2 for the price of 1
Panatlantic
Wed 12 Dec 2007 12:19
Hi all, it appears the blogs didn't go online for
the last 2 days, so here you go! - expect anothe from James this
afternoon....
love and wet hugs,
Niall
Wash Day (from James, 10/12/2007)
hi everyone from somewher in the
atlantic!
things are going well, the weather has really
settled and the seas with it so we now have a small amount of swell and wind
pushing us generally in the right direction. by all accounts we have already
passed half the fleet and are closing in on a couple more, however our focus has
shifted from racing to getting across as fast as possible. it may sound like the
same thing but isnt, we discovered that if you become obsessed woth racing you
can push yourself too hard and with such a long way to go we cannot afford
burnout or injury.
general moral is pretty good, the speakers are now
wprking so its great to have a bit of music as a welcome distraction. we have
both discovered that it hurts far too much to row naked and have resorted back
to shorts to cut down the amount of salt getting directly to the skin. its a big
relief as i dont know more times i could handle having to look at niall's
chaffed ass squeezing throught the cabin hatch. not a pretty sight i can tell
you!
we have been in touch with family and friends
evryday so far via email or sat phone which has been great! they continue to be
outstandingly supportive. its especially tough for me as i have never
experienced anything like this so am finding being away from loved ones
especially tough. Niall on the other hand is a bit more experienced spending
time on his own so on the whole is coping very well.
today was an exciting day, with the seas relatively
calm we had our first proper wash since leaving (probably longer for niall!).
this consisted of a kettle full of water and some shower gel and i have to say
felt great. to get rid of all of the sea salt was superb but niw less than a day
later i am covered again! it certainly wasnt an easy job washing everywhere, for
those of you who are familiar with the boat there isnt exactly a lot of room and
it rocks all over the place!
with progress continuing at this rate we can expect
to reach antigua in 5 days or less, however we are headeing south to the trade
winds which should blow us across to antigua at a much quicker pace. we aree
both hoping to get there in less than 50 days, and anything under that will be a
missive bonus and mean extra time to relax the other side!
definately the hardest part of this challenge is
the mental side, the body will learn to adapt to the rowing side but with so
much time on your own the challenge is to occupy the mind with anything other
than how much youd like to be sat at home with a cold magners. the night shifts
of 2 hours on/off are especially hard so i am now listening to audio books,
harry potter at the moment. niall by all accounts sings to himself but
fortunately i cant hear him from the cabin.
thanks again to everyone who keeps emailing us,
keep them coming through.
love to everyone
james
Running Repairs (from Niall,
11/12/2007)
Good day to you all,
Sorry yesterday's is a day late, James spelled the
address wrong again! Here's 2 for the price of 1!
Well we're now a week in and going well. Conditions
have improved greatly, we now have a nice Force2 (occasional 3) blowing us
towards Antigua which is due to stay around for the next 72 hours or so,
which we intend to take full advantage of. Conditions aren't quite perfect, the
oceanic swell is pushing us at about 240 degrees and the wind at about 270
degrees, which means there are 2 different wave directions consistently coming
at us, but it's hardly a chore to be honest! It makes things a little difficult
at night though, as you can't see the waves coming, you line up on one set and
hope the other doesn't upset your balance too greatly....
By our calculations we continue to make around 50nm
per day, which is satisfactory for the time being. now that conditions are
better James and i have been rowing together a little more and we are
apparently due to catch 2 more boats soon and are beginning to close
on the leaders...
Physically we're both doing pretty well. We
naturally have blistered hands - which are toughening up now - and James' feet
are nastily blistered too as we row barefoot. We appear to be passing under a
giant hole in the ozone layer as the sun has suddenly got frighteningly hot and
i managed to burn through the factor 30 yesterday, which feels good next to
salty clothes!
Our arses are another matter altogether. What a
mess! I spoke too soon about recovery, during my convalescence i appear to
have caught a nasty bout of boat MRSA (Major Relapse of Sore Arse) but i think
i've figured out the major contributing factors (apart from rowing, of course)
and am working on a solution. Not wearing anything with a seam down the middle
of the ass is solution number 1. he he, while i sat rowing last night, my
salt-encrusted bum-hairs gleefully doing unto me as the Sodomites did unto each
other, i had plenty of time to think of what to call this new bout of bum-agony,
MRSA seemed perfect and i naturally went through several ideas to fit the
acronym.... a few choice others were: My Ripped and Swollen Anus; Malevolent
Return to a Sore Arse; and My Rectum's Sore As ****.
