Archive for June, 2015

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

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

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

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

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!

Day 27 – The Team Behind The Team

Although we might be the girls that are doing the physical rowing of Doris, there is a great team behind us that without them, we would not have reached where we are today. Over the coming weeks I’ll be posting about each person that has generously contributed endless amounts of time and effort to support us throughout this project, people that we are ever indebted too and humbled by their support.

To kick start the proceedings; Miss Ella Hewton, without her involvement our stories aboard Doris would never be shared. Ella is our social media queen! Constantly uploading the emails that we send to her as our daily blogs, and keeping Facebook and Twitter active with our antics. Knowing that our story is being shared and followed , is certainly giving us some motivation and enjoyment on Doris. To update those of you that don’t know Ells, Ella is a 24year old Loughborough Graduate who lives in the bootiful Taunton. Ells previously worked with Ben Hunt-Davis for ‘Will it make the boat go faster’ a concept that was originally conceived amongst his 8 crew to win Gold for GB Rowing in Sydney and has since been applied to business management schemes. Ells has been involved with the Coxless Crew and influential to the development of the project for the last 2 years. There was a time when Ella was going to be on the boat with us, but after the row got postponed from 2014, Ells was unable to commit to the training etc. for the following year. She did however, offer her ongoing support in the preparations and whilst at sea and has without a doubt gone above and beyond to do this daily in her spare time.

Ella is a wonderful personality; constantly positive, nothing is ever too much trouble and she is so supportive and loyal to everyone she knows. Ells is the epitome of what the Coxless Crew are and she definitely reflects our team S.P.I.R.I.T. Thank you Ella for all that you do and the constant enthusiasm and support you’ve given us. We love you and can’t wait to celebrate with you on completion. Xx

Thoughts of Ella from the team:
Izzy – I haven’t known Ella for as long as some of the other girls, but what I do know is that she is extremely generous with her time and shares her fun with everyone she meets. I still can’t believe how much work she is doing on a daily basis to support us while we are at sea.

Emma – Ella is definitely the 7th member of our team and we wouldn’t be able to share our experiences with the world without her. Thanks Ells you’re an absolute legend and we can’t wait to celebrate with you when we get home.

Nat – Ella is amazing!! I love love love her… So easy to be around, positive, passionate and enthusiastic. It’s been great working with her on social media and website stuff and I’m so grateful to her for helping out whilst I’m unable to coordinate this. She’s a superstar x

Day 26 – Dancing at dawn

There have been a lot of mentions in our blogs about singing, but not so many about dancing. Yes – dancing (of sorts) is possible on a 29ft ocean rowing boat! Natalia has already mentioned the choreographed dance on the oars that she and Laura came up with last week, but my favourite dance is the daily dawn dance.

The dawn shift (4-6am) can be the sleepiest shift for us. It comes at the end of a long night and can drag out a bit. We often find it hard to keep our eyes open on this shift, and if there are any night time ramblings from Laura, they will almost certainly be during the dawn shift. Last night, the dawn shift was story time. I was mid way through recounting the story of the film Gladiator to Laura when she suddenly stopped rowing and seemed to be fiddling with something in her lap near her oar handles. After a while, I stopped the story to check she was ok. “Fine. I’m just trying to get the talcum powder out of my towel” was the reply! Needless to say, none of these items was on deck. That was the sign we needed – it was time for the dawn dance.

The dawn dance is very simple. The two rowers stand, face one another, and dance until they feel awake again. Sometimes there is a song sung in accompaniment. Other times the dawn dance is silent disco style, with both rowers dancing to their own beat. It’s hard enough to stand on deck without falling over, let alone dance, so our dawn dance is usually not so much a dance, but more a jerky jig of random motions. It’s two people bouncing around like idiots and laughing at one another on the deck of a small rowing boat in the middle of the Pacific as the light of a new day arrives. It only lasts a minute, but it’s a minute of complete freedom and it’s one of my favourite parts of each day.

Ok…it’s dirty business but it’s very much part of ocean rowing life and someone has to talk about it…
For most of you, ablutions are a quick and easy part of your day, yet for us, they are a talking point and integral part of our existence out here on Doris.
If you don’t know how it’s done, here’s a brief insight and if this is more information than you would have hoped for, I apologise in advance.
We have a couple of buckets (a red one and a black one) and then there is the over the side option favoured by some.
There is not much left to the imagination of how the ‘bucket and chuck it’ system works as it is fairly self explanatory. Care must always be taken when ‘chucking’ as splash back would not be ideal and neither would be losing the bucket over the side once you are cleaning it of its contents!

A No. 1
Whether we are drinking a lot of water or not, a No. 1 always seems to be part of the routine that begins as soon as one comes off from the 2 hour shift rowing or just before we begin a shift.
This happens in the red bucket.
The bucket is either placed in the footwell in the aft cabin on days when the sea state is rough and out on deck if the conditions are more favourable. Some may choose the over the side option if conditions allow.
Things to watch out for:
1. Ensure no items are near the bucket and can fall in if using the footwell (eg socks)
2. Ensure it is safe to quickly empty the contents of the bucket over the side without getting splashed by waves or allowing water into the aft cabin
3. Ensure you are drinking enough fluid as hydration is very distinguishable by the colour of the wee in the bucket.
4. When going over the side, chose your time wisely, especially in large swell. Not only could you get a bum splash but you could also get a proper soaking as you are in a venerable position that doesn’t afford much manoeuvrability.

