Hi all,

 

Our night was interesting. We put our sea anchor out because we just couldn’t progress against the wind. It was mild and sunny and I felt a bit silly putting sea anchor out. That all changed later. We had to lock ourselves in the cabin and ride out a decent storm. Thrown across the boat many times. When we had to leave the cabin on a few occasions to baton things down that had come loose. It was a bit funky ha ha.

 

For those who don’t know, a Sea Anchor is a huge parachute attached to the front of the boat by a 75 metre rope. to the rear of it is a 100 foot rope which you use to trip it in order to retrieve it after deployment as you couldn’t just drag it in. So retrieving the Anchor is a carry on and then stowing all away.  So at about Midnight the weather calmed. No wind. No more rain. So we thought great, we’ll drag the Anchor in and get going. As I was dragging it in the thought struck me that it was almost too calm. I said to Andy “I hope this clam isn’t the eye of the storm!” We had that answered about 30 seconds later.The storm returned. It had indeed been the eye of the storm passing directly over us. It was weird. So calm and then all hell broke loose again. Soooo I had to re-deploy he Sea Anchor. Doh!

 

We eventually got going at about 4;30am. Hard going so far today we’ve made about 30 miles into a slight headwind. We really are getting caned by the weather after our slow start. We’re hitting everything after the other teams have passed. That said, we have days like today where the scenery has been beyond staggering and it makes up for it all. Huge mountainous (and I really do mean mountainous) rolling swells. Some about 80 feet high. When you are atop one you feel like you can see forever and there is not a soul. Then you are in a valley of pure water. I shall never ever forget what it looked and felt like. Lifetime memories.

 

Keep the messages coming. One thing we really would like via E mail is a written summary of all teams and their distance from the finish as of today. That would be a great help. No images as we’re struggling to download emails with images using the sat phone as a modem .

 

Oh and finally a huge shout out to the members of Sub 7 Rowing club that Andy and I are members of for all of the updates and for their amazing efforts in the relay they are running. Mentallists. Also to NE32 Tri club who, as ever have been a great source of help and support.

 

Thanks

 

Sean and Andy