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Day 36 – That’s Ocean rowing!
By Day 35 – That’s ocean rowing!
I am writing this blog in a small and smelly cabin on Nat’s mobile phone as our iPad is having a few issues. I’m trying to rewrite the blog post about night shifts which I spent ages typing on the iPad while eating porridge with the other hand. However I keep getting disturbed by climbing out on deck to see a pod of whales which are passing the boat. They are massive and seem very interested in Doris as they keep coming really close to say hello. That’s ocean rowing for you! We are still finally making good progress in the right direction and Hawaii is getting closer by the day. We’ll keep you posted on the wildlife, iPad and weather situation and stay posted for the night shift blog coming soon.
Day 35 – Walking With The Wounded
By Day 35 – Walking With The Wounded
99.5% of the time out here I can definitely say I am absolutely loving the journey and the challenges we face. The majority of the time I have a permanent smile on my face or I’m crying tears of laughter.
Yesterday for me though for some reason I woke in a reflective mood and sitting in the second position on the oars gave me a 2hr shift to be in my own little bubble. I suddenly started to reflect on the reasons why we are here, why I persevered for the last 4 years and why I’ve put my family & friends through the stress of supporting me through it. The thought brought tears to my eyes and I slowly started to sob my way through the 2hr shift. I was thinking of Rashid and Yasin and how they lost the love of their life and mother respectively, to breast cancer just 3 years ago, just 6 months after Yasin was born. I was thinking of Kate Philp who lost her leg after being hit by an AED at war and had to go through not just the rehab of learning to walk with a prosthetic, but to learn how to live a new life, a new image that she hadn’t planned for.
I was thinking of some of the patients and athletes I have worked with in my physio career and those stories that are so impactful for me; like an 18 year old female who was in a car accident and her boyfriend dies next to her whilst she survives but is left with a C6/7 (neck) complete spinal cord injury. This 18 year old has gone on to be a Gold medal Paralympian and is one of the strongest, most determined females I have met and she astounds me with her amazing attitude to life. I could go on and on, listing men and women that I have met in my life and my career. Whether it’s their attitude or the strength of love shared in their family and friends, it’s the belief that they can go on to achieve or to recreate a new life journey after they’ve faced a life changing experience and maintain a positive attitude, that I find so inspiring. This is why I love Walking With The Wounded.
WWTW create a support network for those who have been injured at war, they provide pathways to re-educate and retrain service personnel, to help them create a new life journey. I became aware of WWTW when Martin Hewitt, who I’d worked with through GB disabled skiing, got taken on the Harry’s Arctic Heroes expedition to the North Pole. Martin was ex-parachute regiment who’d been shot in the arm and was left with a right arm paralysis. The aim of the expedition was for it to be the first team of injured personnel to reach the North Pole. Seeing Martin achieve that and what he has gone on to achieve since then, really highlighted to me what opportunities WWTW create. Like the Paralympians that I work with, WWTW look beyond the disability and focus on the abilities of the individual. They encourage participation in events which will create a physical and mental challenge, so that when they overcome this they have a new confidence in their abilities.
It is being fortunate to have been exposed and surrounded by people with such a strength in mental ability, that it has always made me question my own capabilities. I, like the other girls, realise that we are so lucky to be healthy, fit, have loving family and friends around us and to have the opportunity to be able to do what we’re doing here in the Pacific, that it is for this reason that I believe we face any small challenge we have with humour or banter, because without a doubt, there are certainly millions of people that cope with a lot more than what we’re facing.
Tomorrow the Ride of the Lions and Waterloo 200 starts, these are cycling events that have been organised by WWTW and participants will be injured veterans and supporters of the charity. If we were there we’d be riding along too, but instead we’ll be rowing the waves of the Pacific in supporting from afar. If you’re in London and would like to support the riders please see their website www.walkingwiththewounded.org.uk for more details.
