Wind at last! 17:01.26N 48:44.31W

Atlantic Vets Blog
Paul Milnthorpe / Jim Houlton
Mon 1 Mar 2010 13:38
As of last night we seem to be moving again which is a real moral boost.
We spent all of Thursday night, Friday and Saturday morning until 3am rowing
into the wind and current sometimes making slight forward progress and other
times staying still or even going backwards (sort of like running up the
down escalator!). At this time two other closest boats to us, 'Ocean Summit'
and 'Spirit of Montanaro' where not rowing but drifting backwards on their
sea anchor(the sea anchor not being effective due to the backwards current
as well as wind).
One Saturday morning we were really failing to even stay still by rowing and
were being taken too far North by the wind so we decided to join the other
boats by putting out the sea anchor and both trying to get some sleep (I had
forgotten quite how uncomfortable it is for both of us to try and sleep in
the cabin!) During this time on the anchor we lost most of the ground we had
made over the other two boats and also ended up a far bit further north of
them. So in the morning we pulled it up and have since then being trying to
catch the other two boats up.
The winds died down on Saturday evening and we have been doing extra shifts
on the oars, both rowing together each doing 16 hours a day rowing (hence no
blog since Thursday) as with the flat seas rowing two up is a lot easier
than when there are waves when banging oars together makes it some times
counterproductive.
We have seen numerous dolphins over the last three days, on Saturday some
came along just before 6pm (6o'clock being swim, clean bottom of boat and
then wash time; a small highlight of the day on hot, sunny, still, sticky
days) so I jumped in to try and swim with them but they were having none of
it and swam away!
We have just 'gone through' 750 nautical miles to Antigua and hopefully
these current conditions will continue and we will keep on making good
progress towards our target of English Harbour.
All in all we are now heading in the right direction; and although I am
enjoying the time out here am also eagerly counting down the miles to go.
Jim