Archive for November, 2015

Cairns we’re a coming

11:30am on Tuesday morning the 4 of us jumped into Doris and headed off into the Pacific. The general question of the morning it seemed was ‘meg how are you feeling?’ – a difficult question when there’s a hundred different emotions running through my head! All in all though excitement was the answer I gave along with expressing how lucky I feel to have been given this opportunity to join the girls!

Having had a rowing lesson from Ems 2 days prior to our departure and then commencing the third leg of our journey on the oars with Ems was a bit surreal, all good though and between the four of us and the help of currents we managed to get up to 3 knots!

As I write this I am lying in the aft cabin writing each sentence between bouts of nausea – Still no physical sea sickness though which is brilliant! I’m learning so much about Doris and the way she moves through the swell, but also how the girls run like clockwork with their routines – it’s awesome and I can’t think of better people to travel in Doris with!

My first night shift on Doris was pretty much the same as daytime but in complete darkness, not even a moon! At 11pm, 30 minutes before me and Ems were due to get onto the oars, we heard Laura telling us to phone Tony and find two boats on our AIS as they had appeared out of nowhere with no lights and men were in the water by the oars with snorkels on. They told us that they were fishermen, and just fishing, Tony backed this up that this is quite possible as we were in really shallow water between two islands. So off we rowed and never saw them again – what we do know though is that LP can grab a flare within 30 seconds!

Update: woohoo we travelled 50 miles yesterday, and have also now lost sight of shore! Trade winds we are a fan of you!

Day 1 – Back into the blue

We’re off again!!

It felt familiar and good to step back on Doris and know that we are heading back out into the almighty Pacific. I’ve missed her. I found that wherever I was on the island I was drawn towards her. Her colour was different close to the shore and although the green was beautiful, I longed for that deep blue once again.

Samoa was everything and more for me. It is the only destination on this voyage that I had never been to before and I felt that it would hold experiences that would be a really special part of our journey. My instinct was right.

The last week on this incredible island has been perfect. We had an emotional welcome, got the work/rest balance just right, had some pampering, managed to see a few sights, all had a day off and time alone, helped Lizanne get some form of closure, integrated Meg, did some leg 2 reflections, spoke to family, did our interviews with Sarah, ate fresh food, drank cocktails, were on local TV, touched based with all our incredible support team back in the UK, got Doris prepared, had fun, took some deep breaths and were thoroughly spoilt by the spectacular people of Samoa.

Sylvia and her team at Riverside B&B made us the greatest breakfast this morning with eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, cereal and toast. We then headed to the boat for last minute packing and photos. The Samoan Voyaging Society crew were at the boat in our signed Coxless Crew shirts and gave us some farewell flower garlands. Zita had hand picked flowers from her forest and came to give us a traditional blessing that she does before getting onto her longboat and each time she travels. Nicola, Sonja, Wendy, Ian, and some local media were amazingly all there to see us off. Sylvia got us all to stand in a circle before we stepped onto the boat and said the most beautiful and heartfelt prayer for our departure. It was all very magical.

How am I feeling? A little overwhelmed. This is the last time we step on Doris and the final leg of our odyssey. I hope that by the time we get to land again we will have all realised exactly what this journey means to us and the huge impact it has had not only on the charities and us as a team, but also others.

Right now all we are concentrating on is getting back into the moment and taking things shift by shift and mile by mile again. So far we’ve travelled 4.2 miles….only about 2500 to go!

The first shift on the oars with LP was weird. Rowing felt strange for us; almost as if we were doing it for the first time. The 2 hours flew by and with the sun shining, the island in the background, music playing on the Fusion radio and all the time in the world stretching ahead of us again…I was overcome with happiness.