Day 34 – Pocket life
By Day 34 – Pocket life
We continue you make faster progress South West with the arrival (finally!) of some following winds. Today Nat and I saw our first flying fish. I had no idea they fly so far! Our last shift on the oars we decided to make a Spanish shift. We both spoke only in Spanish, with some inventive Spanglish thrown in from time to time, and listened to Spanish music (Juanes, Santana etc). It was great fun and we might make it a regular occurrence.
Every day on Doris brings a new example of how simple life can be. We are constantly reminded that we don’t need much to get by. In addition to the equipment for the boat (communications equipment, para anchor, tool bag, flares etc) and our communal items (medical kit, talc, soap, loo roll, wet wipes, multi tool etc), each of us has a pocket in the aft cabin to keep our personal belongings in that measures approximately 45 x 40 x 20cm.
In my pocket I have: sunglasses, glasses, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, sun cream and face stick, lip balm, hand gel, 2 x long sleeved tops, 2 x leggings, shorts, 2 x vest tops, 2 x buffs, wooly hat and gloves, iPod, kindle, notebook and pen, sponge for washing, head torch, travel towel, spare socks and underwear. Our snack packs and water bottles live next to our pockets. It is a constant challenge trying to extract things from the pocket without having to completely pack and re-pack, but everything has a home and fits in. It just goes to show how little we actually need to get by.
There is something I strangely enjoy about this basic living. There are no decisions to be made about what to wear, where to be when, or what to eat (this is by and large true as we have limited food options, although we all manage to spend a lot of time deciding which expedition meal to eat each day!). It is the small things that we appreciate: finding a chocolate bar that you didn’t think you had at the bottom of a snack pack; a blast of fresh air into the hot, humid cabin; a good nap; a gap in the clouds and sunlight on the water; a warm sleeping bag; a fly by from a friendly albatross; a fresh pair of socks; laughter with friends – big, belly aching laugh till you cry type laughter.
Day 33 – Monotony and chunking!
By Day 33 – Monotony and chunking!
There have been and will continue to be many challenges that we face out here in the mighty Pacific. I’d say one of the main forms of adversity of ocean rowing, due to the 12x two hour shift patterns that are continually repeated, is the monotony of it all. Every time you awake from a rest shift to get back out onto the oars for your 2 hour row shift it feels a little like groundhog day.
Luckily we had previously considered this issue and as some members of the team need variety more than others (clearly obvious from our personality testing we had done), and so we have a number of ways to try to disguise the monotonous way of life out here.
*Team dynamic
Every 4 days or so we change rowing partners. This is a great way to mix things up a bit. As each of us is really different, so our team dynamic changes with a rowing partner swap giving instant variety.
*The shifts
We rotate rowing position every shift so that when you are in the front position you are in charge of steering and then the next shift you move to the back rowing position etc
The view from the back seat is the back of the front rower and the view of the front rower is the front of the aft cabin bulkhead and cabin.
We have a plan pre rowing shift what we want that shift to be and options include music listening, story telling, silence, reflective or a mix of any of the options.
*The sleeping positions
The 2 rowers resting are usually both in the aft cabin. We do a head to toe sleeping arrangement and even that we vary. Each shift we will rotate the position that we lie (facing the stern of the boat or facing the deck) as well as sleeping bags and pillows!
*Food
As we have now audited and rationed our food, we know exactly how many of each type of meal there is remaining. We make sure that we all eat the same number of each meal and it makes sense to eat a different meal each day until the rotation begins again.
There is a good variety generally with our freeze dried food including spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie, savoury beef, chicken korma, beef curry, macaroni cheese, scrambled egg, beef and potato hotpot, vegetable noodles, sweet & sour chicken, beef stroganoff and chilli con carne.
We have breakfast, desserts and we also have our daily snack packs which are all slightly different.
*The sea
50 shades of blue!
I never knew sea blue had so many subtle differences but when you spend 12 hours of every day staring out at it, this begins to become noticeable.
