Archive for August, 2015

Leg 2, Day 15 – The Doris Mysteries

UPDATE: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…the rate at which Oceania shows us her differnt personalities is mindblowing. For the last few days we’ve been battling varying wind speeds, constant soakings and a drop in temperature as the wind cooled against our skin or wet weather gear. Yet last night we rowed through torrential rain and today we are rowing a pan flat sea with no wind and increasingly high humidity.

It’s not a mystery, it’s a fact that everything changes out here, but we have found that we do have a few other mysteries to solve…

The only thing I’m slightly precious about is a good pillow. In all my years of travel, the one thing that is paramount to ensure a good night’s shut eye is the right pillow. Not too hard, not too soft and, for me, not too high. Obviosly this was a concern before embarking on Doris for 6-8 months, so I informed the girls that I would search for my own pillow to take. I found the perfect one. A small travel sized, comes in its own little case, blue and white checked pillow. I loved it. I tried it out in San Francisco before our departure and all was good in the world. However, since embarking on Doris, the strangest thing has happened to my little pillow. For some unknown reason it’s permanently damp! I mean seriously, even if it has been dried in the sun out on deck and then brought back in, before you know it, it is damp again!! So without further ado, we would like to share a few of the Doris mysteries…

– Why oh why is one of our 3 pillows (the small blue and white one) in the aft cabin ALWAYS damp?

– What are the bright lights in the sky that we have seen appear, glow unbelievably bright and then disappear as quickly as they arrived? They are not flares. What are they?

– Why do flying fish only land on Doris at night? Absolutely no fish during the day.

– Where do all the clothes pegs disappear to? There’s really only limited places to hide on Doris, so where on earth do they go?

– The absolute mystery surrounding the 10 minute danger zone. It dumbfounds all of us that regardless of how calm the shift has been, within the last 10 minutes either one or both rowers get an obligatory splash before coming off the oars.

– The mahi-mahi (dolphin fish) have 2 types of jump that they do. One is a beautiful high arcing jump and the other is complete belly flop. Why is this? Most tend to go with the belly flop and we always hear the splash/slap, even if we don’t see it.

– I have started sneezing uncontrollably and feel as if I have an allergy to something. I may be slightly worse affected but all of us are sneezing. Why?

– We spotted a moth flying near Doris and then it landed for a while. What on earth is a moth doing out here over 500 miles from land?

– In Santa Barbara we replaced our grab rails (lines at the side of the boat that we use to steady ourselves during change over) with some new ones that we bought at a climbing shop. The mystery surrounding these lines is that they were taught during the heat of the day and then slackened as soon as the temperature began to fall! Why? This is the opposite to most materials we have come across and was not particularly helpful as night time was when we needed the help the most!

– Where are the choc chip bits in the chocolate chip desert??

– For some random reason we keep finding a solitary red gummy bear in the footwell. Why?

These mysteries and more, constantly confuse us out here on the almighty Pacific. Clearly we have too much time on our hands…and are heavily sleep deprived, but we’re sure you would all be just as confused as we are!! x

Leg 2, Day 14 – Autopilot versus Hand Steering

The route from San Francisco to where we are now, just over 500 miles south of Hawaii has not been a straight one. For those of you who have been monitoring the map on our website you will have seen a few wobbles and the occasional loop the loop in our track as we get challenged by unfavourable winds and currents. Looking at the track on our chart plotter is even more entertaining as you can see every twist and turn, the times we go backwards when we change pairs, the times we went the wrong way when LP and Nat were perfecting their dance routine and the times the currents made our track draw a picture of a face. We have two methods for steering Doris, the autopilot and hand steering. The autopilot tiller can be attached to the rudder and shunts to and fro moving the rudder the required amount. Using the chart plotter we can either set it to stick to a particular heading or put in a waypoint that we want to reach and navigate towards that. With the hand steering we move the line attached to the rudder and jam it off in a cleat at our right hand side, adjusting it as necessary to hold a course. There are positives and negatives to both of these options and I thought I’d tell you about them so you can understand what we are dealing with next time you think we are rowing in the wrong direction.