I’m excited, motivated and intrigued to see what this part of the adventure will bring x

The final day on land…

We have just finished our last day on land before we reach Australia. At 10am tomorrow (8pm tonight UK time) we will head off on Doris for the final leg of our journey to Cairns. As always the last day before departure was a busy one. Laura had the morning off so Ems, Nats and Megs packed the final items on to Doris and finished off the final boat preparations while Tony went on the hunt for the last items on the shopping list. He’s now visited pretty much every shop in Samoa and has the best collection of holiday snaps I’ve ever seen! The amazing Nicola Mills had found us some foam for our seat cushions and came for a visit to entertain us while we worked. The suncream monitor was not doing her job though and allowed her to get a little bit toasted in the midday sun. At lunch time we were lucky enough to have Zita Martel come down to see us on the boat. Zita is the first female skipper of the traditional Samoan longboats and a hugely inspirational woman and we loved hearing about her success in breaking down the stereotypes in a male dominated sport.

With final preparations more or less done we had a lovely final dinner with some of the amazing people of Samoa who have made our time here so special. A huge thank you to Nicola who can organise anything, Xavier for providing endless help and support and introducing us to the Samoan Voyaging Society and Sylvia who has allowed us to stay in her beautiful guesthouse all together. We are all really sad to be saying goodbye to Samoa and its beautiful people. We all feel like we’ve had a bit more of a rest than we did in Hawaii and are feeling as ready as we ever will to take on the final and possibly most challenging leg of our journey.

Today began with Emma and Nats being kindly taken out on the Gaualofa, a traditional twin hulled sailing canoe, the one that escorted us in on our arrival. Ems got to get her hands on the biggest oar she’s ever handled, so she technically steered the boat which is over 3 times the size of Doris.

Meanwhile LP made the most of a quiet house, so she got to catch up with a few of her close friends that she constantly talks about on the boat and who have been an amazing support to her throughout (Heather & Ads, Michelle & Paul, Sarah & Tim, Mary & Darren, Kirsten & Steve- on their honeymoon!).

Meg then went out for a paddle in Doris with Ems, to get familiar with the oars before she sits in the driving seat on Tuesday morning (Monday evening in the UK) for launch of the final leg! Thankfully she quotes ‘I quite enjoyed rowing’ Wonder if that will be the same thought by Cairns?!

We then had an epic afternoon! Sarah Moshman and crew had found this beautiful waterfall spot; Sopoaga Falls, so we went there for some filming and a photoshoot with Alana Fickes.

We then went on to one of the world’s most beautiful water spots; To Sua Ocean Trench. It was unbelievable. The water so clear, turquoise blue and bath temperature and what made it even more special, was that there was no one else there! If this was in Europe, it would be heaving with tourists and locals everyday, so to have it to ourselves was very special. It certainly has made rowing to Samoa worth it along with everyone and everything else on this Island.

It was topped off with a fresh coconut and bananas bought as a car snack on the drive home, wish we could get these on our commutes to work back home!

So with only one full day left, tomorrow is full of last minute.com on the boat and personal preparations for launch on Tuesday morning (Monday evening UK time). We hope to set off about 10am local time, but first things first, we will only leave once we have polished off a significantly huge breakfast!

Xx

It’s been another busy and productive day on the beautiful island of Samoa.

Ems and Meg talked about routines on the boat and then packed Doris up with all the snack packs and hygiene items. Meg also polished the solar panels as well as running through some more emergency drills with LP.

Lizanne with the help of her amazing parents were cutting sheepskin (an invaluable job as we all know how important the comfort of our bums are!!) and sterilizing all our water bottles and tupperware.

Ems and Lizanne had their interviews with Sarah and Ems also finished all the outstanding boat maintenance with Tony.

LP and Meg were very kindly invited onto Wendy and Ian’s catamaran where they had a beer and snacks whilst discussing the row. They are moored next to Doris and have been incredibly helpful and supportive over the last few days. They even helped us identify Fernando as a Galapagos shark. So a huge thank you to them.

Today was a day off for Natalia and she headed out with the amazing Xavier or ‘X’ as he is known, who took her to one of the best Academy’s of traditional Samoan Dance, Music and Arts on the island and introduced her the dance group called Le Taupou Manaia. They are called upon to perform at all the significant events on the island and may even be dancing with Miss Samoa next week.

Natalia received a wonderfully warm welcome from the fantastic teacher Korina Lee and her girls. After doing a brief talk about the row and answering some questions, she watched the welcome dance or siva, tried her hand at some basic moves and then taught the team a little salsa!!