As at all times, i have taken solice in the good
book: Psalm 46: "Yay though thou ass thalt be in tatters, and pieces of it lieth
around you, be thou comforted for blessed art they who chaff and remain true to
the Lord. I am the Lord."
Today we had our first dolphin sighting since day
1, they weren't particularly interested in us though and headed off straight
away. My suspicion is that they have heard that one of the other boats is
carrying a 'dolphin' on board with them..... yes (lads from work will love
this), one of the other rowers was spotted packing her dildo, called the
dolphin! Brilliant! After a cursory glance at me and James, we were evidently
ruled out as being dildo-carriers, and they moved rapidly on. Wonderful
creatures, we will never tire of seeing them.
We make 30 litres of water every couple of days,
using our Schenker watermaker, and turned it on first thing this morning to a
hissing sound..... was it a loose connection? Or worse, a broken gasket? i
won't write exactly what was said, but it rhymed with 'clucking bell'. Disaster,
1 week in and the watermaker's broken already! We have a back up, which requires
one hour of pumping by hand to make 5 litres of water.... hardly an attractive
prospect! Before panic settled in (and after a nice dolphin-interlude) we
decided to put our trust in modern technology and turned to the satellite
phone....luckily our sponsor Jim from Mactra answered his phone and after 10
minutes of twisting knobs and purging valves (stop me if i'm getting too
technical) we tried it again... and i'm happy to announce we're back in the
game!
My joy at the discovery that our speakers are
working again was shattered after 2 excellent hours of the Rolling Stones, when
the MP3 player that Pete Bird (of Atlantic Quest, 37 day 4 man
crossing in early 2007) gave me decided to pack up and die! Now Pete, i
don't mean to sound ungrateful, but those seat covers you gave us are
an absolute bloody nighmare, they were fine on flat water but out here
where you're being buffeted about constantly they are terrible, and now
this, a faulty MP3? I smell a stitch up!! I was looking forward to hearing
King Louis sing 'king of the swingers' himself, but it looks like i'll be giving
myself rendition after rendition again!
So it is back to singing to myself and thinking
random thoughts again..... speaking of which, my mind turned to the phrase
'teaching grandma to suck eggs' last night, and i ruminated on it for the
majority of my shift thereafter..... What on earth posessed anyone to suck
on an egg? Or is that is actually what this means? Forgive my
prudishness, but asking my grandma, or any woman in polite society
for that matter, to "suck my eggs" does not sound particularly gentlemanly.
I for one won't be sucking eggs - metaphorical or otherwise - any time
soon!
This episode did, however, remind me of one of the
funniest and most disturbing/confusing things i have ever seen; one of those
incidents (like seeing the monkeys masturbating at the Zoo) when all who have
witnessed it realise that they have seen something very wrong and silently agree
not to talk about it again..... I was in Belize for Christmas of 2003, in a
small border-town where 90% of the population are drunk and the other 10% work
in bars! I exited a supermarket with my brothers and there, infront of us, were
2 men. One of them was pouring an egg down the throat of the other one and
sayiing "todo in uno! Todo in uno!" (all in one in Spanish, not interchangable
with Hasta la Vista, as i have had to explain to James!), the other one had his
head tilted right back to afford the optimum angle for pouring an egg into his
mouth and was bodily shaking, spasming uncontrollably from his head down his
ape-long arms to his legs... his friend (the egger) grinned and squealed with
joy as the last bit of albumen was consumed and the eggee grimaced and continued
to spasm. The egger reached into his coat pocket and pulled out another egg,
which was obviously too much for the eggee who shook his head (discernable from
the rest of his spasming) and turned to walk away. I have no explanation for
what occurred, why it occurred or whether such an action has ever been
repeated, perhaps they too had been cogitating on the why grandma would suck an
egg?!
Right good people i shall leave you there. James
shall return tomorrow to this blog site and to Original Bristol 106.5fm (you can
catch us live at about 7:50am or on podcast on www.originalbristol.com) and i shall be back again on
thursday.
Until then, take care of your behinds, and those of
your loved ones,
Niall |