A No. 2
A No. 2 on the other hand is a constant source of mystery now that we are on our strange diet of freeze dried food, protein and snack packs. This happens in the black bucket. An amount of sea water always needs to be placed in the bucket before proceedings begin. This helps with the cleaning process.
Due to the change in life rhythm and diet we have found there are a variety of No.2 options.
Types of No. 2:
1. The emergency No. 2 that comes on very suddenly and can result in a quick sit off the side of the boat if mid row.
2. The accidental No. 2 that is just that…accidental. Not expected and for that reason could prove to be a little problematic if on a bucket and no water has been added but fine if you’re hanging over the side.
3. The daily No. 2 (intermittent for some)
A normal bowel movement
Things to watch out for:
1. As this bucket is usually always used outside the biggest thing to watch is the wave splash.
2. Ensure that all paper does indeed go into the bucket and not fly back out to land on the deck of the boat or on a nearby rower for that matter.
3. If you do not alert other rowers to the fact that you are doing a No. 2 one of the rowers may well shout out to the other rower that they have spotted something nearby in the water. They would then observe closely to find out what their new unidentified spot was.

*The bonus of using the black bucket is that there is never any danger of blocking the toilet.

Farting
This is one of those taboo subjects that no one likes talking about but out here it is the source of great amusement.
Increased fart frequency (particularly on the oars) appears to be another side effect of the wonderful change of diet of expedition food and our snack pack contents including dried fruit. It’s just a part of life out here and we’ve been getting to know each other so well that we can distinguish each other by our farts. That is all of us expect Ems – you see Ems seems to be a secret farter!! So far no-one has heard the fart of Emma yet she assures us that she does in fact do it!?!

Types of fart of Doris:
1. Silent but deadly. Again fairly self explanatory. 2. All talk no action/smell. This is the very loud yet non smelling type.
Toilet paper needs to be rationed as running out would be highly disappointing yet is fairly probable if we keep travelling at this speed! This is a little distressing!

For all those that are wondering, we have a separate grey bucket for the purposes of washing ourselves and clothes.
I have seen some special and unique toilets in my time, but I have to say, 6/7 months of this is going to be an experience that will end up etched in my memories forever.
One thing I can say for sure is that this is a loo with a pretty spectacular view x

Nats x

Day 24 – Claw Hand, Wet Socks & More Lessons Learned

Last night we put a line out and let Doris drift along as she was holding a good course over ground and the waves were a little large for night rowing. Izzy and I were in the aft cabin whilst Nat and Laura were in the fore cabin. It was nice to get a little more sleep than usual although in the aft cabin we still had the alarm every 2 hours so that we could check our course and speed. However this did mean that every 2 hours we had the chance to stretch a bit and move our hands. Even so I woke at 5.30am with a swollen right hand with fingers unable to bend properly and no grip strength. Izz was the same but with both hands. We have named this phenomenon ‘claw hand’ and it has been happening more and more recently as we spend more hours rowing. Luckily after a session of tendon gliding whilst waiting for it to get light we both regained enough movement to go out, get the line in and start rowing again. It’s been another day purely of right arm rowing with some terrifyingly large swell and a lot of crashing waves. Back to permanently wet socks. However we have been holding a good westerly course and Tony’s weather forecast this morning is promising showing the wind speed dying down over the next few days and then turning North East! We’re looking forward to that.

I am going to finish this blog with a few important things that we have learned over the last few days:
1) Always put the hood of your wet weather jacket up when there are big waves even if the sun is out and you start to overheat. Failure to do so is guaranteed to result in a huge splash to the head causing a cold head and water to run down the neck and most importantly salty hair is even more difficult to get a brush through than windswept hair.
2) If two rowers are on the oars and one of those rowers are Nat then the majority of the big waves will break over Nat leaving the other rower safe and dry. Equally if Nat isn’t on the oars then the one getting wet is likely to be me.
3) When using the bucket facilities ensure that the surrounding area is clear of items which may fall into the bucket at an inopportune time.
4) No matter how wet and cold you are getting on the oars happiness can always be achieved by singing at the top of your voice to cheesy music on the speakers. Whitney, Backstreet Boys and Bewitched all made an appearance yesterday!
5) I hate to admit this as it is another example of how Tony is always right but don’t package mints that smell like deep heat (in fact just don’t buy these as they are basically inedible) or teriyaki beef jerky in zip locks into snack packs. Deep heat and beef jerky infused chocolate and dried mango just doesn’t do it for me. We made up some new snack packs in Santa Barbara and have been mainly eating them and thus avoiding the problem but are now back onto the contaminated ones.
6) A dry bum is a happy bum. Now that we are back to permanent sogginess the angry bums are making a reappearance for some people.