Leg 3, Day 17 – the towel dilemma

Emma Mitchell By
If this row has taught me anything it is to appreciate the small things. There are many uncomfortable things about living on a 29ft ocean rowing boat in the middle of the Pacific with three other people and a lot of salty ocean waves, but the worst thing in my opinion is the state of my towel.
Never again will I take for granted a soft fluffy towel when I step out of my fresh water shower at home. Now it’s bad enough that for 9 months I will have had to dry myself with a travel towel. Despite being quick drying and lightweight and perfect for the odd expedition or holiday they are no real substitute for a proper towel. But even worse out here my towel always seems to be wet, whether it’s from drying myself every time we come off the oars after being splashed, drying after a shower or from sweating in the cabin. At the moment the problem is particularly bad due to the conditions and the heat and the saddest thing about getting in to the warm cabin after a cold night shift is trying to dry myself with a towel wetter than my wet weather gear. In my eyes there are not many things worse than a soggy towel so often I take mine out with me on to the oars, peg it to the grab line in the sunshine and hope for some drying action.
Now I don’t know what it is about my towel in particular, but it seems to be like a red rag to a bull. Every time I hang it up waves come splashing over Doris and it gets soaked in salty water – it’s another of Doris’ laws. I can hang anything else up and it only gets splashed as much as anyone else’s clothes but my towel is a different story.
Now, once the first splash occurs there is a dilemma. Should I leave the towel hanging up in the hope that the splash dries, or should I bring it in before it gets any worse? Needless to say I always opt to keep the faith and leave it out. Almost every time, just as I am thinking that it is definitely drier than before and considering bringing it in, another wave will come along and the dilemma will begin again. Now it’s sometimes hard to keep your sense of humour when the waves are soaking your towel once again.
Yesterday in the pre-sunset shift Megs and I were in this position. We decided that our towels couldn’t get any wetter after two hours in the sweat box cabin so we hung them out. The sun almost instantly went behind the clouds and the splashing began. The sense of humour thought about failing but we kept the faith and left the towels hanging. We had a chill out playlist on the radio but a change of mood was required so we cracked out a cheesy playlist and began to sing. Surely, we thought, with all this wind the towels are sure to at least be drier than before by the end of our shift. Our two hours ended and we returned to the cabin. The towels were still soaking. Another night with a wet towel. Oh well there is always tomorrow…. This morning dawned and it was another sunny day so out came the towels again. Distracted by good tunes on our iPods we didn’t see the big wave coming until it hit us. Then there was an incident which resulted in Meg’s sleeping sheet and sarong coming unpegged from the grab rail and one end of each ending up in the sea. “I don’t want to dry stuff with you any more” she said. Oh dear maybe next time I should keep the towel inside.

 

UPDATE: We are still experiencing some big weather out here on the Pacific. With the boisterous trade winds up to 24 kts the waves are the size of four story houses and we have to take care not to end up beam on to them. However the crashing waves are mesmerising and turn the most beautiful shade of turquoise and sparkle in the sun. The big bright moon has been lighting our way at night and Megs and I have been sharing our life stories so the time passes quickly. We are less than 400nm from Vanuatu and are managing to hold a better course in the wind and waves today. The salt sores are multiplying by the day so the talc and sudocreme are having to work harder than ever.

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Leg 3, Day 13 – The route to Cairns

Emma Mitchell By

Day 13 – The route to Cairns

Tony had promised us that this leg would be faster than the last and so far he appears to have been right. With the prevailing winds between Samoa and Cairns being from the south east and the prevailing current taking us west it seems like we are finally getting a little helping hand from the ocean and the elements. For this part of the journey I am leading on navigation and so I thought I’d share with you what we having coming up on our way into Australia.

From Samoa we passed between the two islands and then headed off towards Fiji. We are currently passing North of the Fiji Islands although we are approximately 35nm away from them so since our sighting of Thikombia Island a small, sparsely populated island to the north of Fiji we haven’t seen any more land. Strangely we also haven’t spotted any other boats yet and the only sign we are close to an island is the leaves floating past us in the water. While passing Fiji we have also crossed the international date line. This means that since leaving San Francisco we have gone from north to south and now west to east on our chart plotter. Since Samoa put themselves on the Australia side of the date line we had already lost our day but it will be giving Tony an extra thing to think about when he calculates our daily miles made good. Once we have passed Fiji our next waypoint is Vanuatu where we will be passing between the islands south of Port Villa. We should be close enough to spot land again then too and at that point will be approximately halfway through this leg of the journey. From Vanuatu we row due west towards Cairns. As we approach Cairns we will be rowing over the Great Barrier Reef which we hope means that we will see some incredible wildlife but it also means that we will need to hold an accurate course to pass through the channel in the reef into Cairns Marina.

