Progress or lack of it

Frasersboat
Mon 6 Mar 2006 18:15
Sunday 5th march.
Over the last few days we have as you know made some progress but nowhere
near as much as we would have liked. The wind has been good, steady and
blowing in the right direction. The waves however have been very difficult,
going to the north west and all over the place. The wave action just slows
the boat right down and this makes it
extremely difficult at times even to stay on the rowing seat. Its also bad
for bums as you wear out the bits that grip seats.The lack of progress makes
all the aches and pains worse.and the rolling the boat all over the
place making everything extremely difficult
and exhausting.
Last night we rowed through again. i say rowed cos we found that if we
could manoever the boat into a tight 30 degree corridor we got more out of
the boat just steering her down wind. So much for our rowing. So I was in my
element with search light in hand onto our new tell tales (for wind
direction) made from a shower whats it (long strands of material knotted
up)and trying to point the boat down some corridor. When out side that
zone, a stumbling move across the deck to oars to bring us back in line.
Anything is better
than nothing. The seas yesterday were huge about the size of houses rolling
and snarling at you and coming from all sorts of angles Today the seas have
begun to calm but are still very confused. We hope for a clean sea tomorrow
as forcast. They were right about confused today.

By the way we have ONLY 1900 nautical miles to go to Antigua. A
snip.

Problems with the gas stove now as the main jet is bunged up and mike is
sympathetic to a cooker left out in the elements. I'm not.!!!!
We now have a stove with a modified jet ( jet left loose so gas comes out
round it rather than through it)
The caretakeers had a look and unsurprisingly I didnt have a jet cleaner
needle on me whilst rowing .Its now designed to burn the hairs off our legs
but was not ready until after cold coffee and porridge for breakfast
today. I also spilt some porridge in the boat motion which did not help.All
our rowing stuff was soaked from last night, all our sore bits unpowdered
and no tea. What is this trip coming to.

I hope i can make something hot tonight or we will be getting down in the
dumps. With very little sun we are not charging the batteries fully but we
are in the tropics as we remind ourselveves So things can only gt better.

Mike says I make it sound grim so I'll leave it up to him to add some
progress cheer.

He asked me to mention the wild life. We see quite a number of fish some
quite large by Cumbrian standards and soon scare the rowing shorts off me.
(I saw the biggest when vulnerably sitting in the bathroom). At least 40
footers. Well 4 ft max at present.
Our first flying fdish landed on deck, just a little tiddler.

See you soon with less grim news i hope.
T x