Day 57 – The sisterhood

Despite contrary belief, put a group of women together and they do not spend all their time talking about hair, clothes and men! Well actually…I suppose out here we do talk a lot about how bad our hair and clothes smell, and do spend time every day discussing the likes of Albert, Bertie, Bill, Tommy and Fernando to name a few. Hmmmm…have you noticed, dear followers, that every creature that has crossed our path out here on the almighty Pacific has been given a male name?
Apart from one white bird who I named Whitney (Whitney white bird – obviously), we have just all automatically gravitated towards masculine naming of wildlife. I wonder why this is? There is obviously a serious lack of testosterone on Doris, and although we do think about men regularly, enjoy their energy, are very much looking forward to Samoa for certain reasons, our existence right now is one of pure sisterhood. So…we embrace it.

What is it REALLY like on a small boat with 4 women is what everyone is dying to know. You all naturally assume there will be drama and hair pulling. This is not the case. None of us would ever even so much as dream of touching each other’s filthy hair!!

As well as time being a bizarre thing out here on the ocean, space is also an interesting concept. There are moments when our 29ft by 6ft (approx) home feels like the tiniest space in the world. You can walk across the deck in 4 steps and the cabins are cramped, cavelike and filled to the brim with ‘stuff’. This small area is shared by strong, independent, sleep deprived, determined women! Amazingly, there have been no cat fights, bitchiness or hormonal induced arguments. Testament to our different yet complementary personalities and way of dealing with varying situations, we face conflict, if it arises, openly and honestly and then move on. We’re all filled with empathy, look out for each other daily, are intuitive to changing moods and generally face all challenges with impressive group strength and humour. That really is the way it is. No lie.

It is indeed a random existence that we are living and breathing right now and it is not often I am surrounded by 3 women whom I spend the same 24 hour day with – day in and day out with no time on my own and no escape from the bubble that we’re encased in.

There is no personal space whatsoever; nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. You can hear everyone’s conversations and they can hear yours. You can see one another at all times on the boat apart from when you are on Poly when you sit behind the front rower and when both other girls are in the aft cabin and have their sun shade up, so cannot see out. To put it into perspective, we don’t even get to shower, or go to the toilet (a no. 1 or no. 2) without someone watching us!

If you need time on your own you have fleeting opportunities during awake shifts to escape to the minute sized fore cabin filled with the spare dagger board, excess sheepskins (they stink!!), and all the other miscellaneous equipment placed in there. It’s certainly not the most inviting retreat but there is simply nowhere else to go!

We’re exposed so completely and utterly, mentally and physically, that there is no time for modesty, embarrassment or deceit. We know each other intimately almost in the same way husbands and wives do, but obviously none of us share a romantic connection (even though we do enjoy the odd communal shower!?) So, as is to be expected, occasionally, there may be a slight disagreement, a frayed temper or a sleepy silence, but feelings are shared and then any negativity let go of quickly and easily. It amazes me the underlying respect and compassion I have for this incredible sisterhood even if on occasion someone frustrates me to the point where I want to pull faces at the back of them when on Poly.

My travels have thought me that lack of space is common place for the majority of the developing world. I’ve seen countless family homes where 4 or 6 people cram into one room, so in that respect our situation is not that unusual. However, what makes our situation completely unique is that we have nowhere to go even if we wanted to. We’re all in the same boat (literally) and we have to deal with it the best way we can.

Although it is impossible to distance yourself physically on Doris, mentally there are ways of creating personal space. Spending a row shift listening to your own music or an audiobook, is a great way to have some ‘alone time’. I also find that if I begin to feel overwhelmed by the lack of space, all I need to do is sit on the deck and stare out at the immense vastness that is the Pacific Ocean. That never ceases to provide me with the best reminder that I can create my own space in my mind, and that is what I need to draw upon when times get tough. I have always been a person that enjoys brief moments each day of solitude, so having a lack of this is something that dumbfounds me more than having spent 141 days at sea living on a 29ft pink boat. I have not really had any time on my own since leaving San Francisco, so that’s over 5 months (close to half a year) where I have simply not had my own space. This in itself has been an fascinating experience x

UPDATE:
Visits today included Monty the Masked Booby and Daniel the dolphin and his friends.
We also have Salt and Pepper who visit us daily who I don’t believe you’ve been introduced to yet. They are a pair of beautiful, if a little loud, Sooty Terns

Day 52 – The senses

We had our longest continual rainfall in the Doldrums. A torrential downpour began and only stopped 12 hours later…

Ask anyone who knows me well and they will confirm that I don’t enjoy being wet. Furthermore being cold and wet is possibly one of the quickest ways to bring out the worst in me. Rain is one of my least favourite things. Well…at least the rain in the UK that is.

