MIND

As Mick imagines his family enroute to meet him in Antigua, I too am enveloped in the thought of their transit. The daily movements and activities of Mick’s wife and children are so well charted onboard, that occasionally I have to remember that I am not part of the Birchall family and that I have a life of my own waiting for me. It has been 7 months to a year since I have seen most of my friends and family, but then I am younger and unattached and sailing away for months on end is not unbeknown to me. Like the African poet, her name momentarily escaping me, ‘home is where I hang my knickers!’ My feelings of separation are obviously less acute, but they are still there. My friends scatter the globe, but I am looking forward to my own small reunions.

This evening as the sun, a near perfect sphere of fading pale apricot slipped off a smoky white smudge of sky, the wind alas remained the same. We have been holding out for our S/SSW wind to back to SSE/SE, but no. I spent my whole early evening watch willing the red ensign to flutter in my direction, rather than tickling the solar panels and darting off behind the flag staff. We continue to push on a WSW course, knifing into the wind and it is the toughest rowing I have done during the entire crossing. Rowing into wind, even into a slight wind is so physically hard. Grr.

BODY

The changes to my body during the course of this passage have been most evident through the changes in my sleeping position!
1. Within the first few days, I was lying in the cabin (these were the days when we slept head first towards the stern) trying to get some sleep. I was uncomfortable and so reached underneath my back in an attempt to smooth any wrinkles out of my fleece sleeping bag liner. When I felt that the liner was smooth, I realized that it was not what I was lying on that was making me feel uncomfortable. My ‘glutinous maximus’ muscles (‘glutes’) and buttocks were swollen from exercise and so the discomfort that I was feeling was that my body was slightly raised off the bunk!
2. The next observation I made was some weeks later. Over the course of time, we’ve slowly lost all the plastic grills for the protein shake bottles. The grills help dissolve the protein and milk powder. In lieu of these grills, I have had to shake the bottles vigorously for a couple of minutes. In doing so, I became aware that all the muscles from my finger tips to my calves were involved in this action! I also quickly realized the power that I now had in my upper body and so had to be careful not to shake the shake too violently! Mick’s bottle has an air vent hole and on occasion a tiny spray of chocolate protein shake has flown all over the place!
3. When I started to develop sores on my ‘derriere’ I became alarmed at its fat-less-ness. What was I going to sit on now?! It takes a lot of not eating to get a model bottom this slim! I am supposed to be modeling in New York on April 4th, but at this rate I’ll be more petite than the Victoria Secret lingerie models!
4. Thumbing through a hilarious shot Mick took (I asked him to take it) of me in my ‘Sunny-side’ pose, draped over the liferaft, soaking up some rays in that hard-to-reach place, I noticed that my thighs had gone! Yep no thighs!
5. Since neither Mick or I have done any walking in the past 2 and a half months, our calves have completely atrophied. Sometimes I topple over in the cockpit when I try and stand up.
6. Finally, over the past two weeks, now that the sores on my behind have healed and I can sit on it once again, thankfully I could revert back to sleeping on my back. This is good because sleeping on my tummy had become difficult. My quad muscles are now so well developed that my hips are raised off the bunk!
So, in conclusion, I’ve gone from having the butt and thighs of an athlete, to having no butt or thighs. From being ripped with muscles from my finger-tips to my calves to being stripped of fat, so that the ‘ripped’ part is now no longer visible! And having only sat (to row) or lain down (to sleep) for 66 days, I have no calf muscles and thus pencil legs. I estimate having lost at least 6 kilos (66 > 60 or less) and one dress size, (from 10 to 8.)

If I had at some stage been brushed delicately with egg white and popped in the oven on slow bake, I am now beautifully cooked a light tan McVities brown. Years of bikini lines have been erased. Strangely, being the same shade all over, I don’t feel naked at all. It is going to be odd wearing clothes again, but I’m sure I’ll cope!

FISH

This morning when I was about to haul the para-anchor onboard, I noticed a small creature on the chute. The creature was the same size and colour as the ‘Hoover Creature,’ that lives under the hull. I tried to shoo him off by flapping the chute, but he was having none of it and simply wriggled round to another stretch of fabric. ‘Come on now.’ I said. (It seems I talk to every living thing these days). ‘It’s time for you to go. You can’t stay there.’ I wasn’t sure I had shaken him free. The ‘Hang-on Creature’ was tenacious. Then I got distracted by the sudden appearance of 4,5,6,7 – ‘the Yellow Fins are back!’ I cried to Mick. I was delighted to see them! Had I just flicked the ‘Hang-on Creature’ to his death? I wondered guiltily. There were Yellow Fins suddenly everywhere. Could this be our original pack?
As if to welcome us back and on our way, the next few hours were filled with the spectacle of Yellow Fin after Yellow Fin, hurling itself out of the water. It was positively raining fish! These weren’t little fish jumping. These were our 3-4-5 ft grand-Daddies, each one launching itself skyward and then the weight of its head dropping down curling the body as the fish fell side-on back into the water with a ‘ker-dum-splosh!’ Our two black pterodactyl-batman birds circled overhead. It was dawn and either a predators feeding time or these Yellow Fins were making a mockery of the pterodactyl birds, by leaping out in the relatively safety offered by their proximity to the boat.
For breakfast I had the usual – a silver foil packet meal with baked beans and when I was finished, I lent over the side to wash the spoon. Like a dumb puppy, there was the ‘New Fish!’ ‘You’re still here!’ I remarked. ‘The Yellow Fins haven’t got him yet then.’ Said Mick. He’ll get himself killed if he goes after every spoon waggled in the ocean, I thought. And where was his ‘Big Friend?’ His body guard? Or was the ‘Big Friend’ his partner? Mick and I then discussed whether it was feasible to have a mixed-fish relationship.
The Yellow Fins were still with us late this afternoon, their yellow arrow coming into view, succeeding the dart of a shimmering blue body.