AUTOPILOT

Pros: – The tiller does the work for you and all the rowers have to worry about is the rowing. This makes for very happy rowers.

– If you send Doris to a waypoint our very intelligent autopilot can read the waves and position us in the best place on them leading to a more comfortable ride.

– When sending us to a waypoint you also get a countdown of how many miles you have left until you reach it which is a good way to chunk time.

Cons:

– The autopilot is very noisy and so it keeps us awake at night. This is especially bad if you are in the position where you head is directly under the autopilot shelf in the aft cabin.

– Sometimes we loose AIS or GPS signal briefly in the Pacific and when we do an alarm sounds and the autopilot looses where it is and needs to be reminded which waypoint to head for. This is especially annoying at night.

– We can only use the autopilot when we are travelling consistently 2kts or more which means that it is fairly rare that we get to enjoy it.

HAND STEERING

Pros:

– This is a much quieter way to steer and leaves the aft cabin a lot more peaceful.

– Hand steering doesn’t use power from the batteries therefore leaving more energy for playing music through our deck speakers.

– Hand steering works when travelling at any speed.

Cons:

– On a good day it is easy to hold a course using hand steering but on a bad day you can be moving the rudder every few strokes.

– Moving the line in and out of the cleat can leave you with steering blisters on the right hand index finger.

– On a bad day hand steering can lead to frustration and anger of the rowers. I do not use bad language often but the steering has led me to it on a number of occasions.

Day 13 – wet, wet, wet

Some of us on the team have silly superstitions such as saluting a single magpie, or saying white rabbit 3 times on the first of every month. None of us however had previously thought the no.13 was a ‘bad’ number, so I’m hoping the last 24hrs was just a coincidence. As we make our way due South from Hawaii to Samoa, our route is not in favour of the westerly current nor the easterly winds and swell, so this therefore means as the swell picks up, we have waves crashing over the beam side of Doris. Yesterday the winds picked up to a steady 18knots and by nightfall it was 21. For Nat, Emma and myself it suddenly started to resemble our early days of leaving Santa Barbara and for Lizanne, it was about to be an eye opener to the less glamorous side of ocean rowing. Wet weather gear was donned once again and shift change overs in the cabin revisited the wet/dry routine with plenty of talc to go around. This particular occasion we seem to be getting a proper soaking literally every 2 minutes. This would be rather refreshing if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s salt water, which leaves you constantly caked in a layer of salt. Nat has described the different types of waves in a previous blog and I’d say the predominance has been the ‘selector’ (although it’s been generous to douse us fairly evenly between pairs), the ‘air dump’, the ‘suprise’ and the ‘wipeout’. Em and I got washed clean off our seats about 3 times in one shift.

The difficulty at night time is that you can’t prepare yourself for what’s coming, so you’re always slightly on edge with anticipation. The moon rise wasn’t until 02:30am last night so the majority of the night shifts were in complete darkness. I’m pretty sure the sky was star filled last night, but can’t say we saw it as we were concentrating so hard on keeping the boat moving and staying in our rowing seats. Just before I was about to have a sense of humour failure last night, I decided to listen to some tunes whilst rowing. A good friend of mine Carli had been so thoughtful and sent me a package of treats to open when I reached Hawaii. Alongside some cadburys chocolate and water pistols for us, both herself and another friend Jo, had generously put in their iPod shuffles which were full of music. I had been saving Carli’s for a rainy day as I knew she’d have some good tunes to cheer me up. So heading out onto the oars in the pitch black of the night with the sound of crashing waves as Doris pitched and rolled, I pressed play on Carli’s shuffle. The first song that played was ‘I need a Hero’ Bonny Tyler – absolutely blimin perfect! Suffice to say there was no hero that unfortunately turned up, but it certainly worked a treat at getting me powered up to fight the waves. Music is such a powerful tool; it can bring back memories, it can motivate and it can cheer you up when you need a pick me up. To those of you that kindly put forward suggestions for our playlist, we thank you. Last night other songs from the list that got me singing out loud was:

Roar – Katy Perry : thank you Esther Baggaley

Girls just want to have fun – Cyndi Lauper : thanks Joanne Owen

Eye of the Tiger : thank you Martha Johnson

Offshore – Chicane : this is one of my favourites for sunset time, thanks Simon Goodison

Personal messages:

Kim H: hey roomy! So lovely to hear from you and I loved hearing all your news and what’s happening at Ullswater. Can’t wait to be back to hear more stories over a glass of vino or two. Mary and Darren: thank you for your lovely email! How’s the house hunt going? Miss you guys and think of you frequently, especially when I have a peppermint tea! Lily: hey hon, how have the triathlons gone? Wondered if you’d been out SUP’ing too this Summer, everyone loves it in America and Hawaii. Hope it’s not too hectic at work and prep for next year is going smoothly. Lots of love to you all and thank you for your ongoing support. Xx

I’ve never been in a situation where 3 other people know exactly where I am or what I’m doing, 24/7, for an extended period of time. There isn’t anywhere to hide on Doris! Like Laura said in her last blogpost, our little bubble on the Pacific feels a bit like the Hunger Games.. Or slightly less death defying; Big Brother…

I have now had a few days rowing with each of the girls to help the integration process to speed along. I was with Nats first, and I fear that due to my sea sickness my personality was about as colourful as a baked potato. So I am now on shift with Nat again, feeling dandy. To give you an idea of our routine at the moment it is as follows… 06-08:00 Nats and Liz sleep, Ems and Laura row

08-10:00 Ems and Laura sleep, Nats and Liz row 10-12:00 Nats and Liz awake shift, Ems and Laura row

12-14:00 Ems and Laura awake shift, Nats and Liz row

14-16:00 Nats and Liz awake shift, Ems and Laura row 16-18:00 Ems and Laura awake shift, Nats and Liz row

18-20:00 Nats and Liz sleep, Ems and Laura row

20-22:00 Ems and Laura sleep, Nats and Liz rowing 22-00:00 Nats and Liz sleep, Ems and Laura row

00-02:00 Ems and Laura sleep, Nats and Liz sleep

02-04:00 Nats and Liz sleep, Ems and Laura row

04-06:00 Ems and Laura sleep, Nats and Liz row

…..and then we repeat.

05:50- this is the David Attenborough moment that Izzy spoke of earlier in the blog. The rowers look straight into the cabin, so when the alarm goes off after their 90min sleep the light goes on and two rowers slowly get themselves ready for their rowing shift. The weather has been less favorible over the past couple of days so they prepare as best they can for a soaking on the oars. Emma has by far the most descriptive facial expressions, especially visible straight after her nap.

Meanwhile it’s “Danger Zone” for Nats and Liz as the last 10minutes of every shift there is generally one wave that soaks you before heading into the cabin. More often than not its Nat. There are a few things that causes a lot of laughter on the boat, the main one being and getting splashed by a big wave.

08:00- the routine of getting from the cabin and onto the oars is a meticulous one. As well as freeze dried meals, we also have snack packs which helps us ticking over. The snack packs get passed from outside to inside, and inside to outside to the respective rowers seat. The person who is rowing at the back (they’re at front of the boat actually as we row backwards) goes out first; life vest, clipped onto a leash (our lifeline to the boat) and heads out. The back rower has by now also started making their way to the front. Seeing as the water is so unstable and choppy, this often either happens as a crawl, or leaning on the front rower for support. While rowing we also have an ankle leash on.

14:05- Ems and Laura lather up on sunscreen and cover up from the mid day sun. Nats and Liz prepare their lunch during this session. This requires taking a food pack from the hatches and just adding hot water. Shepherds pie, spag bol, oriental chicken, beef curry to name a few. In this shift, or the one prior we might also do some washing; clothes and body.

