News flash! We have had 24 whole hours of favourable conditions out here in the Pacific and have been averaging 2kts in a southerly direction. A star app on Nat’s phone had told us that there would be a meteor shower last night and so as a celebration of our change in fortunes we decided to have a midnight social and watch the skies. The last few nights have been cloudy with only brief glimpses of the stars through a haze of light cloud but last night was clear and cool with a steady north easterly breeze. Since running out of snack packs we have begun eating our second main meal of the day during the night and so LP woke early for changeover time and made us all shepherds pie. We sat together under the stars toasting to how we have pulled together as a team over the tough last few weeks and months. We saw a few really bright shooting stars and made our wishes but it was more of a meteor sprinkle than a shower.
The night still held a bit of excitement for us after our social. Later on as Nats and I prepared to exit the cabin we spotted a boat on our AIS. LP and Lizanne could see its lights and we saw on the AIS data that it was a fishing boat and would pass within a mile of us. We tried calling them on the radio but with no luck and we assume they were all working out on deck. We signalled with our torch and laser flare to make sure that they knew we were there and then watched as the boat, lit up with super bright lights to lure in the fish, passed behind our stern. We could hear it’s generator working at its closest point and we feared that our mahi mahi escort may be attracted to its glitz and glamour. Thankfully they stayed safely alongside Doris as we have enjoyed their company as they return to support us through the night. I think the southern hemishere mahi mahi may be a more intelligent breed than their northern hemisphere cousins as none of them have swum into my oar and given themselves a headache yet! Later in the same shift a squid landed on my seat and I had to remove him with our trusty bbq tongs.
This mornings excitement came in a different form. Our batteries have gained some charge so we each had the choice of a bottle of water to do some washing or 30 minutes of charging time for our iPods. Laura and Lizanne chose the former and Nat and I the later. It’s probably for the best that Nat and I are on shift together as it means we can smell together for a day or two longer.
We are still pushing as hard as we can in a southerly direction while conditions allow since as we know from our journey so far you never know how long anything will last! As Tony said this morning ‘fill your boots while the wind remains North of East’.
You may have noticed on our ‘where’s Doris’ map that we are travelling East and our countdown to Samoa is counting back up. It would seem that the ITCZ is not finished with us yet and we have spent a couple of days battling strong North westerly winds and a north easterly current. Along with our weather forecast yesterday Tony sent us the following instructions: a course over ground South is good, East is not great, North is bad and West is a disaster. The reason for this is that once we are out of the doldrums the prevailing trade winds should be south easterly which will push us west while we try to hold a southerly course. If we make too much ground west too soon then we run the risk of overshooting Samoa. While travelling East is in the wrong direction it will actually help us make use of the trade winds when we reach them.
Yesterday after spending a few shifts travelling in a bad/ not great direction at a fast speed in a strong wind we made the decision to deploy the para anchor for a couple of hours to hold our position against the wind. We all hate being on para anchor as it means our progress is halted or we are going the wrong way and it is frustrating just sitting tight and not rowing although it does usually mean a little bit of social time with the whole team. Yesterday we enjoyed a good singalong to Backstreet Boys to lift spirits. Since we have mentioned the para anchor in blogs a few times now so I thought I would give you an insight into exactly what it’s deployment involves.
1) The decision to deploy the para anchor is made. This is usually either because a strong wind is blowing us fast in an unfavourable direction or the sea state is too big for us to be rowing, usually because the course we need to take would involve us being side on to the waves.
2) The rowers on deck move into action stations. The back rower will open the wet weather hatch to remove the para anchor and its lines and begin the process of shackling them together. The front rower will stow the oars under the gunnel along with our spare oars. These then need to be tied down. All on deck activities are usually accompanied by a nice cooling salt water shower.
3) All loose items on deck need to be either tied down or placed into a hatch. If we are getting into big weather then this will already be done to prevent anything from being washed overboard and lost to the ocean.
