just another day today..
Row Across The Pond
Richard Hoyland and Steve Coe
Mon 18 Jan 2010 18:52
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too hot to do too much today.a total contrast from life as we
should be experiecing with you guys at home. Today we have pushed on quietly and
are looking forward to to the cooling down in a couple of hours time. Rich is on
the oars and particularly sad after gathering enough strength to write his first
proper blog for a while. He finds the cabin more unbearable the I do, so it was
a momentous occassion that he achieved his target only to find that the blogg he
had written had for some reason not been saved.. he is now very sad. The effort
to achieve, particularly today is tough. This is about as alien as the moon and
seems as slow motion as walking on the moon must feel like.
A couple of things, firstly Ben Hall wanted to know if we had
seen any proper big ships. Yes we have and a few more than we would like.I even
called one up as they/we were a bit close. Really though I was bored and just
wanted a chat. He was French and did not want to talk.. thats ok.. just next
time i wont bother either. On our boat and many others included/especially
ships, there is a system called AIS (automatic indicating system) this is like a
radar which fires out and receives a signal of other boats. Data is then relayed
of ship type, course steered etc.. we have alarm signal to tell if something is
around.
Next thing.
We are receiving weather info from various sources, well three
actually, Mike Hickey, Andrew Edwards and Hans. Thanks and please if you can
keep this coming this is all great stuff and each one of you is providing part
of a puzzle that we peice together to help us plan our route.. ta..
We are now into the start of our third week.
Sam, past day 3 and 11... (day 11 was tough)
Fact. The depth of water in our current location is
approx: 5100 metres.. quite deeop eh!
Bit from Richard...as Steve just mentioned the littlest of
setbacks can really hit hard today, after neglecting my blogs I put aside time
to type away at manic speed like a man possessed to make up for lost ground
only to have the mail disappear from the PC :-(
Only thing you can do is get back on the horse and carry on,
so bruushing myself down here I go...
Opened one of my low moment letters yesterday as I was missing
home and family and thought it would be good to just keep the drive going. I
have to thank Anna Swain from Bupa who had sealed this one up for just this
opportunity. What sat within was only a few simple words, but it's
amazing what an effect that they can have...and to confirm for Anna... I'm
not yet a loser 'cos I haven't quit trying...big thanks. This
message is sitting right next to one from Andrew Edwards who pointed out that
"pain is temporary. It may last a minute or an hour, or a day, or a year, but
eventually it will subside nd something else will take it's place. If I quit,
however, it lasts forever"...I'm sure who we can guess this quote comes from but
hopefully one of the big lessons I take from this adventure/ordeal/trial/hell is
to put things into perspective and to keep on track. And Andrew thnks for the
word for the journey....¡ánimo! (you'll need to Google it is
you don't speak Spanish...worth the effort, great word, although doesn't score
highly in scrabble)
To my mum, I'm eating well and putting on sunscreen and Steve
is taking care of me. Keep up the emails of information, it's always good to
know where we are in the race..we're especially interested in updates on
our flatmates, Red Arrows, and really interested in the race between Peter
and Charlie in the solos...plus what about Roger in Drem It Do It...with his new
found solo status, how is he doing?
Hi to Jacqueline & David, take care of the
old 'un make sure she always has a red wine on the go, for medicinal purposes
only, obviously.
Martin, thanks for the mail, we have a number of birds hanging around the
boat, just can't keep them away now :-)
To Hannah Levin and Annie Harrie, our purveyors of fine
jokes...keep them coming, a chuckle a day keeps the sharks at bay...I believe
that this is an old seafaring saying (or maybe not).
Sally, Nigel, Harry, Elsa and Puddles...what a marvelous mixture of things
to keep us entertained, I've still not managed to get Steve to join in with
Jerusalem, but I will break him down. Unfortunately we can't receive images, so
thanks to Nigel...but we can't download nowt :-(
Gabriel, could you resend your exam questions attachment in
the body of an email...we can't download it and I bet that it would been a
good morale lift :-) Hope everyone is well up in Wilmslow and massive thanks for
a fabulous Christmas. It was a fantastic time and has kept me going during some
of the dark moments. It was a big bonus given that we would have been underway
in December.
To Emma Bavin, hope you are keeping Freya on the straight and narrow at
school :-) and she is getting on with her work while I am away. Tell her
I'm watching ;-)
One thing I did in my earlier blog was start to compile top
ten lists and carried out by many blokes in many pubs across Britain.....well we
haven't got a CD collection to put into alphabetical order, so what else can we
do out here...
Top Ten sights so far
1 Shark...swimming round the boat....funny, but not felt like
swimming recently ;-)
2 The stars...stunning, simply stunning and meteorites...what
more could you ask for
3 A jar of Sudocreme at the end of a shift....say no
more
4 My watch when it reads 1 minute to the hour and my shift is
due to end anytime now
5 Emails...lovely emails...contact with home, they keep you
sane
6 Chicken and herb dumplings...the creme de la creme of the
food rations...I will fight to the death for this one...closely followed by
Bacon and Beans for breakfast...I dream of the day when I have both in a daily
bag
7 Twirls....Lou put some in my day bags here and there...you
certainly know the way to this man's heart
8 The support yacht visit...there is life out
there
9 Dolphins....they swarm round the boat, check you out and
then they're off again...one did an amazing flip as it was swimming away, almost
to say catch me if you can! Not a chance at 2-3 knots matey....
10 Sunsets...beautiful, the picture would capture the calmness
the amazing space and atmosphere...(closest I've experienced to this was
a lightning storm in the Sahara Desert...a moment that can take your breath
away)
More lists to follow....
p.s it's 6:50pm and were going to clockover an important
milage distance on our GPS...it's now into the 2 hundreds of miles to get
to the first significant turn point...we're on track, finger crossed for a
good night.
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