the changes that have come over me ........
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Tue 25 Oct 2011 23:03
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Tuesday 25th October 2144 UTC 2244
BST
Only a few knots of wind behind us - it gave up
first on this occassion.......
35:27.98N 006:21.93W
I have been receiving a lot of e-mails and that is
just fantastic! Really appreciated and I am going to make an effort to try and
get round them all. All being well, we expect a landfall in Gib tomorrow. There
is no sailing wind here now today in stark contrast to yesterday!
In a way it's helpful because it's a bit like
Piccadily circus out here and there are fishing boats all around us. And
tankers, and container ships and dark black of night...
Now a few honest and sincere thoughts - not I
promise you false modesty, just plain simple fact. When I describe weather to
you and the challenges of being in heavy seas and on the open ocean,
remember this is the daily bread of the worlds fishermen and particularly those
in the harsh higher latitudes. Specifically Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish.
Scandinavians, Canadians and North Americans too. Operating in that environment
is their daily lot - and it is harsh - the most dangerous job in the world. I
for one take my hat off to every one of them.
Also, circumnavigating nowadays on a yacht is
not all that unusual and I don't claim for myself any great achievement in
this feat. What I am very proud of however is having done that in a boat I
worked hard to acquire, with my wife who found much of the trip gruelling. I am
very proud of our son Craig who undertook some really challenging passages
and showed his mettle and also our daughter Rhiann who resigned herself to
us being away and didn't complain. They both got on with things matured and
caused us no problems whatsoever. People have said they are "well balanced" I am
proud of that. It was unfair on both of them to some extent. Also I am
particularly proud of the team at Gael Force who continued diligently to grow
and develop the business and who almost proved I am an uneccesary expense! There
are many more to thank too including all of you readers .......... me, I will
always try to say what I do and do what I say, that's
all.
Thanks for all your book thoughts, they are
all useful and I will collect all mails and hopefully there are more to
come too and put them "into the mix" in terms of thinking about how and if a
book should be produced. Some of you may have guessed of course that I always
considered a book. The blog was started principally as a record of thoughts
and experiences for ourselves of the trip.
Over these past two years many people have asked
the question "what was the best place you have visited?", "where was the most
interesting?" etc, however these are not really questions that can easily be
answered, though I would probably find it a good enough reason to dump about ten
thousand words on you anyway...
No, a Doctor asked me a good question -
"are you writing everything down, recording your thoughts and feelings? -
because a trip like this will change you". Of course the trip has changed
me, changed Trish and changed us and I will tell you more about that in the
future, however here are a few interesting physical changes I have
observed.
I have started taking salt again which I had
not done (in terms of adding it to food) for maybe twenty five years. That is I
think understandable due to the dehydration in tropical climes. However I have
also started consuming a large amount of sweet things. I guess this is from
snacking on sugar filled energy giving morsels while at sea. For goodness sake I
have eaten about 2 kilos of Scottish Tablet since Capetown alone! I really will
have to kick that habit or I'll be toofless soon. Another thing too - since I
was 15 years old I can only remeber taking oral medication once. I always
refused it for anything and have had an incredibly healthy 30 years with not one
day off for "sickness" whatever that is. However when the back got done in I
took morphine and was glad of it and took painkillers for some days after
my operation too ........... I hope that this can be a one off and like the
Scottish Tablet is not habit forming!
Yes, I eat a lot more food too but am burning it
off faster and have probably lost about six or seven kilos on the trip. After my
accident in Malaysia my appetite went into overdrive but I still lost about
seven kilos in weight very quickly. Apparently your body gets shocked into
a "catabolic" state (or was it anabolic?) and it just burns up enegy.
Amazing eh? I think I should actually write a diet book - however it's how to
put into 200 pages that you just head out into the jungle and flip a KTM
motocrosser and ........ well a cut and a slash here and there a few nuts
and bolts and the weight just falls off.
The problem I will have is when I get home. The
same level of eating as now will continue but the energy consumption will be way
down - so it looks like I am destined very soon to be fat, toothless and very
salty.
These are just a few of the changes that have come
over me, the greater changes however are much harder to describe and are of
course more profound.
If all goes well we expect to be back in Gib
tomorrow, get the usual boat jobs done and prepare Rhiann Marie for wintering
afloat. Home to Caledonia by the weekend and back at Gael Force first thing
Monday morning. Somethings never change......
Though most of this blog writing has been primarily
from my perspective of the trip and my take on the challenges, make no mistake
the real hero of this wee adventure has been Trish. Yesterday again she suffered
an extremely uncomfortable day. She wanted to do this passage I think primarily
because she thought I would be safer while entering the Gibraltar traffic
and was sick with worry during my Capetown - Canary solo tour. I wil tell
you more about how much more difficult many aspects of the trip have been for
her than me in the future too.
Now enough from me - let's hear from some more of
you please. E-mail on rhiann {DOT} marie {CHANGE TO AT} gaelforce {DOT} net
Song of the day: Caledonia by Dougie MacLean - the
original and still the best version.
Stepping on deck just now to keep an eye on the
trawlers I am getting the smell of the land. Morocco is only ten miles off to
starboard.
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