4) The para anchor is deployed on the windward side of the boat. The para anchor itself is a parachute which is attached to the bows of the boat and dragged behind to hold Doris steady in the wind and also to hold her in a better position relative to the waves. The parachute is dropped over board and the main line and the retrieval line are payed out after it ensuring that the chute has opened. The retrieval line is attached to the middle of the chute so that it collapses it as it is pulled back in to the boat.
5) Once the para anchor is deployed it is time to make the forecabin habitable. If we are unable to row then two of us have to set up camp in each cabin until we are able to take to the oars again. Usually the fore cabin is home to our spare dagger board, the sheepskins we sit on plus all the fresh sheepskins in 2 duffle bags, 2 sleeping bags, our wet weather gear, spare life jacket, laptop with chargers, spare bucket and spare seat cushions. All the small loose items are removed and stuffed into any spare space in the hatches. As we get further through each leg and have eaten more of our food there is more space to use up in the hatches so more space in the cabin for us. All the bigger items are stuffed into the nose of the boat as tightly as possible but they usually fall down on to the sleeping rowers at some point during their time inside. The dagger board is lashed to the oars on deck.
6) Whilst this is going on outside the rowers in the aft cabin prepare a bag of supplies for whoevers turn it is to stay in the fore cabin. This usually includes a sleeping sheet, towel, dry clothes, head torch, snack pack, toothbrush and toothpaste, iPod and/ or iPad, kindle, water bottles and a surprise treat of a bar of chocolate to help survive fore cabin life.
UPDATE: Today is a sad sad day on Doris. This morning we got our final snack packs for this leg out of the hatches. Tonight will be our last night of snacking on the oars so we will savour every last piece of dried mango, every last cereal bar and every last Oreo. Tomorrow we embrace midnight chicken korma and beef curry breakfasts. Through the last 24 hours our direction has been very random. A few spells of bad/ disastrous direction has helped us to draw an artistic silhouette of a sitting dog on our chart plotter. I think it’s the best picture we’ve drawn to date.
This afternoon Nat and I were treated to story time on the oars when LP read out our blog comments and emails to the team from the last couple of days. It lifts our spirits so much to hear such supportive messages from everyone and was a highlight of the day.
Last night Nat and I saw a large shark in the glow of our nav light. He has been around to visit Doris again this afternoon meaning no chance of a refreshing dip to clean the barnacles off our our bows.
Yesterday we passed an impressive milestone. Doris has now covered over 5000 miles since our first outing in Christchurch almost two years ago. Adventures to the Isle of Wight, sea survival in Plymouth, a 24 hour row in Falmouth and plenty of training out of Christchurch made up the miles before we reached San Francisco. Since then she has experienced strong winds, torrential rain, burning sun and still clear night skies. She has seen whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles and many birds. She has been our home for 149 days, taken good care of us and we’ve had many laughs and jokes and a few tears on board. In the next day or two we will also pass the 5000 nautical miles since San Francisco and the 2000 nautical miles since we departed from Hawaii markers.
It is hard to imagine or explain exactly how far our journey actually is but one school have found a great way to experience it for themselves. During leg one I blogged about how inspired we were to hear about a sponsored swim happening at a swim school run by Meg’s Auntie Linda. They were swimming one length for each mile of our journey and before we had reached Hawaii they had already reached their virtual Samoa. A couple of days ago Wellesley House School where the swim school is based held a final sponsored swim to reach virtual Australia. With Meg there to support the school pulled together and after a four hour long sessions, at 7pm, they arrived in Australia. Many of the pupils swam double sessions and the top swimmer swam 140 lengths. The head teacher came and swam 100 lengths and those who didn’t swim counted lengths and were on drink duty. Having known the date of this challenge for a while we thought of the swimmers during our night shifts as they swam and knowing that they wouldn’t stop until they reached their Australia were inspired to push just that little bit harder despite the current and tiredness. It is humbling to think that we have inspired young people to challenge themselves and are grateful for their help in raising money for our charities.