One of the things we have put in place for this leg is to put more waypoints into our chart plotter. This gives us achievable milestones to aim for and helps us chunk the remaining miles and when we reach each waypoint then Meg is in charge of ensuring that we reward ourselves. Our rewards to date this leg include fruit pots and watching a film on the laptop in one of our rest shifts. We are still owed a reward of hot chocolate and Baileys while watching the stars but we are waiting for a calm and clear night for this as its just not the same when your hot chocolate comes with a salty sea wave. We have a little over 60nm to go until our next waypoint and need a reward. Any creative ideas please let us know.

UPDATE: Last night was one of the roughest nights yet – I even had to get out my salopettes for the first time since leg one. We are all pretty crusty and our salt sores are coming back. Fortunately the moon was out lighting up the waves and before sunrise as the moon set, the sky was full of bright stars. LP and I watched a pink and orange sunrise as the wind died down and the sun is now shining and Doris looks like a Chinese laundry as we all try to dry our wet things.

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Leg 3, Day 9 – A Special Message

Emma Mitchell By

Day 9 – A special message

‘Do what you can, with what you have, where you are’. Theodore Roosevelt

Leg two of our journey was a tough one for me and our stopover in Samoa was a much needed chance for me to take some time to reflect on the journey so far and the challenges which we have overcome and get some rest and time away from Doris. At the end of the last leg I thought that I would struggle to get back into the boat for this final straight having lost my happy place at the oars and found it hard to enjoy the last few weeks. However I have never liked an unfinished job and always try to do what I have set out to complete so of course I am back on Doris. There is excitement that this is the final leg of the journey and it is strange to think that next time we touch land in Australia this challenging, exhausting, special, exciting and incredibly unique part of our lives will be over. But I still haven’t found my happy place back on the oars and I am still having to work hard to stay in the moment and not let the negative thoughts take over. The other day though I received one of the most beautiful emails I have ever received from someone who has been an inspiration to me since I started rowing over 14 years ago. Katherine Grainger, a hugely successful GB rower, and ordinary person who has achieved extraordinary things wrote to me about her experiences of missing home and the little things which are the really important ones whilst on training camp, and her struggle to rekindle her enthusiasm for rowing after the Beijing Olympics where she won a silver medal with her team in the quad scull. It was such a long and personal email filled with advice and words of wisdom which she summarised as:

– when you can, appreciate the moments
– know that life will be here waiting for you when you are finished on your amazing adventure, so don’t wish this once in a lifetime experience away too quickly
– try to let hope be the constant song in your soul
– keep getting back up
– do what you can
– know that you are accomplishing great things in life, more than the vast majority will even dream about
– and even if you are hating every moment, by going through it you can rightly live the rest of your life as a champion

Her advice for climbing out of a hole was “And at times like that there is no easy answer. It’s just one day at a time, and sometimes one hour at a time. Until you gradually climb back out and up and start to see the view again. And it gets better. And then it gets great. And then the future becomes whatever you want it to be. And the view is exciting, while the memories can be cherished.” Fortunately time on Doris is made up of manageable 2 hour chunks and I am trying hard to take each shift as it comes and get through it in the most positive way possible.

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To receive such a message which all four of us have taken so much from was a very special moment. Katherine is such a great role model for so many people and epitomises our team values of strength, perseverance, integrity, resilience, inspiration and trust. This row has introduced us all to so many people that we would never have met in ordinary life and I would love one day to write such a beautiful message of inspiration and advice to someone who was struggling and needed to know that ‘to fully live life, to accept the challenges of every day and to set out to achieve great things, part of the deal is to struggle and have pain and know despair on some level.’
UPDATE: We have been back out at sea for over a week now and incredibly we are still making good progress, travelling in the right direction at a good speed. Two nights ago Nats and I were on the oars in the wind and rain, being soaked by the huge waves when we noticed a bird flying over Doris. He was obviously looking for a place to rest and recover and landed on my oar. We named him Oscar and he stayed there for a little while before a wave hit him and he flew off. Today the sun has come out and the wind has died down a bit so we have been able to dry some of our wet things and air out our cabin so spirits are high.

