Atlantic Rowing Race: Blog 18

Blog 18 – Annie Well its day 6 now out here in the big wide ocean and all is well with team Explore! After the initial few days of atrocious weather, things seem to be settling down quite considerably. We’ve been informed that the next 10 days should be relatively calm by comparison. We would’ve liked a little more wind pushing us towards Antigua though as rowing this boat with no weather assistance is extremely hard work... Explore, fully laden, weighs over half a ton, and trying to move that through still waters is like trying to stir treacle with a drinking straw! Mel’s already explained our race position. I suspect a few crews might catch us up in the next few days but we’ll be trying our hardest to keep them at bay that’s for sure! The night before last at about 3am, our GPS informed us that there was an ‘unknown vessel’ in close proximity to us. The moon was hidden behind clouds so I was unable to see any navigational lights so I leapt to the obvious conclusion that it must indeed be pirates! Now in my mind, there are 2 types of pirates. The first type all look like Johnny Depp, and the second type are the type to chop your head off, boil it, and then extract your teeth to make necklaces from... I spent the rest of my watch trying to work out what we had on board that we could bribe them with and came to the conclusion that my Mum’s flapjacks would make a perfect peace offering! An hour later and still no pirate action so I retired to bed and sacrificed Mel to the deck. I awoke 2 hours later and thankfully Mel was still there, and still in possession of her teeth. The next night was incredible... I have never seen so many stars in my life – it was truly magical. Whilst paddling away on my own in the dark, I craned my neck so far back whilst identifying what I thought was Orion’s Belt, I literally fell off my seat and landed on the deck in a heap of giggles! (No wonder those pirates didn’t bother with me!!) What else has happened? Oh yes, we’ve had a ‘cake off’ between Jan King (Mel’s Mum), and Michele Januszewski (Annie’s Mum). Jan made Christmas cake and Michele made flapjacks. We sampled the Christmas cake for the first time yesterday and although it was delicious, I’m only going to award Jan 8 out of 10. I’m taking a point off because there’s no way she made enough, and another point off because rowing an ocean when drunk is not an easy thing to do trust me! (How much brandy was in that cake?? At least a bottle I’m sure!). Mel will report back on the flapjack results tomorrow... I’ll be off then – got a boat to row.... Enjoy the snow guys. It’s 29 degrees here! Annie x

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