We have an ambitious fundraising target to reach to provide support for our charities Breast Cancer Care and Walking With The Wounded and we need your help. Do you have any ideas for covering the 8446 miles of our journey (you could add on a few if you like to cover our unplanned visit to Santa Barbara) in a sponsored event? Could you help us to provide support to those suffering from breast cancer and their families? Could you help to support an injured servicewoman build a new future? Please get in touch at info@coxlesscrew.com and let us know your fundraising ideas. If you are a school and want to get involved in our schools project then email us at schools@coxlesscrew.com.
UPDATE: Last night saw an end to the clear skies and bright moonlit rowing shifts. With heavy cloud cover and a freezing cold two hour shower for LP and I the night was dark and cool. However without a breath of wind for much of the time the ocean rolled gently like silk around us and we continued to make progress South when not stuck in a squall of wind. As changeover time arrived and I was about to exit the cabin wearing my damp kit for another two hours on the oars Nats and LV hushed us and we could hear a pod of whales passing close by. In the darkness we couldn’t see them but we could hear blowing and a gentle whistling sound as they came up for air. It was another magical moment on the Pacific. Today we appear to have come across a northerly current so are back to making painfully slow progress. We wouldn’t want it to be too easy after all!
It is day 60 since we left Hawaii. Many of you might know that we had predicted that this leg of the journey would take us about 60 days and by that calculation we should be arriving into Samoa today. Sadly we are still around 900 miles away from Apia where we will make our next landfall and still trying to fight our way out of the doldrums. Naturally we have all been a little bit frustrated with our slow progress and cannot wait to get out of the westerly current and making haste towards our next stop.
Expecting that it would take us 60 days we packed our supplies accordingly along with an extra contingency of 6 days (10%) in case it took an extra few days. This means that we are beginning to run out of certain things. Although we have plenty of food on board to keep us well fed until the most negative prediction of our arrival because we packed in enough for two main meals per day and have only been eating one, we will be running out of breakfasts, deserts and snack packs in the next week. This means the sad day is imminent where we will be eating beef curry for breakfast. Fortunately all is not lost because yesterday in the midday heat I went into our front below deck hatch where our last remaining snack packs and some other treats were stashed. In there I discovered an extra chocolate supply we had forgotten about including a few packets of timtams, almond and peanut butters and some extra cereal bars and sweets. Bonus as it means we aren’t going to be totally deprived of treats from here to Samoa. From the snack packs I retrieved from the hatch I picked each of us as close to our perfect treats as I could find. Mine contained a chocolate chip cliff bar, a natures valley oats and honey bar, dried fruit containing mango, pineapple, apricots and cranberries, a large pack of Oreos, some chicken noodles, tuna, 2 starburst sweets and some fruit gummy snacks. It is funny how much food can change our mood on the boat. A good snack pack can keep you happy through the night when you have you favourite treat to keep you awake. Overcast or rainy days are ‘shepherds pie days’ where we eat this most stodgy and comforting of our freeze dried rations. On particularly hot and sunny days oriental chicken, probably the lightest meal is often the choice. In the aft cabin we have the condiment hatch (formerly the cinnamon hatch before we jettisoned the cinnamon in Hawaii) which contains ketchup, sweet chilli sauce and soy sauce to add flavour to our meals. I have been known to make a meal choice just because I fancied some sweet chilli sauce! This leg we didn’t put any chocolate into our snack packs as the heat means it would just melt. Having a separate chocolate stash means that it can be saved for a day when we feel the need for a little treat. Hot chocolate, chai lattes and peppermint tea are usually the choice at the end of a long cold night of torrential rain and wind.
More distressingly our toilet paper supplies are dwindling and we are down to our final roll. Fortunately we have a few extra packets of wet wipes but we are having to be sparing. Luckily we packed plenty of suncream as without that we would be frying in the burning equatorial sunshine and we have plenty of soap, aftersun and toothpaste left (not sure what that says about our cleanliness!) so at least this means we’ll be able to wash our hair before our arrival in Samoa.