There is also the forever changing sea state which makes the days varied.
*The sky
When not an overcast and continuously grey sky and pitch black night, (which we are having at the moment), the ever changing cloud formations never cease to amaze me. Rowing shifts change between dawn, day, sunset, nighttime with a starry or moonlit sky and this offers variation.
*Enjoying the journey
We each write a blog. Every day would soon become monotonous but every 4 days is very manageable as we rotate between the four of us and we all love sharing our journey with you. That’s what this is all about. Sharing the highs and the lows and dealing with all the challenges we have and will have to face – together.
*My personal passion is photography and although I was unable to bring my own personal SLR camera, I am still making an effort to capture as many moments out here as I can. Trying to be creative and come up with a variety of different types of shot definitely keeps me on my toes.
In case you’re interested I also seem to have adopted a strange habit of speaking in different accents daily – so that also keeps me highly amused.
The big picture of this expedition is overwhelming. We’ve already been out here 33 days and are still a long way from Hawaii. We have a very very long way to go to Cairns and thinking about that is daunting.
It’s all about breaking things down into bite sized manageable sections or ‘chunking’, as we call it. It’s all about the chunking!
Stroke by stroke
Shift by shift
Day by day
Week by week
Leg by leg
We attempt to stay in the moment and not project too much into the future or worry about how long we’ve been out here already and how long we still have to go.
Instead we concentrate our energies on what food we will eat, what speed we have just reached, the story we are listening to, the way the sea moves, the sensations in our hands, bum, hips etc
As we have mentioned before, all we can do is control the controllable and make it through the journey stroke by stroke and day by day. Mentally, this is what will make it the easiest to deal with.
We can imagine that this chunking process is the best way to deal with the changes and challenges that present themselves when recovering from injury or illness. We have so much respect and admiration for the women who are supported by our charities and are reminded constantly of the daily battles that they have to face. This is a huge part of our journey. A journey of our own discovery into how the mind works and how to make positive change when faced with adversity. Ultimately we want to share the stories of all women fighting breast cancer and the women fighting to create a new life after being injured at war with Walking With The Wounded.
When we feel that things are getting a little monotonous, all we really need to do is remind ourselves that this journey is finite and then draw strength and inspiration from all the women that we are honoured to be supporting x
Day 32 – Snacking on the oars
Day 32 – Snacking on the oars
It is still pretty grey and miserable on the Pacific today. However the wind has started to turn North East and so despite being cold and wet we are at least starting to move a bit faster in the right direction. Last nights film choices for Laura and me were Top Gun and The Holiday interrupted only by Laura stopping me to check I hadn’t turned the water maker on! I definitely think that our team values of SPIRIT (strength, perseverance, integrity, resilience, inspiration and trust) need to have an extra H added for humour as the ability to keep smiling (or laughing hysterically) is definitely very important for ocean rowing and something that our team is very good at.
One of the things that keeps us busy and cheers us up a bit whilst on the oars is snacking. Saving choice items from our snack packs for eating at low points during a rowing shift is something all four of us do. Since rowing usually requires both hands there are a number of different techniques for eating on the oars. Fortunately being women we are able to multitask.
1) The fly by – this technique involves opening the desired item and leaving it on the deck next to the rowing seat. As the rower rolls up the slide they quickly place both oars into one hand and swipe said food item up with the other hand, shoving it into the mouth and grabbing the second oar again before reaching the front. The best rowers can do this in one stroke. Others miss out a stroke during the process. This works best with open packets of sweets or cereal bars.
2) The seal – for this method the rower places an entire chocolate bar or cereal bar into their mouth and balances it with the lips and tongue while munching their way through it. This is only for experienced rowers and LP is definitely the best at this. Hazards include sneezing and this is a particular issue if you are in the back rowing position.