PHARMACEUTICALS

It’s going to be interesting to see which one we run out of first and how we deal with it:

Toothpaste
Scottex (tissues used as toilet paper)
Antibacterial water-free hand gel
Suncream
Shampoo.

Mood colour of the day (10th March) – Auburn, seas 3-4ft.

01.15 GMT
Barometer 1015
Wind S 10kts (nocturnal lull)

At 09.40 GMT (just after dawn in this part of the world) Lia pulled in the para-anchor(retrieval line attached this time) and I began to row a course of 255 degrees towards Antigua some 300 miles away. This will winds permitting hopefully take us 6-7 days to complete.

Coincidently at exactly the same time my family would have been on the 09.40 plane taking off from Gatwick airport bound for Antigua, a distance of some 3,000 miles or more. This journey will take them 7 hours to complete. In fact as I type this they will be almost due to land.

I assume as I type that they will be passing somewhere invisibly over head only a relatively few miles away albeit vertically. Sometimes during the day we can see the vapour trails of passing jets high in the sky but today there are none, so not even a chance of spotting a vapour trail that could conceivably belong to their plane. During the night we regularly watch the lights of planes passing overhead high in the upper atmosphere. It is interesting to follow one plane from spotting it on one horizon until it disappears over the opposite horizon. This takes approximately 15 minutes. Commercial jets travel at 5-600 miles an hour from my recollection ( correct me if I’m wrong) and therefore the distance travelled by those jets in that time we can see them will be approximately 125-150 miles

Down here on the ocean we try to average a speed of 2 knots (50 Nm per day) therefore in the same time it has taken the jet to do 125-150 miles we have travelld a distance of approximately 1/2 a mile, albeit the larger Nautical Mile whichis 1.1 normal miles. It is an interesting feeling to sit in the boat in the middle of a seemingly empty and endless ocean and watch these planes eat up the miles. If we could travel at the same speed we would be there in half an hour.

The planes will also land relatively on time so there is certainty of knowing when you will arrive at your destination. Back down here on the ocean in an ocean rowing boat there is no such certainty. On Saturday we put the para-anchor out for we thought a short time (12-24 hours) however the wind continued to blow from the South pinning us down for 3 days. We are hoping that our luck will change and that we will have more favourable winds for the next 6-7 days so we can reach our destination some 2 weeks later than we anticipated.

I doubt whether my family (even though it is their first trans-Atlantic flight) and other passengers will have the same sense of achievement that we will feel when we eventually row into English Harbour having spent 10 weeks on the open ocean. I am sure some passengers will have their own tales of hardship from their journey about how bad the food was or the lack of leg room, even the choice of films and I am sure in their own way they are valid. I think however as the planes fly overhead and I follow their progress at night, what they would feel as they sit in their air conditioned cabin, if they could see us and what we are doing just a relative few miles beneath them.

Anyway enough of this talk of high speeds and fast jets back in the real world of the ocean rowing boat, we have done more miles in our first 3 hours of rowing than we did in a day on para-anchor. Perhaps also a sign of good fortune when we pulled the anchor up this morning our friends the Tuna were back and we were treated to an hour or two of magnificemnt fish leaping, now you don’t see that out of the window of a Virgin airlines jet! (ocean rowing does have some compensations).

Our patience is waning and our desire/need for the trip to be over is ever greater particularly as we are so close to the finish. I have been emailing and speaking to my wife Vicky and my three teenage children for the last few weeks saying that I will see them soon. Each time I do there is hope that it will be soon, but as the trip has progressed each time we think we are making solid progress towards the finish then we are pinned down again. This is mentally really tough. Due to the delayed start I have only spent 10 days with them since 20th November last year. Fortunately due to the delay I managed to get home for 7 days before Christmas (thank God I did!), flying back again on Christmas Day (complete with airline roast chicken meal for my Christmas lunch).

