Indecision?
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Tue 22 Mar 2011 11:08
Inverness, Scotland,
Tuesday 22nd March
I have now reached
decision time. "Speak now or forever hold your peace". My back is hanging
together, though I have not made the progress over the past two weeks in the
linear fashion that I did in the first four weeks. I find I need to sleep more
than I did previously. I have lost a lot of weight (mostly muscle of course....)
over the past seven weeks. I can't understand why because I am eating like the
proverbial horse.
I am driving, I am
at the office every day and generally getting on with things. With care I should
be able to make the passage to the Maldives. Ideally I would not leave for
another couple of months but I don't have that with the weather patterns and
seasons in the Indian Ocean.
The North
East monsoon appears to be coming to a premature end despite the late start
this year. There currently is a storm brewing and forming in the area we need to
sail through. A westerly wind pattern seems to be establishing. This is not very
helpful. The weather is now my main concern.
I got a check up
yesterday, just a physical examination and all the nuts and bolts seem to
be in the right place and the wound has healed well. You would never even
know there used to be a dorsal fin there... I was advised not to have
another xray unless absolutely neccessary as I now have had six Xrays and a
CT scan in a four week period. Maybe that's why I am losing weight - maybe I'm
shrinking with the microwaving I've been getting!
What is compelling
me to go? Me. Nothing else. I can't bring myself to send the boat home on a
ship or with a delivery crew. This is perfeclty sensible and particularly under
the circumstances would be understandable. But..... well you can, I am
sure, understand.
Also I want to get
back to work by the end of the year, because there are things to do here
too. If I can't sail west now then we have no possibility of completing the
circumnavigation this year. I know it seems strange to people that I should
want to come back to work rather than extend my cruising in tropical
climes, but Gael Force IS my real life and I love it and miss it. We have built
it up from absolutely nothing, me starting as an eighteen year old and there is
so much more to do.
So all of this
induces perhaps unneccessary pressure and risk and most certainly at very least
discomfort. Well nobody said it would be easy and I have made the rod
for my own back.
Cutting to the
chase, while I make my last considerations about whether to continue, I have
been reflecting over our adventure to date and will over the next few days
upload images to the blog which tell something of the journey to date in
small snapshots. I hope you will enjoy.
Oh! one other
thing. You all need to pull your weight a bit more too. Mailasail have
about eight hundred blogs on their system. Our blog has been the second
most widely read blog of all eight hundred blogs! Second. This is not good
enough. Do none of you have any friends? Joy is for sharing - pass on the
address www.blog.mailasail.com/rhiann.marie or
ask someone to go to www.gaelforcegroup.com or www.gaelforcemarine.co.uk and follow
the blog link.
Here is a
proposition for you: if I continue my circumnavigation and you guys are coming
with me (by blog) on a whole new adventure then I challenge you all to get at
least one person more to read the blog and I will do my very best not to let you
down!