3) The one handed approach – this worked particularly well during the extended period of right armed rowing which we had to do. The one handed sweet unwrap is a particular skill which I’m sure will fare us well back in the real world. Holding a ziplock bag full of fruit or nuts in one hand leaves no hands for eating. This is solved by burrowing ones face into the bag in a particularly attractive manoeuvre. The previously under appreciated protein shake has become a favoured early hours of the morning snack and is particularly suited to the one armed technique.
4) The pause – this involves a pause in rowing to eat whilst the second rower holds the fort. This also allows time to take on water which is important. In rough weather when it is hard to hold course this must be done quickly. Indigestion is a consideration for this method. The pause is often necessary to open and prepare food for the other techniques.
Day 31 – A dull day on Doris
Day 31 – A dull day on Doris
Being British women, we’re used to days of drizzol (drizzle) & permanent overcast, cloudy skies, however out here it certainly makes everything look particularly dull. Combine this with a rocky sea state that regularly soaks us each shift, plus waves that grab the oars that either jab the handles into your stomach to wind you, or smash your thumbs till they bleed or scrape your shins to leave cracking bruises, for most I can imagine this would begin to develop a negative mentality and woe is me. However, some how we’ve developed a psychological reversal and when it would be an automatic outcry we seem to have exchanged this for hysterical laughter or just bad banter between us. A number of people have asked what we do to keep ourselves amused during these times, we have a few ways that we entertain ourselves in order to distract us from the monotony and dullness and here are just a few….
1) FOOD – without a doubt comes no.1 for interest, what we look forward to eating is a topic of conversation whilst out on the oars, particularly what we are going to add as a special treat if we’d had a particularly tough shift, often a few spoonfuls of Nutella for dessert is a winner.
2) MUSIC – as you know, we’ve been fortunate to have the charging capacity to consistently use our speakers in the daytime. This has meant solo sing alongs, duets, rap sections are all nailed depending on what partner you have and their particular expertise. On a dull day though, I’m not too scared to admit, that I love singing my heart out to a bit of Backstreet Boys, you gotta love it.
3) HUMMDINGER – this is a game we play where rower 1 hums the song and rower 2 has to guess the tune.
4) POLO MINT GAME – how long can you keep a polo mint in your mouth for without it breaking, winner gets something from the losers snack pack. This is much the same as the Jaffa cake challenge which I proudly would admit to holding a 1hr54 record, although Tim Maynard apparently got 1’hr56 but that’s debatable!
5) STORY NARRATION – Izzy is the queen of this but we’ve all jumped on the band wagon to try it out and entertain our team mate. Last night I educated Emma with the rom com of Hitch and tonight she has the amazing Top Gun avec tunes too, to keep her amused.
6) ALPHABET GAME – where you have to remember what the person before you had said for that letter and then you add something for the next letter and continue to repeat through the whole alphabet. Apparently it becomes amusing playing it with someone like me during the dawn shift for when I start to drift off & talk nonsense!
7) NAMES OF BODY PARTS – thanks to Kirsten for this as it has brought hours of amusement (Dan Howie I have a feeling you’d be akin to this game?!)
8) STORY BY SENTENCE – you start telling story in a sentence and your team mate takes the next sentence and so on….
9) PERSONAL LIFE STORIES- I honestly thought that having got to know each other well up to a year prior to launching the row, that we’d run out of our personal stories to share within the first 2 weeks of rowing together. To my surprise, we’re still going with new ones! One of the perks of all being over 30 I guess?
10 ) Riddles – many friends have kindly sent in some riddles for us to crack, unfortunately I tend to be absolutely useless at them so I leave it to the more Lateral thinkers of the group.
Thank you all for your continued support and following, it means a lot to us and is providing a great motivation each day. xxx
Day 30 – Ocean to ocean conference calling
Day 30 – Ocean to ocean conference calling
Today started grey and misty but has gradually turned to another sunny afternoon. We have a NNE wind forecast for the next few days and hope to gain some speed. We reached a steady 2kts earlier, which is the average speed that we had hoped to travel for the duration of the row, although we have rarely moved faster than 1kt until now! Fingers crossed that this new trend catches on.