There is a reason why I left Manchester nearly 20 years ago and the grey sky and constant drizzle were definitely up there amongst the deciding factors.

Yet out here on the almighty Pacific, I’m learning to embrace the rain.

On this leg of the journey, it can offer huge respite from the heat and is a great way to refresh the body. We watch the squalls heading our way. It’s usually a grey, ominous cloud and a wall of water heading in our direction or just an incredibly dramatic dark cloud formation that suddenly appears next to or above us.

The wonderful thing about the rain is that it evokes all your senses.

Sight – In the Doldrums what seems to happen is that just as the squall hits, the sky looks very dramatic, then the downpour flattens out the water and the colours all turn monochrome. The droplets dance on the water’s surface and the waves form a layered effect similar to that of misty mountain ranges stretching out in the distance as far as the eye can see. It’s an incredibly beautiful sea state.

Sound – You can hear the rain hit the hood of your jacket, peak of your baseball cap or the deck of the boat whilst rowing and when inside the cabin, the pitter patter of rain drops on the roof makes you feel all cosy and cocooned.

Smell – The smell of rain on hot boat is not too dissimilar to rain on hot tarmac. The other smell that the rain brings is that of freshness and a clearing of the air.

Taste – Rain water is so beautifully sweet especially compared to our usual desalinated water. I always a open my mouth wide, stick my tongue out and lift my head to the heavens, to catch a little rain when possible.

Touch – Now that the temperatures are higher, we are often wearing bikinis/sports bras during the day and wet weather jackets with shorts at night, so the rain can be felt directly on the skin. The light rain tickles our bodies but when a heavy squall passes through, the drops prick our arms and legs like sharp needles. It is, however, always good to have a fresh water shower from the rain to clear the salt build up and our skin always feels smooth and clean after a good soaking.

I’m not sure if it’s because we are surrounded by nature or it’s because we can live so completely in the moment, but it seems much easier to draw upon all your senses during any and every activity out here. Compared to the usual distractions and mental noise you find in city life, there is definitely more opportunity for mindful and meditative states to be felt here in isolation from fully observing our senses. It’s easier to go deeper into the sensations that arise from the senses we feel and for me, I feel as if my senses are heightened while on Doris.

Just for a moment, enter our world…

Sight

Everything on Doris. Four women. All equipment on the boat.
Our view – the ocean’s varying sea states and the rich wildlife she holds. It’s easy to lose yourself in the colours and textures of the water surrounding you and the cloud formations and colours of the sky above. For all of us, this staring out into the vast expanse of ever changing Pacific everyday, is our main form of mindfulness.

So basically when we’re not looking at the ocean and the sky, we’re looking at each other and everything on Doris. We also have books and photos for visual stimulation.
Colour variety we get from our clothes and from the sunset and sunrises.
I would say the main colour that we miss more then any other out here is green.

Sound

The oars pulling through the water is one of the most distinctive sounds of this journey.
The ocean – from the crashing of waves to the deep silence.
The wind – from a gentle whisper to a powerful howl.
The wildlife – from the distinct sound of whale surfacing and spouting out its blowhole to the squawking birds and splash of a jumping fish. The boat – the water-maker, the autopilot, the rudder and the waves lapping against the side of the cabins. There are many creaks and random noises that we are now accustomed to on Doris and if there is any new sound heard, it is investigated fully.
Four women – the voices and laughter that drift into the cabin from the pair on the oars or that waft out to the oars from the pair in the cabin. There are also a multitude of bodily sounds!
Personal iPod – audiobooks and music create a great auditory distraction.
Satellite phone – nothing quite like the sound of a loved one’s voice. We have an opportunity to chat to our families once a week wherever possible.