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Leg 3, Day 4 – At home on the waves

Emma Mitchell By

At home on the waves

As we left from Samoa I was on the oars with Meg. Until last week when I took her out for a very short and sweet lesson on Doris, Meg has never rowed before so she has well and truely been thrown in at the deep end over the last few days. She has got stuck right in though and is a natural on the oars (I’m going to turn all the girls into rowers by the time we get to Cairns whether they like it or not!) and I am reminded how special it is to build a friendship with someone in such unique and special surroundings. It has been a breath of fresh air to experience life on Doris through a new pair of eyes and to remember back to our first week rowing out of San Francisco when we didn’t have all our routines set and weren’t used to how Doris rolls with the waves. It is good to remember how far we have come already but also to remind ourselves to stay vigilant and safe on this final leg of the journey.

As you will be able to see on our Where’s Doris map we are moving in the right direction, at a good speed! Who knows how long it will last so we are enjoying it while we can and watching the miles tick by on our way to Australia. The sun is shining, the sky is filled with all types of clouds and the horizon stretches away in all directions leaving us back in our little bubble of ocean. The water is rolling around us, as blue and clear as ever, the light reflecting around us soothing and reflective. It feels like we have never been away from our floating home and that our time on land was nothing but a dream. I am sure this leg will hold some more challenges and surprises but also some magic before we step off Doris for the final time in Cairns and I am excited to see what happens.

As we have all said many times, Samoa and its people are beautiful and a thank you in a blog will never be enough to repay the kindness and generosity which we received there. A special thank you today goes to Mr Francis Craig and Mrs Mareta Craig who offered us the beautiful Riverside Guesthouse as our base for the week at no cost. It was so special to have all of us including Sarah and her crew under one roof and the perfect surroundings for some much needed recovery. If you ever find yourself in Samoa (which I recommend you do) then make sure you pay them a visit.

Graig family

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Leg 2, Day 95 – Samoa approaches!

Emma Mitchell By

We are now a mere 62nm from Samoa and it finally feels as though we might actually make it. Although the currents are still keeping us guessing we have had almost 24 hours of lighter winds and weaker currents which has meant a rise in spirits and good progress towards our destination. I am hugely looking forward to reaching dry land and getting the opportunity to rest and recover. In Hawaii this didn’t really happen as we were so busy getting everything done and when we got back onto the boat at the beginning of this leg I was already exhausted. The rowing in this leg has been both a physical and mental battle with almost every shift at the oars requiring a fight against the currents or wind and a lot of travelling slowly or in the wrong direction. Right now I am exhausted both physically and mentally and feel like I have nothing left to give. Over the last few weeks, rowing, which has been a part of my life for many years and which has so far been my happy place on board Doris has become unenjoyable and I have had to drag myself out of the cabin every two hours to get on the oars. Since I am the ‘rower’ of the boat this in itself has been an extra level of personal challenge. A little time away from Doris to reset and get ready for the final push for Samoa is sorely needed.

However as well as endless challenges, the doldrums has also thrown up many unforgettable sights and experiences on this stage of the journey. I could watch the skies for hours and not get bored of the endless variety of cloud formations and the fact that you can sometimes see three or four different weather conditions happening around you at once. Having a power shower under a rain storm is an experience I won’t forget in a hurry. The moody storm clouds in front of burning red sunsets and the glowing sunrises that turn the ocean around you into a sparkling watercolour make you feel like you’re in a dream and no matter how tough it gets, for me, rowing under a bright starry sky or a full moon never fails to lift my spirits. Not only have we also seen an incredible variety of wildlife but our proximity to their home while we are on Doris makes it feel like we have made friends with the ocean dwellers. Farewell doldrums, you are a unique and often magical place but we look forward to some following winds and favourable currents to help us on our way to Cairns.

