8 days to go now before departure and some teams are starting to feel the pinch as time is quickly running out. luckily however, our boat is in good order with only a few issues to get sorted before we’ll be 100% ready.

 

Yesterday, Luke and I went for our first outing out on the ocean. The conditions were calm and the heat was blistering. This gave us our first real taste of what is to come, as trying to sleep in a cabin with both hatches shut can be somewhat unbearable as temperatures surpass 40 degrees. Oh the joys of ocean rowing are fast becoming apparent!

 

Three boats down from us on the preparation area is this years Row2Recovery team, consisting of injured servicemen who like us are racing across the Atlantic. A few days back whilst talking to one of them i asked ‘are you scared of anything we might face out there’? He replied, ‘what's the point in being scared?’. I continued to state that it may not be something one can control, but is instead a natural occurrence. He agreed and went on to say, ‘You should try having a bullet fly so close to your head that you can hear the thud of air rush past your helmet, now that’s scary. But even that feeling you learn to get used to and even in my situation, get addicted to. That adrenaline rush’. At this point i tried to imagine what facing life and death on a daily basis might be like and how it might affect you in the head. ‘So as you’re no longer serving in combat, how do you get this rush’? I asked. He replied, ‘by doing things like this’.

 

Being out in La Gomera, preparing ourselves for danger and meeting men who have been to war and paid the ultimate price, does really make you wonder.

 

We are so looking forward to this epic adventure and will do our best to share what we can with you through this. So stay tuned, because things are about to get wicked! J.