Smell

Everything passes through a sniff test on Doris.
The ocean – the smell of the ocean in the middle of the ocean is minimal. Most of the time we just breathe in fresh, pure air and there is no smell attached. We have however had times where we’ve smelt fish, oil (when coming into Santa Barbara and passed the oil rigs) and seaweed.
The boat – the rubbish bin, overheating electronics, fermenting snack packs, food being prepared, air freshener and the food hatches.
Products – talc powder, sudocreme, after sun, lip balm, washing detergent, soap, sun cream. Our sleeping liners, towels and clothes all have their moments of smelling pretty bad but with that great washing detergent that smells amazing, we manage to reintroduce a good scent after hand washing.
Four women – you would think that we all stink, but I can’t smell the others and although we sometimes think that we ourselves smell, no one else seems to notice each other. We do notice the smell of our clothes and the one thing we all agree on, is that our hair smells disgusting.

Touch

The ocean and the elements – feeling the waves splash, the wind blow, the rain fall and the sun warm or heat our skin.
The boat – we spend 12 hours of every day holding our oar handles. They feel smooth, grainy, slimy, wet or dry depending on the time of day and conditions. Depending on the state of our hands, holding these oars can also cause tendon pain.
Four women – we rub talc, sudocreme and sun cream onto our own bodies and sun cream onto each other. Our skin is wonderfully soft from all this moisturising, but the main thing felt when we touch our skin, are our hard callused hands.

Taste

The ocean – saltwater on our faces and on our water bottle lids from the splashes Food – our main meals are not the most varied or tasty if we’re honest. They are mainly a source of fuel and necessary daily intake of calories. Our snack packs on the other hand are a different story. This is the bag that packs a punch with a multitude of flavours. From the infamous oreos, to cereal bars, sweets, dried fruit, packet tuna, savoury crackers and the piste de resistance, the jelly beans. I am constantly amazed at how something so small can cause such a taste sensation. Guessing the flavour of each is a highlight of my day when a handful are found in a snack pack.

Sixth sense

We do all also have this wonderful intuition.
At nighttime if the stars or moon are not lighting our way, it is still sometimes possible to know when splashes are coming or rain is approaching as we seem to feel their presence or proximity.
We feel the moods of each other and usually without anyone saying anything, we can instinctively know that something is not right.

UPDATE:
We’ve hit 00 degrees …Woooohhoooo…so will pass the equator any day now.
We were also visited by Fernando the shark today.

Day 47 – BAM wall & Fore cabin Hell

The heat increases and the sweat begins to glisten on our skin. The space is minimal. Grey pockets line the walls bursting with various things from medical kit to hygiene items and random stuff for the boat. The very tip of the cabin has a huge bag of spare sheepskin rammed into it and surrounding that we have carefully jammed our wet weather gear, sleeping bags and spare lifejacket. Up by the hatch entrance is our laptop (for downloading footage) and chargers and all of our personal items are up near where our heads are positioned. We are completely wedged into this tiny space next to each other and lying shoulder to shoulder gives extra unwanted body heat. The space is so limited, to the extent where you cannot sit up straight or even stretch out and fully straighten your legs without touching the stowed stuff.

We’re in the fore cabin.

As Ems mentioned yesterday, the wind picked up and when rowing we were travelling in an unfavourable North-Westly direction at a fast speed. To stop us moving backwards we had to put out the para anchor for the night and head into the cabins. Ems and I went into the fore cabin and LP and LV into the aft cabin.

You would think that an opportunity to chill in a cabin, not have to row and to get a longer block of sleep would be a wonderful thing, wouldn’t you? You would be wrong!

This is how it goes…

Having fallen into a polyphasic sleep pattern over the last 46 days, we are now used to a short nap of about 75 minutes, so anything longer causes confusion. It’s a fitful sleep during the 10 hours we remain in the cabin and the body doesn’t handle it very well. Apart from a wall fan circulating warm air, the atmosphere is stifling. Hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable. The body begins to stiffen. The hands ache, back seizes up, and the hamstrings cramp. When we want to change position then it works best to do so in tandem. Ems rolls onto her left side and so I do the same. We don’t really feel like we have slept at all and when we get up at 6.30am with the sunrise, in a pool of our own sweat, we feel as if we’ve been hit by a truck! A layer of film over my eyes makes everything blurry and I cannot move my body. Ems and I groan, look at each other and then laugh.

This is what we call ‘fore cabin hell’!

So…this morning we lay unmoving staring up at the roof of the cabin in a daze. Hundreds of names stared back at us. My eyes slowly cleared and when I looked at the names, some familiar, others not, I smiled. The saving grace of the fore cabin is without a doubt the BAM (Buy a Mile) wall. This wall of names is what keeps us going. It’s what makes us push through the hard times and reminds us why we are doing this journey.