It was a fantastic experience and a great insight into the Samoan culture. X was the perfect tour guide and has a strong cultural connection and passion. He has the most wonderful outlook on life and is deeply inspiring and informative.

The day ended with a last supper for Lizanne at Paddles Italian restaurant. It was a little emotional as we said our farewells to the beautiful soul that she is as she will be greatly missed. Her spirit, however, will join Izzy’s on the boat and Lizanne will travel with us all the way to Australia.

All six of us now have a presence and the team is complete. Bring on the final leg of the journey! x

Wow, Samoa – you and your people just continue to make us smile!

So today the team was spread out doing different tasks. Today is Lizanne and Ems’s day off, so they headed off along with all of the film crew to a tiny little island off of the south east of Samoa called Namua for a beach day.

On the other side of the island back in Apia, Megs and Nat went down to Doris to pack in and count all of the Freeze dried food, a hot and sweaty session; whilst Laura and Tony went to immigration to sort out everyone’s passports. Nat then headed back home to carry on going through the footage of the 2nd leg, and Megs and Laura met up with Xavier to try and find some protein powder (very annoyingly it looks as if this has been lost on its way to us!). This search took us to the Samoan Rugby Unions High Performance Unit and Training ground! It was absolutely brilliant to see where the team trains and have a look around the gym that they train in! Also interesting for Laura seeing the comparisons to the facilities that we have in the UK!

Meg and Laura headed onwards back to Doris so that Meg could learn about some of the safety procedures and begin to find her way around, before then meeting back up with Nat for some paddling! Thanks so much to Jay and Tupa of Nafanua Paddling club for inviting us to join them out on the water in their 6 man outrigger canoes! They go so fast, if we were travelling to Australia on one of those we’d be there in no time! Good to get the body moving, but we can assure you we won’t be doing this the day before we leave for the next leg of our journey!

Today was a productive day for the Coxless Crew team. The morning involved some important skype chats. First up was Izzy and excitingly halfway through talking to her we realised that it was the first time that all six of us have been chatting all at once even if one of us was a face on an ipad! We chatted Australia plans, fundraising events and how Izzy is getting on back at home.

Next up was Ells, our social media queen and the person who has kept all of you guys up to date with how we’ve been getting on. She’s a legend and it was awesome to have a proper catch up and discuss what is coming up. Stay posted for an exciting campaign!

Next up was snack packs. LP and Tony went to pick up the food from the shops while Ems and Meg fitted all our extra safety kit to our shiny new Crewsaver life jackets which arrived in Samoa with Tony. A good chance to get Meg up to speed with an essential bit of our kit. Once the food arrived Ems and LP set up a packing conveyer belt and we roped in Lizanne’s parents to help on the work force. Ems and Tony headed off to find the final ziplock bags and then get started on boat maintenance. Happily now that we could test it properly we discovered that the Solbian solar panel which we feared might be damaged is actually working fine so we wired it back up to the batteries and got a few other jobs done. A final push in the evening finished the packs off and now they are all boxed up ready to be loaded on to Doris tomorrow. This stopover we are finding an efficiency never previously seen – it must be our desire to get everything finished with enough time to see a bit more of this beautiful island.

While all this was going on Nats was interviewed by Sarah and then spent the rest of the day patiently looking through our footage and photos from this leg to pick out the best ones to show all of you some of the amazing and beautiful images from our journey through the doldrums.

Our to do list is getting slowly smaller and although we are all a little bit in love with Samoa we are starting to look forwards to departing on the final leg of our journey.

Day 2 on Samoa…

Waking up this morning in a massive king size bed with beautiful soft, fresh linen at the wonderful resort of Sinalei was worlds apart from where we were just 48 hours previously. A couple of us got up early and went down to the water front where we jumped off the pier into the deep, fresh water spring that came up in the sea. The water temperature was like a cool bath and it was so clear with beautiful colourful fish swimming around us amongst the coral reef.

We then had the most amazing breakfast, which for most of us is our favourite meal of the day and for me, it’s been the food that I’ve been talking to LV about for the last 2 weeks at least! We had the buffet breakfast which included marmalades such as papaya, lime and banana, or coconut marmalade with nutty bread or coconut bread, fresh mangoes and apple cream fruits. This was the starter to cleanse the palate before the main course of eggs benedict including bacon and spinach on 2 muffins!