UPDATE: We have all been a little despondent this week due to our slow progress and the fact that we aren’t close to Samoa yet so today Lizanne made us some pancakes with Nutella to cheer us up – yummy! Last night at sunset we saw a large pod of whales all around the boat. They looked like very large dolphins with stubby noses and we think they are sperm whales. Shortly after this we witnessed a fish frenzy. A large shoal of fish obviously being chased by something all jumping out of the water, splashing and looking like an explosion was happening under the water. Today we have had a shark swimming around the boat again as well as a large dark animal which we have yet to identify as it keeps disappearing before we can get a good look. Lizanne got hit by another flying fish last night while sat in the hatch of the aft cabin as we got ready for sleep and I got hit by one on the oars in the dark. They seem to be a new type now, darker with double wings which look like a butterflies.
Time is a funny thing. It can go really quickly if you are with someone you love or doing something you enjoy. It can go infinitely slowly if you’re in pain or doing something boring. It can feel slow at the time and then feel like it’s passed in a second and play tricks on your mind. You can fill it or you can waste it. You can never get it back once it’s gone so if you don’t seize the opportunity then it is lost forever. Time on Doris is like a roller coaster, sometimes crawling slowly uphill and other times picking up so much speed we loose track of whether we are up or down. In many ways it seems ludicrous that we have spent 139 days at sea on Doris since leaving San Francisco and that it has been 56 days since we departed from the Hawaii Yacht Club on this leg of the journey. Especially when you consider that we have only recently passed the halfway mark. The time has flown past and I can’t even remember what has filled it all. But in other ways it feels like we have been out here forever, our normal lives forgotten and replaced with a new normal where our job is to get out on the oars and row every 2 hours and spend our down time in a tiny cabin. San Francisco feels like another life ago, almost like it never happened and even our time in Hawaii feels like a dream.
The days on board Doris race past quickly living as we do in two hour chunks. With only three day shifts to row and a couple of awake shifts to do our daily admin, before you know it you are back to another night. Then you row and sleep through three night shifts and a new day begins before you have time to realise. I fear that readjustment to real life may be a challenge when we can’t take regular naps, have to make decisions and interact with people outside of the four of us. The days add up at frightening speed and before you know it you are writing a blog for day 56! However the days can also drag in terms of reaching our destination. We have been watching our little boat creep ever closer to the equator on our chart plotter for what seems like weeks, feeling like every time we started making good progress the winds and currents would send us erratically off in a new direction. It was hard not to get dispirited as the days went by and we still hadn’t reached that milestone. When we finally reached it in the middle of a wet and windy night it was a bit of an anticlimax. There was no sign to have our photo next to, no gift shop where we could buy the t-shirt, only four women on a boat, soggy in their wet weather jackets swigging rum from a bottle in a toast to Neptune. Now that we are over that physical and mental halfway point it already seems as if we are moving faster as we count down to Samoa rather than up to the equator.
It is in the individual two hour shifts however that I find time changes speed the most. These shifts can feel either really long or really short depending on your mood, sleepiness or activities. Out on the oars the time mainly passes fairly quickly with chit chat, music or gazing out across the ocean, but occasionally there is a rowing shift where 2 hours just seems endless. The sea feels like rowing through glue, the waves are cold, the steering won’t hold or you just can’t keep your eyes open. Clock watching makes the minutes feel like hours and once you start it is impossible to stop. In the cabin, time also seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes you can make food, eat, wash yourself and some clothes, brush your hair, tidy your pocket and run the watermaker and still have time for a little lie down and read before heading back out on deck. Other times you manage to eat and then look at the clock and realise there are only 20mins before you need to be back out on the oars.
When time and miles start to crawl along we remind ourselves that there is only two hours until our next meal, snooze or row and then it seems more manageable. If we take care of the hours the days, weeks and months will take care of themselves.
UPDATE: There is enough salt crusted on my skin at the end of every rowing shift to season a fish and chip shop full of chips. We are less than 1000 nautical miles away from Samoa and making good progress in the windy and wet conditions. Lizanne still hasn’t managed to catch a fish despite the fact that all around us are birds managing to catch their dinner. LP provided us all with some middle of the night hysterical laughter by putting on two bikini tops over her sports bra in her sleepy getting ready to row in the cabin state.
