A typical day between 50-60 days

Roll left. Roll right. Hard jerk right. Back to the left. Full body wobble from the hips.

I’m naked, splayed out on my front with the shared sleeping bag below my body and dry bag full of clothes under my head. Seem to have slid off my inflatable pillow. I sleep on my side at home but it doesn’t work here; the incessant motion of the boat rolls you onto your front or back within a minute. If I lie on my back, the pressure sores and blisters on my heels that have formed from the footplates are too uncomfortable so I’ve gone with the front.

It’s 11am GMT, I’m in the bow cabin and just stirring for my first daylight shift at midday. I think it’s around 8am local time, the sun will have been up for an hour or so.  We operate in GMT as it helps align with home and attempting to adjust time zones would be an unnecessary faff; however, it does make for strange dusk and dawn timings. 

I’m groggy but not exhausted. It’s hot. The cabin is thick, wet and sticky with sweat - some of it my own. Time to get some air. Lying clumsily on my back with my knees bent and feet in the air I pull on my shorts and harness. The shorts are damp and covered in Sudocrem so they stick to me as I struggle into them. Next, I roll onto my knees. Sunglasses on, lucky cap on. Stare at the silver insulation on the inside of the hatch door. Take a few big, puffing exhales. Turn the four hatch handles, push. Daylight fills the cabin and the familiar ocean landscape fills my eyes.

It’s cloudy. Not good. Batteries have been desperately low for a few days and we need some strong sun to juice them up. Stef’s facing away from me rowing and Dirk is in front of him, looking in my direction and pumping the manual water maker. We’re right next to the equator! How can we be so short of sun? We all thought our manual water making days were over but the ocean has other ideas. Oh well. There are few things more dangerous than making life too easy.

I grab my safety leash from the deck and clip on whilst I’m still in the cabin. Always clip on. The unbreakable, golden rule. I crawl out and sit on the spare rowing position outside the hatch, there’s no where else to sit after all. We discuss our power predicament whilst I put on sun cream. We’ve been here before and know the drill - turn off everything except the autohelm and pray it keeps working so we don’t need to hand steer. 

We’ve worked a range of shift patterns throughout the voyage but hand steering necessitates 4 hours on, 2 hours off. This is brutal. We’re currently on 2 hours on (solo), 4 hours off. This is a change from our standard 3 on (1 solo, 2 paired), 3 off pattern. We could probably eek a little additional speed out using 3/3 but at this stage in the game, the lost sleep doesn’t seem worth it to gain half a day.

Stef suggests a solar panel clean - good idea. I lean over the bow with our extendable squidgy to clean off the salt and get us max charge then stumble over Stef to the stern to repeat. 

Sitting back on the bow rowing position I eat my Orzo Pasta Bol that I’d left to hydrate with cold water at the end of my last shift. It’s a solid 6/10 in terms of food and 9.5/10 in terms of dehydrated food. 630 enjoyable calories, no complaints. Next, brush teeth over the edge of the boat. Then ‘use the bucket’. The secret here is to put 4 inches of water in the bottom for a cleaner operation. A toilet brush on an extendable cable lives next to the bucket, as do ocean friendly wet wipes. Maybe this is too much information for public consumption? Potentially. Who knows anymore - we’ve long lost perspective on such matters.

Dirk is an unstoppable machine at pumping water. I cannot fathom where he finds the reserves but I’m grateful he has them. In a head-to-head battle of bottles per hour I reckon he’d give the electric Schenker a fair fight. Still, he can’t do it all and I do 45 minutes pumping before my time on the oars. Pumping water is an awkward process that involves putting some pipes overboard, hanging water bottles from a jackstay and trying to pin the cylindrical device down with bare feet whilst pumping away with your arms. None of us can understand why you’d design something that needs to be pinned to the floor of a bucking boat a nice rolly cylinder.