UPDATE: Today conditions were favourable enough for us to take 45mins out of our rowing schedule and have a team social. We wanted to take a moment before we reach the chaos and distractions of land to celebrate what the four of us have achieved over the last 95 days and to celebrate Lizanne’s involvement in this before she leaves us to return to the real world. It got a little emotional! Together we have battled the erratic conditions of the doldrums, picked each other up through the tough times, laughed, joked and danced together and shared stories of our lives. We will miss the fresh, creative and happy presence of Lizanne when we set off again from Samoa. She is strong yet flexible and brings out the best in all of us. However in the same way that Izzy has been with us in spirit all of this leg, Lizanne will join her in the next.

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Leg 2, Day 90 – Breast Cancer Care

Emma Mitchell By

Leg 2, Day 90 – Breast Cancer Care

This leg of our journey has been a particularly tough one and today marks 30 days since our expected arrival date in Samoa and needless to say we are still not there. We have been incredibly inspired by the stories from women, both friends and strangers who have shared their Pacific with us and this has been particularly poignant coming from those supported by Breast Cancer Care. In the tough times it is the sharing of these stories which puts into perspective a few waves and adverse currents and reminds us why we have taken on this challenge. We want to support and make a difference to those women who are facing and overcoming adversity in their daily lives which they have not chosen to take on. All of us in the Coxless Crew and almost everyone we know has had their lives touched by Cancer. One in four women suffers from breast cancer and therefore the support that Breast Cancer Care provide touches the lives of a huge number of women and their friends and families. We wanted to be sure that we knew exactly where the money we raised for this charity was going and after learning more about the different services which they provide we decided as a team that we would like to contribute to the Younger Women Together program since as we are all young women this was close to our hearts.

Younger Women Together is for women aged 20-45 who have been diagnosed with primary breast cancer in the last three years. Although breast cancer is less common in younger women with around 5,600 diagnoses in women under 45 every year these women have different needs, worries and responsibilities to deal with. In particular issues surrounding fertility and the challenges of dealing with a young family alongside their diagnosis.

Younger Women Together run two day events which take place on a Friday and Saturday, with all food and accommodation provided free. They give the women who attend the chance to talk and share stories with others in the same position as themselves, away from the pressures of their everyday lives. A group of experts and specialists in the field are also in attendance and topics such as treatment, fertility, sex & intimacy, reconstruction, relationships (present or future), lymphoedema, healthy eating and exercise are all discussed with plenty of opportunities for questions to be answered. The events have been hugely successful and “every woman who joined us last year said they would recommend it, and many have made lasting friendships. The next Younger Women Together event is on 20 November in Bristol. For more information visit the Breast Cancer Care website at https://www.breastcancercare.org.uk/information-support/support-you/local-support/younger-women-together

If you would like to help us meet our fundraising target of £250k and make a difference to women facing and overcoming breast cancer and those women injured at war then please visit our Virgin Money Giving page to donate.

UPDATE: We have just passed the 200nm to go to Samoa mark! Woop woop! We are still battling with the ocean every stroke to try to hold course for Samoa and our date with a shower, a proper bed and some real food. Fernando came to join the party again yesterday and Nat and I considered what would happen if he was washed onto the deck in one of the huge waves crashing towards us…..

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Leg 2, Day 86 – Doris’ Law

Emma Mitchell By

Day 86 – Doris’ Laws

Out on the Pacific we find that life on board Doris is governed by a number of annoying but reliably true laws. The things that seem set to annoy you or make life difficult but you can’t help but laugh at how true they are. Inspired by Murphy’s Law here are Doris’ Laws.

– If you are struggling to hold a good course over ground for a whole session it will suddenly get much easier in the final 10 mins just in time for the next pair to have a good session.

– If you get excited about fast progress in the right direction be prepared for poor currents and adverse winds to turn up.

– If you write in a blog that we are going fast and in the right direction, by the time the blog is posted the wind and currents will have changed.

– If you turn on the camera to get some good footage of the big waves crashing over our heads the seas will calm down. When you turn the camera off because you aren’t getting any exciting footage it takes only 1 minute after returning to your rowing position before one or both rowers will receive an air dump.

– Regardless of the conditions, in the last 10 minutes of any session you will get splashed. We call this the 10 minute danger zone.

– On a hot day rain clouds will appear all around you but Doris will pass through the middle without a raindrop landing on her deck. On a cold day or at night a single rain cloud on the horizon will always head straight for the pink boat.

– If you plan a social, time to take video footage or sponsor photos as a team because conditions are good, by the time the planned hour approaches the wind will pick up, the waves will splash or the rain will come.