We spend a lot of time with Roly and Poly on board Doris. About 6 quality hours with each of them every single day to be precise. Roly and Poly are our two rowing seats, Roly at the front in the stern and Poly at the back in the bows. They are made of wood (the only wooden thing on the boat) and slide up and down the deck on 8 roller blade wheels. Four of these wheels are upright and roll along the top of the deck and four are sideways underneath the seat and roll along the sides of the deck to keep the seat moving in a straight line. These wheels were the bane of my life for the first leg requiring a lot of maintenance and DIY. Inside the wheels are bearings which let them roll smoothly and in the first leg the wheels kept coming loose and damaging the bearings making the seats not roll so I spent a lot of time removing wheels and replacing bearings – not the most easy thing to do on a moving ocean rowing boat and meaning that either Roly or Poly was taken out of action for a while. Thankfully after some modifications with the help of Tony and a brand new set of full ceramic bearings from our sponsors RM Bearings we seem to have solved the problem this leg ‘touch wood’.
Since we sit on Roly or Poly for 12 hours each day, comfort is very important. We velcro foam cushions covered in a green waterproof cover onto the wooden seats to provide cushioning (although after 51 days they are starting to loose their padding ability) and then place a sheepskin on top. We each have our own personal sheepskin as the lanolin in the wool is soothing to angry bums and they are all named to tell them apart. LP also uses a ‘booster seat’ giving her extra height to ease the pressure on her hip and making the rest of us look like we are rowing in go karts.
Roly and Poly bring with them different responsibilities. The rower sitting in Roly in the front is responsible for the steering and sits looking at the bulkhead of the aft cabin. This contains the deck repeater telling us what heading we are travelling at and what our course over ground is, the aft cabin hatch which depending on the time of day can provide entertainment by watching the rowers inside and the stickers we have been putting up to mark off the days which we have been at sea. The rower sitting in Poly has less responsibility but duties include shuffling sheepskins to and from the fore cabin, rummaging for snack packs and staying in time with the rower in front. The view from Poly is mainly of the back of the rower in front and you are mainly isolated from any conversations between Roly and the aft cabin due to the sound of the wind and waves. The positive of Poly is that you get complete privacy when frequenting the bucket (unless there is someone in the fore cabin) although it does come with an increased splashing potential in most conditions.
UPDATE: Two nights ago Nat and I were on the oars in the darkness when we spotted some strange lights on the horizon. With the two of us this happens more than you might think so we waited to see if they would rise and were therefore stars. They didn’t and it become obvious that there were two boats, one passing in front of us and one behind. Like buses, you don’t see a boat for 45 days and then two come along at once. They were large fishing boats on their way to a fishing ground. Unfortunately they didn’t respond to our calls on the VHF so we didn’t get to have a chat but it is nice to know that there are other people out there!
Today we also got to chat to Meg and Izzy on the phone who are doing a 24 hour ergathon to raise money for our charities. They were 12 hours in when we spoke to them and doing amazingly although despite our testing conditions and salt water showers today I would still rather be here than sat on an erg for 12 hours!
We are still edging painfully slowly but surely towards the equator and are looking forward to the rituals and celebrations when that finally happens.
Today we came within 5nm of another ocean rowing boat and enjoyed a chat about all things Pacific on our VHF radio. John Beeden is a solo rower who has previously rowed the Atlantic and is now taking on the Pacific, also rowing from San Francisco to Cairns. However, since it is only him on board his boat he can carry enough supplies for the full journey and therefore is not stopping along the way. John is also supported by Tony and we have both been being kept up to date with the others progress. Recently we have been getting closer and closer as we are both stuck in the awkward currents of the doldrums and yesterday Tony messaged us to say that we would pass within 12-15nm of each other in the next 24 hours. This morning John’s boat, Socks II appeared on our AIS and was only 5nm away so obviously we got on the radio to have a catch up. It was nice to know that we aren’t the only ones struggling with the conditions and frustrated with the slow progress. I have the utmost respect for John and for Sarah Outen, currently battling it out on the North Atlantic, for being able to do this on their own with only their own heads to get them out of any low moods or frustrations. We all have our moments on Doris but luckily we are never all having a rough time at the same time and so there is always someone to lift you up, make you laugh and jolly you along when it gets tough.