At shift change, Stef and I have a well-rehearsed little dance. I start sat behind Stef in the bow, he’s rowing mid. There are three positions: stern, mid, bow. Rowers face the stern and the boat moves in the bow direction. We row mid if there is a solo rower as it’s the most comfortable. I move my leash to starboard to avoid tangling his port leash. “Ok I’m ready”. Stef drops the oars, which float harmlessly alongside the boat and stands. I lean over to form a bridge, with my hand on his rowing position - this stops the various bum protecting mats, towels and cushions from blowing away. Stef uses my back as an oversized handrail and moves to the bow. I hop into the mid position, swap my leash to port, strap in my feet and grab the oars. 30 seconds top. Slick.

As it’s midday shift we’re all on deck. Stef hydrates our next rations. Dirk dips in and out of the sweltering aft cabin. Rowing is ok, not too choppy and reasonable speeds. We chat intermittently, often discussing boat speed, course and estimated arrival time. Food still comes up a lot. Stef and I have spent hours rating, praising and insulting beers (Carling and Carlsberg - there’s no excuse for your existence). Our Spotify accounts have locked due to 30 days inactivity so we have no music. Instead, Stef and I sing. We don’t know the lyrics to anything so just belt out any nonsense that comes to mind to whatever tune we fancy. Lots of “La da bam bam ba da bambam!! Waey!”.

Except for the pressure sores on my heels, I’m not suffering too much anymore. My lower back muscles are tightly bound balls of iron but don’t hurt like they used to. My palms are armour plated with callouses so give no trouble, I reckon the three of us could play catch with burning coals without much issue. My arse is broadly ok but the others are suffering with a lot of rash and painful sores. There are general and varied aches and pains but not much more than if you’d played a game of rugby.

A rowing shift is a standard 2 hours but that’s where the commonalities end. Chop, high seas, squalls, fickle wind, strong wind, counter currents, eddies, heat, cold, rain, level of sleep deprivation, calorie intake and many more factors determine the required effort and mental strain of a shift. In the best of times, the boat barely requires pulling and feels as though it’s propelling itself along - this has been rare for us. The rest is a spectrum until the ocean feels like a thick sludge with every stroke requiring an iron grip, a heaving push through the legs and haul from the arms and back. This has been less rare but is fortunately still not common. Most of the time it’s somewhere in between.

This shift starts well. Waves are generally in a uniform direction, wind is brisk but not enough to cause chop, the boat feels light so the currents are likely onside. 

During a singsong Stef spots a shark! Only the second to date. Over the coming days we see many more. We’re right over the Amazonian Ridge and have seen a significant pickup in the marine life. Stef and I sing the song from the kids Sharky and George cartoon on repeat and, rather predictably, the Jaws theme every time we see another one. Sometimes we get creative and mix them up: “Duuuuh duh duuuuh duh duuuuh duh duuuuuuuuuh duh duuuuuuuuh duh SHARKY AND GEORGE!! Crime busters of the sea! SHARKY AND GEORGE!! Can solve any mystery!” Poor Dirk.

After an hour, the boys both peel off to get some rest and I’m on my own. During daylight shifts I don’t listen to audiobooks or podcasts. Partly to save phone battery but also to avoid using up my limited content which is vital for the night shift. Instead, I watch the waves, look for funny shapes in the clouds, watch the sea birds and stare vacantly through the horizon. Having long run out of fresh stimulus my mind will play inaccurate and incomplete song lyrics on repeat; conjure up detailed images of steak, shawarma kebab and elaborate toasted sandwiches or chunter away about the inconvenience of the wind direction changing by 5 degrees.

Sometimes the mind seems to run out of content and simply delivers nothing. Blank. It’s strange, you don’t notice when it’s happening but when you do realise it kicks the mind into action and gets back to looping the two lines from Sharky and George for an hour or so. The mind is living on scraps - it makes lockdown seem like a summer jamboree.

Dirk relieves me after 2 hours. I get straight to eating the dehydrated meal that Stef prepped (Shepherds Pie: 3/10 for food; 6/10 for dehydrated food. The many potatoes never hydrate properly and the stiff, spongy texture ruins it). After rummaging around the bow for some tools and wet wipes for Dirk I get to the crucial job of putting up some solar fairy lights around the bow. These were a present from one of the planets most wonderful humans. I opened it in the first few weeks but it’s been so busy and rough up until now we hadn’t got round to putting them up. After some gaffa taping I’m satisfied with our new decorations and get my head down.