18:00- whoever is blogging this day might do “bedtime story” here, reading their blog to the others. Nats will also usually spend the majority of this shift talking to the birds following Doris around. We names two Friggits today- Freddy and Clyde.

00:15- Ems and Laura turn off the light. The moon hasn’t risen yet so it is pitch black on the oars. This shift is usually spent talking or having an up beat playlist on.

05:00- this is my worst…. Graveyard shift. No matter what I do I just can’t help but drift off every now and then during this shift. Nat has started doing the Dawn Dance with me which helps an awful lot! On land I usually started every day with a coffee… Now I will just start every nigh with a coffee

Lizanne x

Leg 2, Day 11 – Defining moments

Asking the girls random questions is always a great way to get to know them a little better and also an opportunity to give myself something to think about during a shift on the oars. Today I asked Lizanne to share one of her life’s defining moments. Her answer was a fascinating one and led me to thinking the rest of the afternoon about what exactly a defining moment is and how do they impact our lives?

Some would say that a defining moment is one that changes your life. It alters the way you perceive or react to something and it has a lasting effect. A defining moment may also just be a moment that makes you stop and take stock of a few things before continuing on. It may be just that – a moment – but there is a chance that it could shape you and also last a lifetime.

The more I pondered the question whilst staring out in a hypnotic state watching undulating waves glitter in the sunlight, the more I came to the conclusion that life is filled to the brim with defining moments and in fact maybe that is what life is about…learning, growing and developing as a person from all of these moments. We should be open to all these moments and embrace them fully when they occur.

Your first day of school, your first love, the first time you ride your bicycle without stabilisers, graduating, a birthday, getting a job, being promoted, learning a new skill, an accident, moving home, falling ill, undergoing chemotherapy, having a child, losing a love, recovering from an injury, experiencing a new culture, doing something that scares you, death, accomplishing something you or others never thought possible…

The list goes on…almost anything we do in life could become a life defining moment…and that thought greatly excites me.

“Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen”

I have no doubt that all of us out here, traveling across Oceania, embracing the unknown and taking ourselves the furthest outside our comfort zones we have ever been, will experience a number of defining moments. I know I already have.

• I’ve learnt first hand how much strength lies in having self belief
• I’m amazed to find how much compassion and respect I can feel for people who ordinarily would never have crossed my path
• I’m in awe of the power and beauty of Mother Nature
• I’ve been humbled by the generosity and support of friends and strangers alike

I equally believe these moments can be experienced anywhere if you allow them to happen.

So…I challenge all of you to take 5 minutes today and reflect about your life’s defining moments and then look out for the next one x

Day 10 – Ladies glow, men perspire, horses sweat….?!

I think the quote goes ‘Ladies glow, men perspire and horses sweat’. I can categorically state this to be untrue! Aboard Doris we most definitely sweat. A LOT! Yesterday on the oars with Lizanne I was reminiscing about the last time I consistently sweated this much. During my PhD I had always promised myself that when it was finally completed I would reward myself with an adventure before settling down to a proper job. As such in January 2013 I headed off to the jungles of Belize for 12 weeks to complete an expedition leader training course. A group of 9 of us (with me being the only girl) lived in hammocks and completed courses in wilderness medicine, incident management, survival skills and water safety among others, as well as trekking through the jungle and completing an 180 mile canoe race (the most time I’d ever spent in a boat at one time before getting aboard Doris). It was awesome fun and my first true experience of the simplicity of expedition life. I had only been back in the UK for a week when I found out about the row and the getting a real job using my hard earned PhD was quickly replaced by planning a Pacific crossing in a 29ft rowing boat and getting a job I loved working for True Adventure a company who organise school expeditions. This job lead me to the rainforest again, this time the Amazon in Brazil with 7 Qataris and a film crew (this is a whole other story!) Anyway to get back to the point I was thinking about the stark differences and yet strong similarities between sweating on Doris in the middle of the worlds largest ocean and sweating in the jungle.