I was also happy that John agreed with me that this is not what we expected from the doldrums. I was expecting mainly flat calm seas with burning sun and high humidity, broken up with squalls of wind and torrential tropical rain. Now we have had some of this but we have also had a lot of pretty strong and always unfavourably directed winds. Last night we had about 12 hours of torrential rain with strong wind and waves breaking over the boat. This was paired with thick cloud and a new moon meaning that all around was an inky impenetrable blackness which hid the waves until they hit the boat knocking us off our seats and soaking us in salty spray. Fortunately we managed to make progress in a reasonable direction all night despite the conditions, at times reaching the dizzy heights of 2.5kts. For the first time this leg I actually got quite cold on the oars and was glad to escape to the warm cabin for a snooze, although after LP and I’s second night shift it was a tough call as to what was wetter, me or my towel!
However, shortly after speaking to John this morning the wind picked up further and despite our best efforts and hardest rowing we couldn’t do anything other than go north west. Sadly this is not the way to Samoa and so we had to deploy the para anchor to prevent us being blown North by the wind. You would think that by the law of averages or probability or something, we would have come across a southerly current or easterly wind somewhere along the way but no such luck. Sometimes it feels like we’ll be stuck in the doldrums forever and become the legend of the small pink boat going round in circles that sailors will talk of. As we know though every cloud has a silver lining and it gave us the chance to all gather in the aft cabin for some social time. Laughing til we cried over group selfies with the photo booth app and a bit of Greys Anatomy raised the mood in the Coxless Crew camp and then some games and dinner outside on deck watching the sunset finished off the day nicely after a frustrating couple of weeks. Now we are retiring to the cabins to wait for the wind to die down or change direction enough to allow us to make some progress again. now we are waiting it out until the wind dies down or changes direction enough to allow us to make some progress again.
Over the last week or so we have all been listening more and more to audio books while on the oars. They make the time pass more quickly as they transport us to another place entirely as we spend yet another two hours rowing against the current. One of the books I have listened to is called ‘Three Amazing Things About You’. An entertaining and easy to listen to ‘romcom’ of a story it filled a happy 10 hours of rowing time. However it was the title of the book which inspired me to write this blog. Many of our blogs have talked about how we keep ourselves going in the frustrating times, about perseverance and about the small things which make us happy out here on the ocean when we’ve spent another day going in the wrong direction or getting splashed for a whole shift or when we are tired after waking from another too short nap. We have talked about our team values and how well we work together but what is missing is talk of the amazing girls who I am on this boat with. They are without doubt the thing which inspires me every day, makes me get up when I am tired and achy, makes me laugh when I am having a tough time and makes me persevere when all I want is to be back home. Happiness most definitely is being in the middle of the ocean on a 29ft boat with 3 of my favourite people in the world. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather share this experience with than the 5 other members of the Coxless Crew. I don’t feel like I have the words to do justice to them but just as a start here is three amazing things about….
Three amazing things about Laura Penhaul…
1) If it wasn’t for LP none of us would be out here on the Pacific experiencing the highs, the lows, the unbelievable beauty and the infinite frustration of an ocean row. Laura worked for over three years to make it happen, to bring our team together and drive the project forward with perseverance, tenacity and stubbornness and an unfailing belief that we and Doris would make it to California ready to take on the challenge. Our kind, caring and generous skipper leads us fearlessly into battle against the wind, waves and currents of the mighty Pacific.
2) Laura can nap like no one I’ve ever met! “I’m just going to have a quick ten minute kip” she says, then closes her eyes and is out for the count instantly, not waking for anything. I’ve also never met anyone who after one of Alex’s brutal weights sessions will lie down on the floor and take a quick five minute nap regardless of the cold gym or uncomfortable conditions. She has the best ‘I’ve just woken up’ frown, makes me giggle with her nighttime gobbledegook antics and if I’m ever having a tough shift I only have to think about watching her through the hatch try to fit her head through the leg of her leggings in the middle of the night and I start laughing.
