About Days 12-14

We watched the waves flow by, discussed our favourite flavour of crisps and did our best to remain zen in the face of a northern drift. By the third day the wind turned in our favour - it was time to say goodbye to our ocean ashram and make some miles.

Waves were high, making for tough hand steering. The clouds started to clear and batteries began to see some charge. Sadly, not enough to get the autohelm to work before night. We fought and battled with hand steering well into the darkness - but you don’t win an arm wrestle with Lady Atlantic. The anchor was back out after 18 hours.

Having to anchor overnight is much more difficult to reconcile than for a multi-day anchor. The key idea is to never stop rowing so calling an overnight halt feels like giving up. But hand steering in the dark against 5metre swell doesn’t leave much room for negotiation.

The even more painful aspect is the thought of a night a sleepless night in the bow cell. As the anchor tries to hold the nose of the boat straight the vessels tears through the waves. Corkscrewing, diving and dropping from the top of the sheer walls of water. The night is spent slamming into cabin walls, ceilings and each other. A true sleep deprivation treatment with the constant thought that it must eventually calm and you’ll get at least at hours sleep.

Then the alarm pierces through the sleepless daze. Confusion. Panic. Desperation. What’s happening? Have I drunk three litres of Strongbow and slept in a puddle under a canal bridge? I wish. The grim reality hits. I’m still on this bloody boat and I’ve got to get up.

Cast your mind back to being a hungover teenager. Every atom of your being drawn with mighty force to hide and stay hidden in bed; all outside of the covers is bad; a dope fiend willing to give anything to stay cosy. Then someone turns on the light and throws a bucket of ice water over you.

How do you feel? Take that feeling. Pack it into a suppository and insert, French style. A powerful hit of sorrow, misery, regret; followed by a decades worth of poor me’s on slow-release. Now. Put on your wet socks, put on your wet pants and get out in that wind to steer this boat.

On deck we stumble about trying to haul the anchor and taking rowing positions. The waves are high and the wind is howling. We row. 3.5knots, great pace. We’re making miles.

The morning sky clears, the sun blasts down, our parched solar panels drink it down like a long awaited, chilled San Miguel at the Red Lion. Praise be! Hallelujah! Enshallah! By evening the batteries have sufficient power to run the autohelm.

We cast aside our hand steering strings, dance jigs of joy, almost fall overboard in the process and share a Reese’s peanut butter cup in celebration. Never have three people been so excited at the prospect of doing a night shift. We rowed all day, we rowed all night and then we rowed some more. All with a smile on our face.