Exercising in heat on Doris involves being on the deck of the boat where you are exposed to the burning sun. We have to be so careful to lather on the factor 50 sunscreen and cover up during the hottest part of the day and our feet get singed if we exit the cabin in bare feet in the middle of the day. Luckily the breeze outside usually makes this less uncomfortable than spending time in the cabin. In the jungle exercising leads to dripping in sweat and is accompanied by being bitten by copious mosquitos and sand flies. Being sweaty and itchy is very unpleasant! However since you are mainly under the cover of the trees sunburn is much less of an issue although sunscreen is still needed. On Doris sweating sunscreen into our eyes leads to tears and inability to see to steer whereas in the jungle this is replaced by mosquito repellant to the eyes. In the jungle I became a pro at wiping the dripping sweat off my chin onto my shoulder as we dug holes for football goals or lugged palm trees along narrow tracks. On Doris I am leaning to embrace the sweat dripping from my eyelashes as I try to blog in the cabin.

Sleeping in the heat on Doris involves being inside our small cabins. In the jungle it involves being in a hammock. I personally find my hammock incredibly comfortable to sleep in, much more so than Doris. It also has the benefit of being a solo sleeping arrangement. On Doris if you move too much from your allocated sleeping position you find yourself pressed up against anothe sweaty rower who is radiating heat. Also in a hammock you know that any pool of sweat you find yourself in is your own… Both of these sleeping arrangements involve a lot more movement than your standard bed, something that I am not adverse too except in stormy conditions aboard Doris where we find ourselves slammed into the walls or each other every time you nod off into dream land. The night times in both the jungle and on the ocean do offer relief from the heat of the day although getting up to row every 2 hours is still not my favourite thing. To be honest middle of the night incident management scenarios in the jungle weren’t either.

Food sweats were something we got used to accompanying every meal in the jungle. We had a very limited selection of food and depending on whose turn it was to cook determined how good it tasted so we added chilli sauce to almost every meal. Aboard the good ship Doris we try to leave hot meals to cool for as long as possible, then sit on our towels to absorb the sweat as we try to think cold thoughts while eating. The meals that don’t require boiling water have quickly become everyone’s new favourite and we are hiding our chocolate stash in the hatches below the water line in an attempt to stop them from completely melting.

The wildlife out here on the Pacific is pretty special and we count ourselves lucky that we have seen so much sea life and so many birds keep us company. However the general background noise is the lapping or crashing of the ocean depending on the conditions. In the jungle there is wildlife everywhere you look and the night time chorus is ridiculously noisy. If you can avoid the biting wildlife safely inside your mosquito net one of my favourite things was being woken up by the sound of howler monkeys in the trees above me. On board Doris I have a ‘sounds of the jungle’ track on my iPod for the moments I find myself needing some time out from the ocean.

Although you couldn’t get two more different extremes than the jungle and the ocean the joy of both is the simplicity of life when you take away the stresses and worries of normal life and learn to exist with only what is really necessary. Mindfulness and living in the moment are things that I struggle with in real life where I am much more likely to overanalyse and overthink situations. However when at one with nature in these wild and beautiful places is it easy to sit and watch the waves or listen to the noises of the jungle and I hope that when we finally reach Cairns and return home that this is something I will be able to take with me. I wish I could send you all a tiny slither of the feeling of watching the colours of the sunset reflect on our bubble of the Pacific or rowing into the path of the moon but for now you’ll have to make do with reading about it.

UPDATE: this morning we had an interview with Radio 5 Live from the ocean and were suprised and very excited to find our 6th team member Meg also on the line! Such an awesome suprise and great to catch up with her. We are still waiting for the appearance of whales or phosphorescence on this leg but we have seen some new black and white stripy fish and have been watching the frigates diving for fish today.