We continue to have great battery power. Our Victron batteries and charging system are working brilliantly and even on overcast days are charging fully from our Solbian solar panels. As a result, we have plenty of power for making water, charging the satellite phone etc, so are able to have our fab Fusion speakers blasting out tunes on deck. Today we had a Michael Jackson morning followed by Emma’s super mix in the afternoon.
Today’s highlight was using the magic of satellite communications to call Sarah Outen on the Atlantic. Sarah is currently rowing from Cape Cod to the UK on the final leg of her epic adventure London to London via the World. Over the last four years or so Sarah has cycled, sea kayaked and ocean rowed her way around the World. We have been tracking her progress with interest and since the early days of our project starting, Sarah has offered the crew invaluable advice and support. She is an inspiration and a lovely lady.
When we spoke to Sarah she was at 42*20′.44N 62*05′.03W, around 300 miles off the U.S. East Coast and celebrating one month at sea on her solo boat Happy Socks. Like us, she has had a bit of a slow start, with the westerly winds that she needed escaping her and some scarily strong winds keeping her on the para anchor at times. We had a great chat with her, passing the phone around between the four of us. We shared stories about conditions on the Atlantic and Pacific, wildlife, what we’ve been up to as a crew and how Sarah keeps herself motivated and amused on her own. It was amazing to speak to someone else doing the same as us, albeit so far away. I’ve spent time while on the oars thinking how tough it must be for solo rowers to do all this without company, and I’m in awe of Sarah’s achievements, both on Happy Socks and during the rest of her adventure. We wish her the best luck for the rest of her journey home.
Day 29 – Highs and Lows
Day 29 – Highs and Lows
As we near a month of continuous travel on the Pacific, the moments of beauty and wonder are interspersed with moments of disappointment and reality.
Day 29 highlight
The night shifts were the most surreal and magical so far. The sky was a star studded galaxy. We saw a satellite gliding above us and astonishingly bright shooting stars.
There was no moon and no wind. The ocean was still and I never knew she could actually be so still.
When Ems and I stopped rowing to breathe in the beauty, it was the deepest and most peaceful silence I’ve ever heard.
Day 29 lowlight
During every daytime rowing shift that passed by today, the constant in my view as I stared at the expanse of the water stretching around me in all directions, was plastic. We have seen numerous pieces of varying sized plastic debris floating by on a daily basis but the frequency at which we have now started seeing this debris is quite alarming.
We are the furthest away from land we have been so far.
We have not seen any boats for over a week and the only wildlife we have spotted is the odd albatross, shearwater, 2 unidentifiable fish and a small crab hitching a ride on a piece of small white plastic.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest, the deepest and the oldest ocean in the world.
It covers nearly half of the Earth’s water surface and about 32% of its total surface area.
It is larger than all of the Earth’s land area combined and at its deepest point, it is more than the height of Mt Everest. The almighty Pacific is a very special place but the distressing realisation that is that it is becoming one of the world’s largest rubbish tips is a sad but very real fact.
They say between 8 and 9 million tons of plastic enters the ocean each year. There are some areas, known as gyres, where circular currents converge that are known to be specific spots where a lot of this plastic collects. Each of the major oceans have plastic-filled gyres. There are gyres in the Northern Pacific, as well as what is commonly known as the ‘Great Pacific garbage patch’ and at least 5 trillion pieces of plastic!
This plastic pollution affects the environment, the economy and also our health.
Seabirds, marine mammals and certain eco systems all are under great threat.
Huge amounts of money is spent every year in an attempt to clean up coastlines and within fishing, shipping and tourism.
There are chemicals contained within plastics, as well as various pollutants that plastic can attract once it is in the marine environment.