These names give us strength, help us persevere, make us smile and encourage us to keep on rowing!
These names and the beautiful people that they connected to continue to inspire us and words can’t express how much we appreciate your company.

As Ems mentioned in her bucket list blog, not everyone will get a chance to row across the Pacific, but with your name on the BAM wall, you CAN.

This is the last opportunity for everyone to join our journey as the deadline for BAM names is fast approaching.

x ———-We would love you to travel every stroke of our journey with us———- x

Buy A Mile

Lights, cameras, action…

Memory is a funny thing. Some people have amazing memories (like Izzy) and others have terrible ones (like me!) I can be half way through watching a film and then suddenly realise that I’ve actually see it before and I struggle to access the facts and information I used to brief my clients about every 2 weeks when I was a tour leader years ago, yet I repeated it over and over again back then flawlessly.

What really astounds me though, is the way an era of your life can end and within days or weeks it can seem like such a distant memory, apart from the subtle way it may have changed or shaped you. For me, the best way to help recall these experiences we have, the people we meet and the eras that pass us by, is through a lens.

I fell in love with photography when I was in Egypt in 2000 and bought my first SLR camera when I headed to Nepal a year later on a tour leading contract.

There is something magical about capturing a moment and then having it forever frozen in time.

Photographs, like music, have that incredible power to transport you instantly back to a point in time and to inspire a range of emotion. For me, photography is a great passion, a memory aid and a huge part of my life.

This being said, moving images or film goes that one step further, by allowing you to re-live a moment more fully and to experience the whole picture. The image, the sound, the surrounding atmosphere and, I suppose, the feelings of the people are more obvious. It is easier to envisage yourself in the places being portrayed and to empathise with the characters.

We do our best to paint the most honest and vivid picture we can about life out here on the almighty Pacific, through our words (blogs), but the plan is to allow you all to enter our world visually too by means of a documentary that we are having made about the journey.

‘Losing Sight of Shore’ will be created by the amazing Sarah Moshman, who is our wonderfully talented and inspirational documentary director/producer (there will be a blog to follow shortly all about her and her incredible work).

None of us is used to being in front of a camera and for me in particular I would always prefer to be behind one, so this is yet another example of all of us being outside our comfort zones.

Sarah is capturing all the footage on land and has therefore been with at the start in San Francisco, in Santa Barbara, Hawaii and will be at all subsequent stopovers, doing interviews, filming the first steps back on land and talking about the highs and the lows amongst other things.

It is the 4 of us on the boat, each leg, that are responsible for capturing all the footage of life on Doris and the journey and my job is to oversee that this is being done adequately and to collate and save it safely for Sarah. Every week I download all this footage to hard drives and these are what Sarah collects on land to sift through.

The equipment we have is:
-A Sony FDR-AX100 shooting in 4K -GoPro Hero Silver 4 shooting in 2.7K
-GoPro HERO HD Underwater Action Camera

We have a new GoPro selfie stick for this leg which is allowing us to get a birds eye view which I love, and I have put GoPro mounts in numerous positions on the boat in the hope of capturing different angles. We also have a head strap that we use occasionally.

We do a combination of video diary-ing, general footage of us rowing in varying sea states, inside the cabins, random events and filming of our surroundings eg sunsets, underwater activity and oars pulling through the water etc

Always yearning to freeze some of these moments, I still do take photographs and I know that these (as well as the documentary) will become my future memory jogging tool and allow me to be nostalgic and reminisce about a once in a lifetime adventure!

What would you find interesting to observe? What would make your experience of following our journey more complete? If there is anything in particular you think we should film, then we’d love to know about it. x

*photo attached to this blog is one of my favourites from this leg so far. Black and white shot of Lizanne in the mean and moody doldrums.

UPDATE:
The last 12 hours have been good ones. We’re managing to make good progress South again and only have about 200 nm to go until we hit the equator! Woooohhoooo! Exciting times. LV and I had Bernie the beautiful Blue-footed Booby join us for one of our night shifts and we were also visited again today by Marvin the Marlin.

Day 39 – Wildlife!

Yesterday was one of my favourite days!

My mum has always been an animal lover and although I have always liked wildlife and animals, my love and fascination for people has always been stronger.

When a random opportunity arose for me to manage a remote safari lodge in Tanzania in 2014/15, I jumped at the chance. It was a magical place, an unbelievable experience and I fell in love with wildlife! My mum came to visit me and when she saw my passion for the animals and indeed my knowledge for everything including the varying birds, she smiled triumphantly and exclaimed “you ARE my daughter after all!”