3) Laura loves a happy ending. A hopeless romantic at heart she loves a good rom com and has recited several of them to me on the oars at night. Always routing for the hero of the story and dreaming of being whisked off her feet by Prince Harry when we get home, her biggest failure of the row so far is not managing to make me cry when telling me the story of the notebook.
Three amazing things about Natalia Cohen…
1) Nat never fails to get a smile out of me. Whether with a joke, a song, a funny face, a laugh or just by looking at me until I can’t help but smile. She keeps us laughing on the boat and her infectious vibrant and passionate personality rubs off on us all. She has endless stories, can’t sing, and where I am tempted to get my head down and row hard in an attempt to fight the current she will make me stop and admire the sunset, the path of the moon or the wildlife around the boat. I am hugely grateful for that and am hoping enough of this spirit will have infected me by the time we make it to Australia that it will stick with me when we get home.
2) Perseverance is Nat’s middle name. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Nat took on responsibility for our media and PR as well as the website in the run up to our departure. Declaring to us that we would get Kylie Minogue as a patron she set out to make it happen, persevering until one day she rang me to say that we would be meeting Kylie the following day! Even more surprising is that she doesn’t realise how amazing she is.
3)The first time I met Nat at the first selection day we held in Bisham, she told me she had never rowed before but had gone to the gym and sat on the rowing machine for 2 hours just to see if she liked it. Luckily she did and luckily for us she joined our team. She still thinks that she isn’t a rower but I’m determined that I will manage to change her mind before we make it to Australia.
Three amazing things about Lizanne Van Vuren…
1) 42 days ago I barely knew Lizanne and she barely knew us. Joining the three of us who had already spent so much time together on Doris must have been intimidating but she fitted straight in. Nothing like living together in a confined space to accelerate the friendship process and I have loved getting to know our (now not so) new, funny, kind, generous and determined team mate. With gobbledegook to rival Laura’s every night shift brings a new side to Lizanne and I particularly enjoyed the story of Aladdin where Jafar was looking for the magic bucket in the cave and Aladdin was storing away his cereal bars.
2) Lizanne always seems to be able to see the positive side, to smile even when things aren’t going so well. Suffering with seasickness until a week ago every time the sea state changed she just got on with things even while hanging over the side every shift. If perseverance is Nat’s middle name then resilience must be Lizanne’s.
3) Lizanne can still look glamorous after 40 days at sea, seasickness, sleep deprivation and rowing for 12 hours every day. I think it’s her South African tan, blond hair and long legs coupled with the fact she is always smiling and laughing even when she’s spent most of a rowing shift hanging over the side of the boat.
Three amazing things about Isabel Burnham…
1) Izzy and I met at college when we were both trialing for the Cambridge boat race crew. That year we were both made ‘spares’ meaning that we wouldn’t be racing against Oxford but that we would be required to sub for ill or injured rowers during their training during the run up to the race and then be in Henley during race week in case we were needed. I found this a character building experience to say the least but Izz worked tirelessly and selflessly for the rest of the squad never complaining. She brings the same caring and generous spirit to our team.
2) It’s been said before and it’ll be said again but Izzy’s ability to remember stuff is phenomenal. Some of my favourite memories of our time together on Doris are of her learning poems in 5 minutes flat and then teaching them to me on the oars at 3 in the morning. Her sense of humour and storytelling ability passed many an hour of rowing.
3) As Nat always says, Izzy is the glue that holds together our team with organisation and planning that the rest of us slightly lack. You can always trust her to be doing better than her best and working tirelessly for the good of the team.
Three amazing things about Meg Dyos…
1) Meg is possibly the most enthusiastic person I know. We’re excited to have her bubbly and fun personality with us on Doris soon. She has attacked preparations for the row full on despite the fact that she has mainly had to do it on her own.
2) Meg has only ever met Doris on a trailer in the shed at Rossiters, has never slept in her or rowed in her and yet her adventurous spirit means she has signed up to row what may be the toughest leg yet of our journey.
