Cairns we’re a coming
11:30am on Tuesday morning the 4 of us jumped into Doris and headed off into the Pacific. The general question of the morning it seemed was ‘meg how are you feeling?’ – a difficult question when there’s a hundred different emotions running through my head! All in all though excitement was the answer I gave along with expressing how lucky I feel to have been given this opportunity to join the girls!
Having had a rowing lesson from Ems 2 days prior to our departure and then commencing the third leg of our journey on the oars with Ems was a bit surreal, all good though and between the four of us and the help of currents we managed to get up to 3 knots!
As I write this I am lying in the aft cabin writing each sentence between bouts of nausea – Still no physical sea sickness though which is brilliant! I’m learning so much about Doris and the way she moves through the swell, but also how the girls run like clockwork with their routines – it’s awesome and I can’t think of better people to travel in Doris with!
My first night shift on Doris was pretty much the same as daytime but in complete darkness, not even a moon! At 11pm, 30 minutes before me and Ems were due to get onto the oars, we heard Laura telling us to phone Tony and find two boats on our AIS as they had appeared out of nowhere with no lights and men were in the water by the oars with snorkels on. They told us that they were fishermen, and just fishing, Tony backed this up that this is quite possible as we were in really shallow water between two islands. So off we rowed and never saw them again – what we do know though is that LP can grab a flare within 30 seconds!
Update: woohoo we travelled 50 miles yesterday, and have also now lost sight of shore! Trade winds we are a fan of you!