blisters – I started the wave of callous trimming with the scalpel – very sensible in choppy waves on a boat, 3) every part of your body will hurt at some point or another (ibuprofen is almost a daily vitamin for us 4) prickly heat, 5) sea sickness – a classic shift was one Charlotte and I were on and I would be sick in the bucket, and then the sound would make her vomit – we literally passed the bucket back and forth between rowing!
Wildlife: we have been so lucky with what we’ve seen on the ocean…. Dolphins dancing at night, a massive pod swimming and playing around us during the day, looping round the boat… we have seen turtles swimming gaily along on their backs with not a care in the world and while we thought we’d seen it all with 2 Finn whales swimming round dolly, we had around 50+ swim and surf the waves, go under the boat and swim alongside us – curious as to who was on this boat playing Dreams by Fleetwood Mac!
So, with all that, if we go back to those first 10 days – they were brutal! We spent the first 36 hours rowing 2 hours on and 1 hour off which broke us and we spent the majority of that time thinking, are we really doing this? Next time we get off this boat will be in Antigua… Then came the tears – it was as if the ocean eked out all the tears we could possibly have. Why are we doing this? I can’t believe this is it for 50 days, when will we start having fun (Abby’s favourite question)
As the last few weeks are ahead, talk turns to what we’re going to do when we’re back home – think watch Netflix on the sofa with a cuppa, showers, eat pizza, salad, a Diet Coke, potter along high streets (if our calves are still intact)…….
So, for now, we continue to reflect on the past 4 weeks, the future and I can’t help but wonder what challenge is next whilst remaining present in the moment….