– She who likes the cold water least will get the most waves to the head (usually me!).

– The closer you get to your destination, the slower time will pass.

– If you wash something which you need to be dry by night time to wear on the oars then as soon as you hang it to dry on the grab rails either rain clouds will appear or the sea will get splashy.

– If at the end of a splashy shift you rinse yourself off with fresh water before entering the cabin a wave will catch you between your rowing position and the hatch.

UPDATE: We are still battling against strong south easterly winds and struggling to make any progress South. We are trying to slow our progress west as much as possible to prevent overshooting Samoa. Another soggy night has passed. The early night shifts aren’t so bad with the light of the moon allowing you to see the approaching waves but once the moon sets there is no warning as walls of water wipe out the deck with no warning. Last night both LP and myself got wiped off our seats by big deck washing waves and ended the shift feeling like we’d been playing a rugby match. With similar conditions in the forecast for the next 10 days it looks like our dry land dreams will have to wait a little longer. So near and yet so far! However we do have a new friend who has been following us for the last few days. A little dark fish with white lips and some flappy fins who we have called Harvey has been swimming alongside our oars.

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Leg 2, Day 82 – A day in the life of the aft cabin

Emma Mitchell By

Day 82 – A day in the life of the aft cabin

The aft cabin on Doris is the size of a small 2 man tent. For the last 82 days four of us have been sharing its space and kept all our belongings in it. It is where we spend 12 hours of every day and a lot happens inside. Here is a typical day in the aft cabin.

09.00: Emma enters the cabin for the first awake shift. Laura’s arm enters to grab her water bottle and the blue cloth to clean the solar panels. Laura enters the cabin. Both rowers change into dry pants and Emma fills in the logbook while Laura reads the numbers from the chart plotter. A quick video diary about their first morning shift follows before Ems retires to the nose of the cabin and gets out the iPad to send and receive emails and begin writing her blog.

09.20: Laura boils water in the jetboil and makes breakfast for her and Emma. This is gobbled down in seconds by the hungry rowers.

09.30: LP runs the water maker. A whirring, clicking noise ensues as fresh water trickles from the blue hose into the bottles lined up in the footwell. This job requires concentration and the occasional distressed sound is emitted as the hose fails to be transferred quickly enough and a bottle overflows to flood the footwell. Once finished the footwell is mopped dry with the conveniently placed sponge.

10.25: Ems finally gets the Iridium Go! to work and reads out emails people have sent to us as a team. This brings a big smile to the faces of both rowers. Individual emails are then read by each rower as they lie down and stretch out their legs.

10.50: “How do we only have 10 mins left” is heard followed by changing of kit, rifling in pockets and assembling of bags and water bottles to be sent out to the oars.

11.00: Ems and LP exit the cabin and are replaced by Nats and LV. Log book and video diary are completed. Nat checks the chart plotter again to see how many miles we have left to Samoa. This time it’s 396nm! Nat is sat by the hatch so she gets straight on with preparing main meals for the hungry pair. Special expedition foods are on the menu as a reward for passing the 400nm mark so Mediterranean vegetable pasta and spag bol are on the menu.

11.20: Both rowers sit side by side propped up against the overflowing personal kit pockets and eat their meals while having a good chin wag.

11.45: A shout from the oars of ‘turtle!’ brings Nat and LV to the aft cabin hatch where they both peer their heads out to try to see as the turtle passes quickly next to Doris. After the excitement they retire back inside. Nats needs to write some emails so she shuffles past LV into the nose of the boat with her towel ready to sit on. It’s a tight squeeze and involves a lot of wriggling.

12.25: LV rifles through her pocket to find a vest top. Obviously this is at the bottom and therefore involves emptying the whole contents of the pocket in an explosion all around her. It then takes 10mins to fit it all back in.

12.45: Nat stands up out of the port hatch with the Sony camera to catch some footage of the rowers in the sunshine.

13.30: Ems and LP are ready to eat. Noodles is on the menu for Ems and scrambled egg and potato for LP so a visit to the condiment hatch is required for sweet chilli and ketchup. This requires shuffling of the rowers away from the area, lifting up of one side of the cabin cushion and delving into the hatch with an arm feeling around for the right bottles.