Leg 2, Day 9 – Now we’ve just rowed 3,000miles and we will row 3500 more…. (Adapted by The Proclaimers)

So today is the 5th August and I can’t believe where the time is going. It was the 8th of April that we flew out from the UK and the early hours of the 19th April that we set off from San Francisco. FOUR months nearly that we’ve been out here – ridiculous! Understandably, the question we are regularly asked is, how does it feel? Is it what you expected? Etc. to be honest, the only way I can describe it, is that it is sooooo surreal! I actually liken it to the Trueman Show or the Hunger Games where we’re actually just in a little bubble that is being controlled by others outside of us. Every so often one of us will have a moment of realisation to what we’re doing and where we are. Today I had one those. When writing down in our logbook our mileage for this trip so far, I read our total trip distance: 3,320 miles! We’ve rowed over 3,000 miles! Albeit not necessarily in the right direction, but still, we’ve propelled our Doris over 3,000 miles! You’d think I should be aware of this, but I think I’ve kept myself in slight denial as I find it easier to stay focussed on moving forwards in small chunks and reaching the next goal and the next until we reach the finish line in Australia. This row and all our work with our Sport Psych Keith, has taught us the importance to stop and reflect occasionally so that moments like this don’t just pass and that we reward ourselves (which we’re particularly bad at) in recognising what we’ve achieved. I’m sure however, Keith will be cursing me for not having reflected thoroughly enough before now in order to reach this realisation sooner (sorry Keith!).

So the question is, what on earth has been happening over the last 4 months in the real world?! Our only way of keeping in touch with reality is through the wonderful messages we receive from all of you, whether it’s on our blog comments, our Facebook or to our email Doris@coxlesscrew.com. My parents, bless them, have also been really thoughtful and collected a number of videos from friends and family of mine and saved them to a memory stick so that I could watch them on this next leg to Samoa. This has been so touching and has given me so much motivation to get a wriggle on to Australia, as without wishing time away, I also can’t wait to get home to thank everyone in person for their support. One message in particular I was told to watch before we left Hawaii, was a message from one of my best friends Heather and her husband Adam, in which Heather told me they were expecting their first baby and her belly will be the size of a balloon by the time I get home. As you all now know, this row has made me emotional at the best of times, so as you can imagine, I was a ball of tears of happiness when I watched this video. Young children certainly highlight how much can develop in just 4 months. There was a video of my 2.5year old niece singing ‘row row row your boat’ and chatting away to the camera, which shows how her communication and cheeky character has massively developed. One of my other best friends’ son Harvey, has started to walk since I’ve been away and his older brother has started school. It’s crazy how much has happened, whilst all we do is row, eat, sleep, repeat, but honestly, these messages and reminders of life back home, give us so much encouragement and motivation to get back to hear your stories as well as share ours.

Leg 2, Day 8 – It’s all going swimmingly

At the moment the negatives I can mention about life on the ocean are pretty minimal. Ems and I have thankfully now overcome our sea sickness and the weather over the past week has been mostly good to us (barring the westerly current that caused us to go painfully slow and the soaking splashes that came with it).

Like most of you know, our shifts are 2 hours on the oars, 2 hours off. It’s amazing how you can maintain a normal level of physical and psychological function on this polyphasic sleeping pattern. I’ve always loved a nap though, and now I get to do it for 2 months straight!

In the first few days I had to sleep in all my “off” sessions; probably because I couldn’t keep any food down and therefore my energy levels suffered. I have however by now slotted nicely into the routine of being awake for 2 off sessions and during this time we do all the necessaries like wash, eat, blog… On a rocking, moving vessel. Rowing is the easy part!!

The sexy beachy-wavey-salty-hair look is sadly non existent due to the replacement being hat/hairband hair, but our tans are coming along swimmingly!

Now come the good bits….

The sunsets and sunrises have been magical, but what has totally caught my attention is the moon-rises. One night there was a slither of moon low across the horizon poking through the clouds and LP thought it was a UFO! Credit to her though it looked nothing like the moon, as it has been rising with a deep orange/pink/red colour before turning a silver beam light as it rises higher in the sky.