The next is my evening shift. It’s still light. Much the same as the afternoon but a bit cooler. It’s a Horatio Day - a treat day that we have every five days - so Stef comes out before the end of shift to make wraps. Wraps are the pinnacle of treats. Today we have cured sausage and tinned pineapple. Stef diligently chops up the ingredients on a piece of old plywood, constructs them and delicately wraps them in tinfoil. It’s mind blowing. A triumph. Even better than the cheese and chorizo we had three weeks ago. 10/10 vs any food, I can’t imagine much on land will beat it.

Into the cabin for post-shift rest. I find it difficult to sleep as it’s still light and the boat’s rolling a lot. The rolling is like someone giving you a good shake by the shoulders and hips as soon as you shut your eyes, quite tormenting. Stef has Dessert Island Discs playing on deck so I have a listen from the cabin, I’m sure we must have completed the entire archive by now. Eventually, I must manage to doze off as my alarm wakes me with a start. I’m dazed and sleepy, as though I’ve been woken 2 hours before my alarm for work. Ten minutes to get on deck. Deep breaths, grab the harness and damp shorts.

Nighttime changeover is generally quiet and efficient. Stef and I have a quick chat about conditions then he reports that a bird tried to land on his head! This is not normal. I thought he may have finally lost the plot but Dirk confirmed the story. As a final piece of evidence, the bird itself was still sat on the bow looking pretty smug! 

Stef turns in immediately and I start to row. The moon hasn’t risen yet so it’s pretty dark but fortunately the waves aren’t major. I spend time checking out the stars, not a bad show tonight but far from the best we’ve seen. We’ve learnt some major constellations that we see most nights: Ursa Major and Minor, Leo, Lupin, Taurus, Orion, Ceres, Cassiopeia. Once home, I wonder how long before I’ll see them all together again? London isn’t known for it’s night sky.

Since reaching the Amazonian Ridge we’ve experienced the most surreal ocean phenomena. There is no bioluminescence coming from the surface or oars but underneath something is going wild with the lights. For as far as we can see across the ocean it strobes dramatically: 20, 30, 40 flashes per second at different locations. It looks like a rave or Chinese New Year is going full pelt in the deep. I’ve never heard of this and have no idea what causes it but it’s completely psychedelic and wonderful.

Whilst watching the light show I pop on an audiobook to pass the time and zone out to row on autopilot. When conditions are good and I’ve slept I find night shifts can be peaceful and meditative. In the first 40 days of the row every one was brutal, from 40 onwards they’ve been varied - I’m hoping for this last week or so we’ll get gifted some pleasant nights.

Exactly an hour in I eat my chocolate ration - Snickers is obviously the best but there’s only one each every 4 days. KitKat chunky tonight - also a favourite. 50 minutes post-chocolate a red light comes on in the aft cabin and Dirk heaves himself out. He’s not soliciting me to come join him for a small fee; we use the red light on head torches to save our night vision. Quick chat and we swap. Despite the perpetual din from the autohelm, I prefer sleeping in the aft as it seems to roll you about less; I’m not sure why this is or even if it’s all just in my head.

Off to sleep more quickly this time. Before I know it the alarm goes, 10 minute warning. Deep breaths, grab the harness and damp shorts. Still dark. Chat to Stef, no birds attempting to nest on his head this time. Back in the seat; check the stars - all seems in good order; audiobook on; zone out. Two hours later Dirk is out. Quick chat; pour cold water on my Orzo Pasta Bol; back to rolling about in the bow. 

And so it is. Back to where we started then repeat, repeat, repeat.

After 2 months it feels we’ve finally got used to the rhythm of life on-board and know how to deal with most issues that arise. Our spirits are high despite having to end up hand steering at this late stage and manually pumping water for the last two weeks. All focus is now on Cayenne, and how quickly we can get there.