14.20: A lot of giggling ensues from the aft cabin as Ems and LP practice their alphabet rap. A new party trick is almost learned!

15.05: Nats checks the chart plotter AGAIN to see how far away Samoa is…. 392nm now.

15.45: LV needs to wash some clothes. She wriggles past Nat to the front of the cabin, reaches out and opens the deck hatch closest to the door to remove the washing bucket. The bin and a couple of the water bottles are removed from the footwell and balanced on the cushions around her and the bucket set down. Clothes are washed with soap suds and then rinsed both in a minimal amount of water. A hunt ensues in the aft cabin by LV and Nats for any of our elusive pegs and the clothes are then passed out to LP on the oars to hang on the grab rails.

16.15: LV gets out her diary to write in it and Nats gets out her kindle to read. Both are asleep within 10mins.

18.35: A shout of ‘dolphins’ from Nats and LV on the oars sends LP out of the main hatch and Ems out of the round port hatch to take a look. Cameras are then grabbed and footage taken hanging out of each hatch.

19.15: Nats brushes her teeth out of the port hatch and LV out of the main hatch.

21.20: LP and Ems grab a quick meal of chicken and vegetable pasta before hitting the cushions for a snooze.

22.51: The alarm goes off, first gently and then getting more and more angry the longer it is ignored. LP sleepily turns it off then groans and lies back down. Ems tries to put her shorts, long sleeve top and buff on without sitting up or opening her eyes.

23.17: Time for Nats and LV to have some shepherds pie before bed.

00.51: The alarm gets angry again. Nats switches on the light to get ready. Pre row shift sudocreme application occurs. LV rocks gently by the footwell with her eyes closed until 00.59 when she collects her stuff to leave the cabin.

01.23: Ems is woken up by a head torch, visor and sunglasses falling from the autopilot shelf on to her as she sleeps. Ems resolves to tidy autopilot shelf in the morning. Ems forgets this by the time the alarm sounds.

02.51: Angry alarm. LP tries to put her vest top on. Gets stuck with her head through the arm hole. Tries again. Same problem. Lays out vest top in front of her with a sleepy frown of concentration. Orients item of clothing and body ready to don the top. Ends up inside out but head is through the right hole.

03.10: LV completes the log book in Spanish after a lesson in numbers from Nats on the oars. Sleepy video diary completed.

05.05: After a torrential rain storm on the oars LP and Ems enter the cabin one at a time and struggle out of sopping wet jackets and shorts. Copious quantities of talc are applied to bodies, cushions and sleeping sheets.

07.07: Nats and LV return to the cabin after a beautiful sunrise shift for a final snooze. A new day has begun on Doris.
UPDATE: Following on from Nats Doris tragedies blog it appears that Lizanne’s potential tragedy may in fact be a Doris crime. Yesterday it was discovered that LP was wearing LV’s green top not her own. She pleads ignorance to how this happened but now the mystery deepens. Where is LP’s green top? Surely she hasn’t lost another item to Neptune?!
We have passed the 400nm to Samoa mark – woohoo!!

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Leg 2, Day 78 – The Kon-Tiki expedition

Emma Mitchell By

Day 78 – The Kon-Tiki expedition

“But we did not really feel these enormous distances, for the horizon glided along with us unnoticed as we moved, and our own floating world remained always the same, a circle flung up to the vault of the sky, with the raft itself as centre, while the same stars rolled on over us night after night.”

I had mentioned to Laura on the oars a week or so ago how it doesn’t matter how hard we row or what direction we point ourselves we never get any closer to the horizon and our Pacific bubble merely contracts or expands around us with the changing weather and sea state. When I read the above quote in the Kon-Tiki Expedition, a book about a group of six men crossing the Pacific Ocean on a balsa wood raft, it brought home the similarities between their adventure and ours. Simon TY kindly gave Laura the book to read and she brought it with her on board Doris to share with the rest of us. The Kon-Tiki expedition aimed to prove Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that the Indians in ancient Peru had crossed the Pacific on their rafts and discovered and populated the Polynesian islands. In comparison to Doris their balsa wood raft with its bamboo cabin was basic but in the same way as Doris has become our home, the crew of the Kon-Tiki felt safe, protected and at home in their shaky cabin. Where we row, their raft effectively floated across the Pacific, mainly under sail, from Peru to the Polynesian island of Raroia in 97 days following the current and trade winds which ensured that they had not a single day where they travelled back towards America. Maybe we should try our journey again following their route and avoiding an El Niño year!