When I did a Pacific crossing on a sailing expedition boat in 2012, we were actually monitoring plastic pollution amongst other things. For this journey, I joined the lovely Emily Penn who is an expert in this area of pollution, and friend and fellow adventurer, Dave Cornthwaite.
From the small amount of trawling we did, we managed to catch and dissect small fish and found that all of them had ingested many tiny pieces of plastic (micro plastic).
Toxic chemicals are absorbed by the plastic and after entering the food chain, can be found inside these fish, including ones consumed by humans. Some of the health effects linked to these chemicals are cancer.
It was an eye-opening experience and equally, so has the row been so far.
When you travel at the slow speed that we are moving, you see everything that moves in and around you in the ocean. I’ve seen large pieces of plastic float by and when I look closely in the brilliantly blue waters, I see the very small pieces of plastic too.
Plastic is EVERYWHERE.
As a small token please all take personal responsibility for your plastic usage and disposal/recycle. As a great man once said…
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ Ghandi
x
Day 28 – Boat Tetris
Day 28 – Boat Tetris
There have been many occasions in recent years where I have attempted to fit all of my worldly possessions into my very small car and move to a new house either for work or studying. I thought I had become pretty good at packing a lot of stuff into a small space. However packing up Doris with everything we will need for the row was a whole other challenge. As well as physically being able to fit it all in there are a few other considerations when packing an ocean rowing boat:
1) Some of the hatches where everything lives are very easy to access e.g. the large deck hatches where most of our food is stored. Other hatches such as those right in the nose of the boat under the cabin mattresses are very difficult to access. Therefore when packing we had to figure out the things we were least likely to need and try to fit them in the most awkward places.
2) Doris is a boat and therefore if the weight is packed unevenly she will list at an angle making it both difficult and uncomfortable to row. This means that we had to try to match the weight in opposite hatches. We carry 150 litres of ballast water which lives in the middle bottom hatches which helps to stabilise the boat, aides her ability to self right if we capsize and also acts as an emergency water supply for us should our water maker and it’s backups all fail. Our water maker lives on the port side of the boat and is pretty heavy so our anchor, para anchor and lines live on the starboard side to balance this out. Equally our food lives half on each side of the boat.
3) Certain bits of equipment we use get wet e.g. the para anchor (a parachute which is deployed from the boat to slow us down and hold us in a better position relative to the waves when necessary) and its lines. Therefore we need to have a designated wet locker for this. We also have a wet locker in the aft cabin for our wet weather gear on the rare occasion we aren’t wearing it.
4) Anything which is not in a hatch or secured in some way will either fly around the cabin or be lost from the deck in big waves. This means that consideration must be given to where things live and it is important to replace them once you have finished using them. This is especially important for heavy objects such as pelicases which will hurt if they fly into you!
5) We eat food from the hatches and create rubbish as a result. The empty food packets, dead snack packs, wet wipes etc need to be placed outside in a hatch once the bin bag in the cabin is full and the food needs to be moved around to maintain the weight distribution. This means that approximately once a week we need to do some hatch admin. Not the most fun job when up to your elbows in a deck hatch trying to get the remaining food from under the rubbish snack packs. Sadly in the last week we have seen more rubbish than wildlife in the ocean though and we don’t want to be responsible for making this problem any worse. The last 2 days we have also done a full food audit on board. Since we are making slower progress than we would have hoped we wanted to make sure that we aren’t going to run out of food before we reach Hawaii. We are starting to ration ourselves just to make sure this doesn’t happen. As well as only eating one main meal per day this mainly means we are having to eat the meals that have so far been unpopular, such as the freeze dried beef curry which is nobodies favourite (some following the taste test and some not). Yum!
In other news Izzy made a discovery yesterday which has revolutionised my wet weather gear enjoyment. Previously I have had to wear a buff to prevent the Velcro on the neck of my wet weather jacket from chaffing my chin but it turns out there is a little flap which folds down and covers it up. Ingenious – Crewsaver you think of everything and I can’t believe it has taken us so long to notice it!
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