25 February
Frasersboat
Sat 25 Feb 2006 17:10
have actually fallen off his trolley I have therefore taken it on myself to
move swiftly to allay any fears and assure everyone that Tim's is in perfect
mental and physical health. Infact Manwell and I were commenting on how well
Tim was looking as he stared at the wall of the hutch quietly talking to
himself. 'Doesn't he look well' I said. 'Who?' said Manwell. 'You mean Mike
over there,' 'No Manwell', Tim of course'. 'Oh yeh he looks fine.'
'What do you want for tea today?' 'How many quests?' Oh I forgot to
introduce Manwell, my man servant from my days in the colonies , don't you
know, Keenya, oh yes those were the days. Mince pies and kipper tie (cup of
tea) on the verandha! 'The usual arrangement for dinner Manwell and don't
forget the ice cold tusker my man.'
Hmmm, do you know Manwell has a passing resemblance toTim, strange that.
What's he doing fiddling with those oars, what about my tea bwana.
Still pressing on in nice weather could have reached the tropics. We were
out with kipper ties at 10pm last night, readying for a last night push to
make our miserable mileage total look something like responsible. We paddled
for 18 hours to make 9nm. Better today may approach 20ish, come on weather
sort yourself out.
Tim here. As you gather food is one of my responsibilities and today is
another gas free day. This is a bit of a problem for the menu as most of the
things left in this 5 day pack are the bits and pieces that are either not
liked or need a bit of cooking.The pre packed food is either boil in a bag
or freeze dried and needs to add water. The boil in a bag is so much tastier
with even a piece of chicken identified the other day. The meals do not
encourage eating. Despite all that niether of us seem to be losing vast
amounts of weight so at least the catering seems to be doing its job.
Priorities for us out here have changed quite a lot since we started and
become much more uncomplicated. Making sure we sleep and eat enough, drink
the rehydration juice, arrive to row on time, stay safe on the boat (Life
jackets and life lines are worn when ever out of the hutch or cockpit).Wind
and wave direction (and height), course, milage , targets, row as hard as
can to maintain course but stay fit (strains and bum). We also love it when
the post bag arrives and we can go through the emails and messages. Its a
real high part of the day.
At the beginning we were both worried about how we could fit around the
demanding routines and i'm sure our blogs reflected our concerns. I know the
weather is calm at the moment but an 18 hour rowing day is now OK. I need
more of my sleep in a small block and we try and fit that into the night
time schedule especially as my night vision is poor and seeing the weakly
lit nav aids becomes a problem and i could easily end up undoing good work
already done.We are not now constantly wondering how on earth we are going
to do this but know that unless something extreme happens we are capable of
doing this thing. I dont look on another 60 days with anything else other
than an OH. It will be done if we caqn keep the basics right - all the stuff
above (priorities) and keep ourselves ready for the unexpected and that is
done through "What if?" conversations between the bothof us.These usually
reflect a slight change of practice. At the moment our discussions are about
a trailing rope for night time sailing. Thid coupled with a rigid LJ and
lifeline policy should go along way to avoiding the unimaginable and a MOB.
Anyway progress is better today as we felt trapped yetserday. Anywqy better
to be trapped in hot sun than that horrible storm we had previosly. Speak
soon.T.x