The wildlife out here on the almighty Pacific has definitely been one of our highlights.

You got a brief update about a few sightings in Ems’ blog, but I’m going to talk you through the day in more detail. It went a little something like this:

Sunrise shift: LP and I spotted the cutest little bird we have seen so far. He flew close to Doris and then proceeded to hop and skim along the surface of the water on one leg then the other. It was the most bizarre yet funky movement. He circled the boat about 3 times doing his funny little dance and we named him ‘Tiny Dancer’.
He is actually a Wilson’s Storm-Petrel it turns out and was performing his foot pattering action while feeding.

Midday shift: LP and I were on the oars. The wind was light and gently caressing our bodies and the sky was overcast giving us great respite from the heat. At the beginning of the shift, to our sheer delight, we spotted a beautiful sea turtle right by the side of the boat. He had come to check out Doris and lapped around us slowly. He had a few fish friends near him and showed great interest in us and Doris’ barnacles. He poked his beautiful head out of the water a couple of times to check us out and the rest of the time just swam languidly near Doris before heading off into the deep blue. We named him Tommy.

Afternoon shift: There was half an hour to go before we were due to finish the shift, when both of us spotted a very large piece of, what looked like, unusual looking debris in the distance. It came slightly closer and then appeared to be travelling parallel to us but remaining further away.
Both LP and I being naturally inquisitive types, looked at each other, nodded in silent agreement and made the decision to deviate off our southerly course in the name of a small adventure. We rowed like we have never rowed before and the plan was to overtake the large mysterious object and then get close enough to watch it float by.

We got to a decent distance and spotted a Red-footed Booby sitting atop it and to be honest, it looked like a small piece of floating rock island! We stopped at a safe distance to try and get a better look and when we did, to our amazement, we found ourselves surrounded by a huge shoal of fish. New fish that we haven’t seen before. They are not in our fish book, so if someone can identify them, that would be great. There were hundreds of them and interspersed between them were 3 small sharks. It’s was an incredible sight and, understandably, we were distracted for a moment. We shouted to Lizanne and Ems to come and see and before we knew it, our strange floating debris had been carried further away from us by the current.

Being caught in the strong ECC current that was taking us East at a quicker speed than we had been rowing in our necessary direction, we needed to push South again and so were unable to identify our mysterious object. It was disappointing, but had led us to some wonderful marine life and so, as is normally the case, every cloud has a silver lining.

Sunset shift: Immersed in our prospective audiobooks, LP and I were enjoying our most dramatic shift of the day (sky wise). Some dark clouds were hanging low in the sky and just above the horizon, below the clouds, the sky had begun turning a deep scarlet red.
A flock of about 9 Red-footed boobies soared by and then an incredibly elegant Masked Booby did 3 fly-bys hovering over the boat each time to give us a quizzical look before continuing on.

We then spotted what we initially thought were a pod of dolphins in front of the boat but after getting LV and Ems out of the aft cabin for a look, decided on closer inspection, that they were either giant dolphins or in fact whales. They surfaced gracefully showing us their dorsal fins then retuning back down below. The light was beginning to dwindle and we couldn’t see more of them than their dark grey backs, so are unsure what type of whales they were, but know that they are considerably smaller then the humpback. There was about 8-10 of them in the pod and about 15 minutes after they disappeared, we had a second pod of a similar number pass by the boat.

We couldn’t have asked for a more amazing wildlife filled day! By far our most exciting yet. Oceania – thank you x

UPDATE:
We are nearing the tiny Fanning Island, allegedly named after small vessels fannying around in the area when they were meant to be getting south.
I’ve been a little obsessed with it and have been counting down the miles every day. I just asked Tony for some info as I would love to row by it, but alas, I don’t think it is to be.

It’s maximum elevation is around 3m so it’s unlikely to be visible unless we’re within a couple of miles of it.

In 1939 the atoll was incorporated into the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. In 1979, it gained independence, becoming part of the Republic of Kiribati.
The island’s major exports are copra, frozen yogurt (it’s got our name written all over it!!) and hand crafts (including cowrie shell, shark tooth knives, and Kiribati stamps).

Who lives in such a remote part of the world?

Day 35 – Chez Doris

I’ve been asked to review a very special restaurant today. It’s a wonderfully unique place on a 29ft rowing boat in the Pacific Ocean. Its originality lies in the fact that it has a constantly moving location and with a maximum guest number of 4, it has an unbelievably intimate feel.