Before the moon rose last night, Ems and I were on the oars and it was pitch black. Every now and then you hear the sound of a fish jumping in the water or a wave breaking, but visibly you couldn’t even distinguish where on the horizon the night sky ended or the ocean began. This is where you see the magic though- alongside the cloudy Milky-Way it looked like someone took white paint and flicked it all over a black wall, with an occasional brief white smear appearing in the distance, and then you make a wish

Today has been my fav so far. I experienced the thing I was looking forward to most… Swimming in the big blue! Due to the calmer conditions we decided to take an hour out and have a proper deck shower. While Ems and Nat washed their hair and kept lookout, Laura and I went for a swim. The water was a shiney turquoise blue and the visibility was clear, beyond that though it just sort of disappeared. The enormity of our location actually made me laugh out loud; suspended in 64 million square MILES (!) of water around us… It totally exceeded my expectations. We also had a visit from some Mahi Mahi fish swimming around our boat.

Our day was the topped with a cherry on top by a funny and much needed group shower. We generally make sure we keep really clean anyway, as the salt will quickly let us know if we’re not, but the feeling of flowing fresh water is something I certainly missed.

I know it’s still early on, and there’s a while to go until we get to Samoa, but I have firmly fallen in love with the natural beauties presented to us out here.

On a personal note, thanks so much to everyone who have been in touch. It’s amazing to get a taste of home so far away from reality.

Over and out from me,

Love Lizanne x

Day 7 – The A, B, C of waves…

We’ve had a few days of big swell, high wind and plenty of soakings! Luckily it’s warm now and so we generally tend to dry fairly quickly. Most of the time we find the sessions hysterically funny but sometimes we don’t as this continual cycle of being wet agrivates the skin and can be quite uncomfortable. Night time is always a little more challenging, and I’m sorry to say that I have occasionally reverted back to wearing my full wet weather gear! Nevertheless, every day we ride the waves of life out here in Oceania and so today I thought I’d give you all a little more insight into exactly what type of waves we have to contend with out here, as they all have their own personality and outcome.

Due to the direction we need to be travelling in right now (ideally a COG (course over ground) of 180*), we are generally always beam (side) on to the waves.

The air dump – (sometimes known as the hair washer) this wave comes from the side, hits the side of the boat gathers some speed and height before dumping what feels like a large bathtub full of water down onto both rowers. This wave leaves a delightful salty crust on the body and hair (which takes a while to comb out).

The boat slap – a loud smack against the side of the boat that makes you jump if inside the cabin but offers only sound and luckily no splashage for the rowers.

The cry wolf – a huge wall of water that you see coming and are sure you’re going to get a soaking. It is normally accompanied by a rowers cry of ‘oh oh’, ‘watch out’ or ‘big wave’, but then Doris glides over the wave or it breaks under her and affords no or very limited splashage.

The selector – this is the wave that comes at you from the side and selects only one victim from the rowing positions. The wave usually completely soaks the chosen one and leaves the other bone dry!

The foot wash – this wave is one that breaks low over the side or front of the boat and completely covers the deck (and rower’s feet) with water.

The close breaker – this wave has a loud sound, travels at high speed and can be pretty scary at night. It breaks worryingly close to the boat and you’re sure it’s on top of you but is normally just inches away from the boat and its bark is worse than its bite.

The surprise – this is the wave you’ll never ever see coming. It appears from nowhere and catches you off guard every time. This wave normally soaks either one or both rowers and is always followed by a ‘where on earth did that come from???’

The invisible force field – the waves that look like they are climbing up an invisible wall at the side of the boat and then fall away without really splashing anyone.

The wipeout – possibly one of the worst ones. These waves swipe across the boat so forcefully that they knock you clean off your seat!

The big dipper – we love this one! On the rare moments that we can actually travel with the direction of the current, wind and waves, then we climb effortlessly up walls of water and excitedly surf down the other side (usually gathering a speed of at least 4 knts)

Update:
Last night and into the dawn shift we had a visitor grace our presence. Bertie the red-footed Booby was very happy hitching a ride, doing some pruning, catching some shut eye and pooping all over our solar panels! He watched the sunrise with LP and me before heading off for the day.

x