Although very different expeditions both our Pacific row and the Kon-Tiki’s Pacific crossing share similar important areas.

Routines: On both Doris and the Kon-Tiki each crew member has their own areas of responsibility and other ‘dirty’ jobs like steering and cooking are divided equally. On Doris we row for 2 hours and steer every other row shift whereas on the Kon-Tiki the men had one 2 hr daytime and one 2 hr nighttime shift at the steering oar. In rough conditions the men would have to work in pairs to control the steering oar in a manner more like our pairs on Doris. Routine is what gets us through the days when we are sleep deprived and exhausted from rowing and is vital for a successful expedition of this type. However we all also crave variety and try to introduce some with social time, sleeping in different cabins and mixing up our pairs.

Food: The menu on Doris is limited to our selection of freeze dried delights and the treats in our snack packs. The men on the Kon-Tiki had a supply of army rations but they also sourced a lot of their meals from the ocean itself. First thing in the morning the designated cook would collect all the flying fish that had landed on the boat overnight and fry them up for breakfast. We may have missed a trick on our way into Hawaii when we had about a hundred a night hitting us on the oars. They also ate mahi mahi, tunnies, squid and shark and plankton soup fresh from the ocean. We may have to sharpen up our fishing technique if we are out here for much longer but at least we know the ocean could keep us well fed.

Water: The crew of the Kon-Tiki found what we have been noticing, especially over the last few roastingly hot days, that you can drink as much plain water as you can fill your stomach with and still have your thirst unquenched. They would add 20-40% bitter salt water to their water ration and found that it helped. Fortunately we have our SOS rehydrate isotonic drink to refuel us and it is amazing how much better it makes us feel on a hot airless day. Fresh drinking water is essential for survival. We make our fresh water using our watermaker whereas on the Kon-Tiki they carried a large number of water containers and collected rain water.

Safety equipment: For any expedition safety is of vital importance and both our boat and the balsa wood raft had a plan in case of emergency. On board Doris our generous sponsors have kitted us out with the latest in safety equipment, from our Crew Saver life raft and life jackets to our McMurdo EPIRB and personal PLBs and AIS beacons and should we get into trouble we know that people would know where we were and be able to coordinate help. We also have our satellite phones, Iridium Go! and Yellowbrick tracker to allow us to communicate with the outside world and let them know where we are. On board the Kon-Tiki the men had a rubber dingy attached by a line to the raft. Considerably less high tech than our life raft but practical for what they could carry. For communication they had a wireless station with two of the men on board being experts in this field. They used the wireless daily to send reports and weather observations which were picked up by casual radio amateurs who passed on the messages. Although they successfully used this to communicate throughout their expedition it took constant work to maintain the wireless station in the spray and dew a foot above the water.

Wildlife: “The closer we came into contact with the sea and what had its home there, the less strange it became, and the more at home we ourselves felt.” When reading the book I was struck by how much of the writing was dedicated to the wildlife the men had seen. It reads a little like our blogs with excitement when a whale or shark was spotted, constant mentions of the mahi mahi and pilot fish and the happy feeling when spotting a frigate bird or boobie which means you are within 1000nm of land. One of the most special things about being aboard Doris is experiencing the wildlife so close up. We are so low to the water that we don’t look down on the whales as from a whale watching boat but see them swimming at a level towards our oars. The birds swoop centimetres over our head and rest on the ocean close enough to touch and the jumping fish land on us in the night. We may not have dragged any sharks on board by hand yet but we have had many magical wildlife encounters.

UPDATE: Today has been another hot hot hot day without a breath of wind to give us some relief. The aft cabin has reached 100 degrees and still feels like a cool respite from the burning sun. We have all developed some interesting techniques for dealing with the heat.

Nats: A fan of the sideways baseball cap to protect her face from the sun in a rude boy way reminiscent of Keenan and Kel.

Lizanne: A fan of a piece of blue tissue tucked under the nose of her sunglasses to absorb the sweat as it runs down her face.

Laura: A fan of wearing her long sleeve top as a shawl in a preppy manner.

Myself: A fan of wearing a long sleeved top which has stretched so big it could fit three of me in and looks like a dress.

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