On my arrival, I am asked to take off my shoes and enter the tiny dining space via a glass hatch door leading off the deck. The place has a bohemian feel as I am shown straight to my seat atop blue cushion/mattresses, where I await my meal cross legged.

The chef has chosen her favourite meals for me to sample and during the wait, I look around me and take in the surrounding decor. It’s fascinating. There are a number of A4 laminated sheets on the walls containing a mix of information and a small wall fan that actually does a great job of cooling the otherwise unbearably hot, stifling room. The place has a lived-in feel.

I am offered a choice of drink by my waitress Emsy and between the desalinated water and SOS blueberry isotonic options, I choose the later. The meal preparation is a staggering 2 minutes as the Jetboil is ignited. I am informed that to fully enjoy the flavours of each main meal I should further wait approximately 5 minutes.

My samplers today are Oriental Chicken with rice and Beef Shepherds pie.

The chicken is delicious. Its a light, aromatic dish with a decent mix of meat, grain and vegetables. The bright red bell pepper and sunflower yellow sweet corn give the occasional burst of flavour and there are tiny, subtle pieces of chilli that give a small unexpected kick. Perfect for the hot, sunny day I was experiencing.

The shepherds pie smells wonderful as it is being prepared. This dish can be ready in an instant (5 minute wait not obligatory) if needed and is a popular choice when overcast and stormy as it is a good, hearty meal. Although the consistency is a little like baby food, the flavours are good and the mash potato is smooth and rich. The fresh green peas are a wonderful addition and the tomato sauce accompaniment provided is the perfect way to really bring out the flavour of the beef.

I am also encouraged to sample some of the breakfast menu dishes including the ‘All day breakfast’ and the ‘Hot cereal start’. With baked beans, sausage, bacon and omelette, the ‘All day’ really is a great way to begin the day. It can be enjoyed either hot or cold and requires absolutely no preparation time whatsoever.

The ‘hot cereal start’ can actually be eaten either hot or cold too depending on your preference and despite the name it has been given! This is a wonderful, thick and substantial breakfast treat filled with wholemeal wheat flakes, soya protein, skimmed milk and sultanas. As it is eaten, there are hints of cinnamon and vanilla that can be tasted permeating the overall bran flavour of the dish. It’s not dissimilar to soggy wheatabix for those that have tried that breakfast dish before!

For desert I am offered a choice of chocolate pudding, apple and custard or chocolate chip desert. I go for the choc chip. It was another amazingly speedy preparation as it only needed cold water to be added. Delicious! A subtle chocolate flavour, not too overpowering or rich and a good consistency. There could possibly have been slightly more chocolate chips for my liking, but that would be my only suggestion.

Emsy offers me post dinner drinks of tea, coffee, hot chocolate or a herbal mint tea and I settle back amongst the pillows, straighten out my legs and enjoy the sounds of 2 rowers pulling their oars through the water. The sounds of the ocean, the gentle swaying movement and a full belly could easily induce a post lunch nap…

Chez Doris is full of character. It feels family run as a very close knit team are involved in ensuring its success. It’s never full and while one person is preparing the food for another, there are always 2 people ensuring that Chez Doris reaches its next destination.

With excellent service and amazing location, my only concern with this otherwise perfect little gem of a restaurant is that the bathroom facilities leave something to be desired and its access can prove slightly challenging.
All in all I give Chez Doris a well deserved 4 stars.
x

Day 31 – I can’t believe it…

Just as Ems shared her dawning realisation yesterday about how she can’t believe how small we actually are out here, I thought I would share some of my own ‘I can’t believe it’ insights.
So…here goes:

I can’t believe that…

1. …I’m still intrigued by our 360° view

One of the most special things about this unique environment that we find ourselves in, is that we are constantly surrounded by 360° of ocean and sky. We see the sunrise over the water and then we see the sunset. We see the moon rise, the moon set and the stars and planets rise and fall. There is an ever changing cloudscape and plethora of colours reflected in the water as well as dramatic sea states coming and going to make each day feel different and it seems as though we are rowing through a world that few have been fortunate enough to have seen or discovered.
There is something magical about this view and to be honest, I think that of all the wonderful memories I will keep close to my heart…the 360° circle of impermanence and beauty will be one of them.

2. …although we’ve been rowing for 115 days, we’re still not even half way yet!

