3/4 April

Frasersboat
Tue 4 Apr 2006 18:59
Hi

The dot day of yesterday has turned into two days. The wind is from the SE,
not really normal but obviously possible, the sea is pudding and of no help
to us. We are quartering to limit our northings but you will obviously see
from our track on the ORS website that we have turned to the north. Things
were complicated by meeting adverse currents yesterday which necessitated
that we keep rowing in order to avoid going backwards.

This is really interesting folllowing so soon on the tail of Tim's mullings,
as he would call them, the other day. Is morale so fragile that this weather
puts us down in the dumps. It would be true to say that we are a bit fed up,
also it has blown a big hole in the programme for completion. However it is
recoverable and we are looking forward to an improvement in the conditions
that will allow us to complete some good mileage over the next few days.

This morning Radio Cumbria caught up with us and ineterviewed Tim live for
Martin Plenderleth's Good Morning Cumbria. Some of you may have heard it,
hope
it sounded sufficiently buoyant. Althoiugh Martin commented to Tim that he
sounded exhausted!

Hope you enjoyd the photos of Tim's beard and the sunset the other day, we
are certainly being treated to some beautiful evening scenes.

Our log shows 1060nm to go to Antigua, we are desparate to get down to that
to those magic three figures. That leads on to the 1000nm to go service
which we will give the boat. We have checked the rudder mechanism , OK no
problem, we will check the bilges again and pump out if necessary, the water
maker has
performed well since earlier problems so we keep our fingers crossed on that
one. We will be checking the filter and the intake to make sure that any
little
barnacle hasn't taken a liking to the intake pipe. That should set up for
the run in.

We are still on the look out for more food and in view of our problems of
the last two days will not be adverse to trying to cadge any extra food from
pasiing craft. Problem there ain't no other boats!

Hi Tim here
I have been splitting everything up foodwise to last us the course, even the
nuts and raisins. I was careful not to spill any but later spotted one I'd
missed and ate it quickly before Mike wanted half. I'm not sure I recomment
a rubber tip to my sun glasses as a culinary treat.

The radio was OK today but I forgot to mention the web site which was silly.
He said I sounded exhausted. I'm not surprised I'd rowed for hours during
the night to stop us going into reverse. Hope I didnt sound too dull. Mick
was asleep during it and I was worried that there might have been some
inappropriate noises broadcast cos of our diet changes. Sometimes a noise
will bring the other straight out of sleep to start rowing. Sometimes this
is after only 5 mins from settling down as we become disorientated with
tirdness. I didnt want Mike to begin and insist on an explanation of the
time, who was supposed to be rowing, what time was it, what time do we
cahnge, what direction are we going and so on. It would have been a fun
broadcast.

If we dont speed up soon we could be here for ever.
T.x