3) The most amazing thing about Meg is that I have all the fun of getting to know her still to come once she joins us in Samoa to row the final leg to Cairns and I can’t wait.
UPDATE: As a wise rabbit once said ‘If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. So suffice to say we have made it out of the North easterly current but are now stuck in a strong westerly current which means we are still struggling to go south and travelling at a painfully slow speed. However as a friend of Izzy said to us in an email yesterday ‘It’s shit going nowhere in a boat but it’s part of your present. Enjoy your moment. You will be back home for a long time.’ Wise words and ones we will try to heed.
A bucket list is a list of things you want to do, be it before you’re 30, before you retire, before you die. It’s a list of dreams, of ambitions, of the things that scare us and the things that excite us. It can be challenges we wish to take, places we want to visit, people we want to meet and dreams we want to fulfil. When I was in Belize sat around our camp fire at night talking and thinking about the things we’d like to do when we got home I was inspired to write my bucket list. Believe it or not rowing an ocean was on that list! Sometimes you find yourself in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and a week after returning to the UK I found out about the row and the rest is history. Now not quite everything on my list is quite at the level of this row but all of the things I wrote down, be they big or small share some characteristics. They are all things which will challenge me and which are outside of my comfort zone and my normal life as it is now.
A few weeks ago a friend sent me a beautiful email which got me thinking. Andy runs outdoor adventurous activity residential trips for young people in Wales, and his email talked about how the young people he works with are building strong foundations by pushing beyond their comfort zones during their stays. He likened it to a building site, and in particular to a guy he watched in the Himalayas building, at around 4000m, a huge system of trenches, reinforcing his future family’s home from beneath the ground. He explained that though the work was hard, with his broken handled spade and pick axe whose handle had long left this world, it was worth it to ensure that the house could stand the test of time, the freeze, thaw, earthquakes, landslides and avalanches. People will face their own metaphorical earthquakes, landslides and so on in life and it is only those with strong foundations that can rise up again and carry on looking forward. He went on to explain his strong belief that accepting challenge and getting used to the feeling of fear builds a person strong foundations. By introducing young people to challenges, to fear, and to new experiences they can widen their comfort zones and realise that fear only exists in the unknown and therefore with experience it disappears. Both the man on the high, hot and rocky mountainside and the young people he works with are after the same outcome…. foundations that are strong enough to carry them through all that life has to throw at them.
I believe that we can all strengthen our foundations, young or old by taking on the things that scare us, that challenge and excite us. By taking on our own bucket lists. The women supported by Walking With The Wounded and Breast Cancer Care must rely on their strong foundations when life throws injury or illness at them and use this strength to carry on. One of the things we wanted to achieve by taking on the row was an appreciation of what it takes to dig down into our reserves and see what it takes to keep going under our own taste of Pacific flavoured adversity. We hope to see how our foundations stand up to the test.
So I challenge you all to write your own bucket lists. Include the big things and the small. Rowing oceans is rightly so not for everyone. Include all the things that you secretly wish you could do ignoring whether you feel right now that you could. After all I was involved in the row for 2 years before we made it to the start line after a lot of hard work, planning, training and gaining of new skills and even then didn’t really feel ready when we set off under the Golden Gate Bridge. Then share your list, with your family, your friends or even just reading it aloud to yourself. As Nat is always telling us, if you put something out to the universe then you are telling it you want it to happen. Then pick something, it can be the smallest thing, and start making it happen. Challenge yourself, face fear head on, and start to strengthen those foundation.
UPDATE: Today is overcast and muggy with beautiful moody clouds in all shades of grey across the sky. A large sea turtle visited this afternoon. We named him Tommy and he did a few laps of the boat lifting his head up to say hello and check us out before swimming off to get on with his day. I think he must have spread the word about the odd pink boat out in the middle of the Pacific because a couple of hours later, after a small detour off our track to investigate a large piece of debris, we were visited by three sharks and a huge shoal of two different kinds of fish who hung out around the boat for about half an hour. Lizanne has put our fishing line out in the hope of catching us some dinner.
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