I don’t think I really thought about the amount of time we were going to spend completing the expedition and I certainly didn’t think it would take us as long as it has so far to do 2 legs. We could well end up being out here for over 8 months (that’s nearly a full pregnancy cycle, and one of my dear friends will actually be giving birth to twins before my return!)
This realisation is staggering (do you know how much rowing we have already done!!!) and we’re definitely looking forward to hitting that half way point soon and knowing that it’s downhill (so to speak) all the way from there on…

3. …we do everything needed in 4 hours

I’m amazed that we really only have a 4 hour window every day to do the bare necessities like eat, relax, wash our clothes and ourselves, read, write an email/blog, make calls, do routine boat checks, run the water maker etc. Only during these 2 two hour rest shifts are we awake during a 24 hour period and where we are not spending our time rowing. Most of us also manage to get a short nap to also fit into this ‘awake’ shift!

4. …how much attention we give to our bums!

Never in my 40 years of life have I spent so much time touching, rubbing and indeed talking about my bum. At the end of every 2 hour rowing shift, we rub talc over our bum area, and then after waking and before heading out onto the oars again, we rub sudocreme over our bums. We’re constantly checking our own bums and each other’s for ‘angry bum’, pressure and salt sores. Our seat bones are also discussed as the foam in the cushions we are using has become compressed from having someone constantly sitting on them. The bum is always a hot topic of conversation.

5. …that I can now count the almighty Pacific as one of my many homes.

Having spent the last 15 years moving home and country, I’ve always believed that you need to give somewhere at least 6 months before you can know if it’s a place you would like to live and it’s a place you can say was ‘home’ for a period of time. I will soon be able to add ’29ft rowing boat, Pacific Ocean’ to the list of random places I have lived including Cairo (Egypt), Nepal, Spain, Cuzco (Peru), Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Bangkok, Safari Lodge (Saadani National Park, Tanzania)

UPDATE:
Keeping in the theme of the blog, Ems and I had a ridiculous rowing session this afternoon. The shift began with sunshine and blistering heat, draining us of all energy and inducing sweat to drip from every part of our bodies. We were fighting the varying equator currents but just managing to keep a course over ground of 160° when a squall came through and threw us completely off course. After our soaking the wind suddenly changed direction and literally sent the squall back towards us! We fought with the heading sending us East and then North and trying to at least find the heading that would take in these far from ideal directions the slowest, until about 4 minutes before the end of the shift. I can’t believe that everything then reverted back to how it was at the beginning of the shift as if nothing had ever happened just in time for LP and LV to take to the oars!! x

*photo taken on a previous row shift that was not so much of a fight!!

As some of you already know, this expedition has been made up of two parts. Getting to the start line and the row itself. For me, I developed not only on a personal level during the initial stage, but also managed to find new skills I never knew I had. As we essentially set up our own company, we had to deal with all the day to day running of the company Coxless Crew including logistics, accounts, admin, social media/website, PR, media, marketing and sponsorship to name a few.

My main roles were Social Media, PR, media, marketing and overseeing the website with the help of the amazing Steph from Design by StephanieJ. These were areas of expertise that I had to develop rapidly as I had no previous experience.

When thrown in at the deep end, you sink or swim. I swam…I swam fast and furious. I was a woman on a mission.This expedition is an extraordinary one, and I wanted as many people as possible to know about it. I told our story every day and one of the best and most important lessons I learnt was…

————————- if you don’t ask you don’t get! —————————

What is the worst thing that can happen if you ask someone for something? They say no. That’s it, that’s the worst thing. A slightly bruised ego…but nothing more and nothing less.

I did A LOT of asking. Everyone I knew and anyone that crossed my path. It worked. We managed to get some great media coverage (not nearly enough for my liking, but a great start) including the Evening Standard, The Independent, The Daily Mail (femail), BBC London and we got the incredible Sir Ranulph Fiennes as an ambassador. The wonderful pop icon Kylie Minogue was secured as our Patron and slowly our social media following began to grow. Perseverance is key! We now have the wonderful Carver PR driving our PR whilst we are out on the ocean.Never being one to do things by halves, we have set our sights high for the row.

The main aim of our expedition is to not only raise awareness, but also to raise £250,000 for our chosen charities, Breast Cancer Care and Walking With The Wounded. This is an ambitious target and we truly hope to hit it. The women supported by our charities need our help and we are determind to offer the best services we can. More about exactly where the donations will go in a following blog.This is where we need your help. So…I find myself asking again.