Followed by a dessert of pancakes with bananas in orange marmalade syrup – seriously delicious! One bonus of needing to stock up on food whilst we’re here, we’re literally eating everything in sight, love it!! Before leaving I got to do one last rendition of the Hakka to check I had it right, apparently I need to work on my scary face! (See facebook for the video!)

We were sad to leave Sinalei and the wonderful John who had been so generous in providing our stay, but it was time for Doris to get pampered. We cleared out everything from the hatches and deck, washed her clean and let her air dry before repacking. Whilst down at the dockside, we had some wonderful visitors, from the group of men from Tansmania, to the 2 lovely couples who are living and travelling the world on their boats.

The finale for the evening was a phone call with Keith our Sport Psych. Touching base on where we are as a team reflecting on our 2nd leg, setting us up for success on the last leg, ensuring we’ve got our individual plans laid out for what we want out of the last leg and how we prepare for bringing Doris home for the finish. Plenty of homework to ensure that we don’t completely laze about whilst we’re here!

One thing is for sure, Samoa is definitely getting harder and harder to envisage leaving next week. The people, the food, the culture and the island itself, is one of the most beautiful places i have ever been to. Thank you Samoa.

Wow, wow, wow…..

We are all in LOVE with Samoa.

Since arriving here we have been spoilt rotten. The luxuries of being back on dry land has far exceeded expectations, and the distant familiarities of daily routine on land is a welcome novelty. Stable ground, a view that includes colours other than just blue, food that resembles something other than baby food, fresh fruit, a warm and powerful shower, a drink so cold that it has condensation on the outside of the glass, a toilet seat (!), other people’s faces and conversations, different clothes, different smells, Jaffa cakes (Lizannes mum has kindly brought boxes full) and a BIG SOFT NON-MOVING SPREAD YOURSELF OUT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN bed!

We all awoke this morning feeling like we’ve risen from the dead. I don’t think anything will ever beat the feeling of a proper night sleep after 97 days of sleeping for a maximum of 2 hours at a time at sea. We all woke with varying aches and pains so we are making a conscious effort to do stretching exercises while on land.

We decided to adapt our plans for Samoa based on the lessons we learnt from Hawaii; the first- have a rest day! In Hawaii we arrived in the evening and jumped back on the boat for cleaning and maintenance early the next morning. We left Hawaii exhausted, so we decided to have some down-time on our first full day In Samoa. The amazing Nicola Mills pretty much set us up for the most amazing pampering day.

After a huge breakfast at home of everything we’ve been dreaming of we got taken to a beauty salon…… Hell yeah! Rosenberg Beauty Clinic very kindly offered to pamper us for three hours, each, completely free. It was incredible; pedicures, waxing, massages, facials! We now feel like women again! The women at Rosenberg are incredible, and each have their own beautiful and inspirational story. Being pioneers in their industry Rosa and the team could not have given us a more enjoyable gift. We walked out floating on clouds. Thank you Rosa, Moana, Suneeta, Naifo and Maria.

We were then whisked away again by Nicola to the extremely beautiful reef resort and spa which the manager Joe Annandale has organised for us. It gave us an opportunity to bond as a team, without any other distraction. The focus was on integrating Meg into the team talking about our hot buttons/hopes and fears etc. We are all loving having her smiley face here and she has definitely made us very excited to get back on the boat.

We went to the restaurant sitting right on the beach and had a special moment; we ordered cocktails which we could ACTUALLY HAVE! (Every sunset on the boat Nat would ask “what cocktail is everyone having?!” and we would proceed to give our order. It was amazing to actually drink our order!!)

Sinalei Reef Resort is heaven on earth (www.sinalei.com). Situated right on the beach we were spoilt to live music and dancing. Laura learnt the Hakka and Meg and Ems were asked for a dance. We ate, laughed and danced and had an incredible time. The people of Samoa have bowled us over with their kindness, love and generosity. Samoa is definitely making its mark… We are in love.