We would love to have 100,000 followers by the time we get to Cairns. This is the number I have chosen to help this expedition be a hugely successful one. At the moment we have about 4,000. It is another ambitious target but I believe we can do it.
This is what I’m asking…

– Please SPREAD THE WORD. Ask EVERYONE you know to like our Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter

– Tell all your work colleagues about our challenge and ask them to ALSO spread the word

– Have a think if you know any celebrities, or friends with celebrity friends and see if they will reach out to their followers. A quick tweet or Facebook post and asking for a cheeky like/follow is all we ask.

– Talk about our Pacific odyssey to any media contacts you know or any in house marketing departments at work

– Discuss what we are doing with ALL your friends and even with people you know in any sports clubs, book clubs, yoga classes, your local church, EVERYWHERE.

– Keep sharing our blog posts, photos, Facebook, Twitter posts and Instagram.

Watching the miles count down (depressingly in the wrong direction recently) and the number of followers climb up will be a HUGE source of inspiration to us all. So…LET’S DO THIS…let’s make this expedition one for the history books and one that shares the SPIRIT with all far and wide x

UPDATE
Yet another crazy 24 hours with all seasons in one day being thrown at us. My personal favourite was the torrential downpour that happened just before LV and I left the oars before our first awake rest shift. We were enveloped in a heavy, grey cloud and everything went a little dark then…boom – the heavens opened. The surface of the ocean went smooth and so you could clearly see the large raindrops dance across the top of the water. The grey was split into varying shades and the rolling waves looked like a misty mountain range stretching out around us as far as the eye can see. It was amazing x

Day 23 – In the doldrums

“Colloquially, the “doldrums” are a state of inactivity, listlessness or stagnation.”

Each leg of this journey is proving to have its own challenges and for leg number 2, we have high temperatures, humidity and the ITCZ to navigate.

Have you ever heard of the expression “stuck in the doldrums”? Well…that’s exactly where we are right now.

The Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), known by sailors as the doldrums, is the area that goes from 5-10 degrees of latitude north/above the equator, down through the equator to as low as 5-10 degrees south/below the equator and is where the northeast and southeast trade winds come together.

Right now our position is 09°02′.96N , and we need to get to Samoa that lies at 13°S so we have already entered the doldrums and the majority of our journey could well be travelling through them depending on how many miles they are stretching for at this particular time.

This area of low pressure around the equator is caused by the expanding atmosphere due to heating at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere. Some of that air returns to the doldrums through the trade winds and this process leads to the utterly crazy weather we are now experiencing!

We have had some light and variable winds, squalls, thunderstorms, utter calm with no wind and very changeable swell. We’ve also been dealing with incredibly hot and humid conditions. Dark clouds pregnant with precipitation are our constant companion, and we now also have the main westerly Equatorial Current (EC) about to turn to the Equatorial Counter Current (ECC) that we will have to contend with. This erratic weather leaves us all guessing what we will encounter every 2 hours when we step foot outside the cabin to begin our row shift. Our speed is changeable as is our direction and in the words of Forest Gump the Pacific “is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”.

The rowing shifts are challenging as we have to attempt the best course over ground (true direction that you are travelling in) we can and keep pushing South wherever possible. With the hot, sticky and damp conditions, we need to keep our energy up and ensure we are fully hydrated.

We ideally want to spend as little time as possible in the doldrums but it is said that they try and often succeed in holding you for as long as they possibly can. This area is renowned for trapping sail boats for weeks and some say that the only way to escape the Doldrums is…by rowing. Lucky for us…that’s exactly what we’re doing!

It’s been bizarre. One minute we’re commenting on how still the water is and then a random set of waves appeared out of nowhere. They were the strangest waves I’ve seen so far. Very choppy and small, turning the surface of the water into hundreds of whipped cream peaks. They came and went quickly and left LP and I confused and intrigued.
We’ve also had long and heavy downpours where we’ve seen the wall of rain coming and had time to ‘prepare battle stations’ and await the fresh water soaking. Some have lasted the full 2 hour row shift.
I love the way we have to sit on our rowing seats and just take whatever is thrown at us. It’s a different mindset that’s for sure. Nowhere to run…nowhere to hide.

The randomness of the sea state has been mirrored by the uniqueness of the sky. We’re often surrounded by low hanging storm clouds and the sunrises and sunsets have been some of the most dramatic we’ve experienced so far. The one thing I’m loving about this section of the journey is that every day is different x