I have found the absence from my family extremely hard. I was prepared for not being with them for just over 2 months if the race had gone to plan and that seemed reasonable, now with the race delays it will be more like 4 months. I have always considered myself to be a family man with his support and pleasure in life centred around them but until I started this voyage I did not know how much I needed that daily contact and how much I love them, value them and would miss them.

Vicky and the kids are coming out to meet us in Antigua and after having to rebook their flights twice they are travelling down to Gatwick tonight for tomorrows flight to Antigua (we can’t afford to rebook again!). This was planned as an exceptional family holiday and probably one of our last altogether as my oldest daughter is now 18 (and will no doubt want to holiday with friends from now on), however it now looks as if they will be spending a week or so on the island before we arrive. Luckily we have booked for 2 weeks so that at least I will hopefully get some time with them in Antigua.

As I said yesterday in my blog the hardest part of this row is not physical it is mental. I know though, that following this adventure that I will have a greater sense of how much my family mean to me and how much I value their daily contact, even if it is th he stereotypical grumpy teenager/father conversation. I miss being involved in their lives and them in mine, particularly when they are at an age when important decisions and exams are taking place that will affect their futures.

Vicky has been truly exceptional as a wife in supporting me allowing me to undertake this challenge. As the race has gone on I have relied on our once a week phone conversations and the daily emails and texts detailing what is going on at home to keep me sane and in touch. With the race and weather delays I realise that she has effectively acted as a one parent family for 4 months as well as having to support my ups and downs here on the ocean and for that I thank her for her patience tolerance and understanding.

This is probably not the sort of blog that us men are encouraged to write as it shows our emotions, we are supposed to be tough adventurers with few feelings, however I wanted to share this with you so that you can get an idea of some of the less talked about hardships of a challenge like this. I was quite astounded how profoundly my separation from those I love has affected me. I know that in the long run I will benefit from this experience and that when we are ’soon’ reunited that I will value that time immensely.

I really do hope that the weather improves and that we get there ’soon’, whatever that means!

16.15GMT
Barometer 1015
Wind 20kts+ SSE.

The ‘New Fish’ still lurks in the underworld of ‘Dream Maker,’ emerging every time we plop something into the water. The ‘New Fish’ is hungry. When I washed my spoon after breakfast, he surfaced immediately and made for the spoon! I teased him a couple of times, dipping the spoon in and out of the water and managed to take a good look at him. Approximately 2 feet in length, the ‘New Fish’ is like an eel. He is mostly light grey except for some very interesting markings that ring his head horizontally around the mouth. One of the rings is black, the other white. On top of his head is a flat patch, but we’re not sure if this is the scar of a close-encounter or a marking. The patch makes the fish look like he came too close to an orbital sander and a cross section was diced off! The patch shows a grid of bones. Before throwing the remains of one MOD ‘Mexican Bean Feast’ into the water, I carefully ripped the (biodegradable) silver foil packet wide open. The ‘New Fish’ was on it in a flash! In fact he stuck his head right inside and wriggled around with the packet over his head for a few minutes!

When the silver foil packet had sunk, another fish appeared. It turns out that the ‘New Fish’ has a friend, a rather unusual friend! The ‘Friend’ is about 1.5ft long, a consistent 1ft deep and thin like a slice. He resembles a two dimensional rectangle, with frills for fins and tail. The ‘Friend’ has pond-fish or deep reef fish colours- a dark brown body with grey dots and greenish-black gills. When the ‘Friend’ came out from underneath the boat, I jumped! Comparatively he was a monster! I fed the ‘New Fish’ and his big ‘Friend’ the remains of a soggy bag of chocolate covered nuts and raisins. Most of them sank before they realized they were edible, but the ‘New Fish’ managed to chase a few. For the rest of the morning, the ‘Friend’ unabashedly milled around several feet away from the boat.

Dead overhead, pterodactyl bird returned. I have seen these pterodactyl-looking birds only once or twice so far on this voyage. Black in colour, their wings are angular. Apart from the fine black tail feather, the bird looks like the Batman sign! They hang motionless like vultures of the sea. The one I watched had dived down like a bullet and grabbed a flying fish. I knew why Pterodactyl bird was here. He was homing in on ‘New Fish’ and his big ‘Friend,’ but I reckoned they were pretty safe in close proximity to ‘Dream Maker.’

Last night, while it was Mick’s turn for the cabin, I lay on deck in my scupper bed and looked at the stars. For the first time in 48 hours, I didn’t feel sleepy and so was thumbing through my Ipod looking for unheard music. I stumbled upon an album by ‘Depeche Mode’ and another by the ‘Eagles.’ Rocked like a baby in a crib, I fell asleep during each album in turn, but it was still nice to set aside that moment, to soak up some cosmos. When I woke up, the breeze had eased off slightly and our stern was now in-line with Ursula Major (the pan handle). The breeze had clocked WSW, but when I woke up again later, Orion (the archer) with Sirius (the dog star) yapping at his heel, was back to my right and the breeze was blowing SW/SSW once again. I wondered if we had missed our chance. In the puddle beside me, a small outbreak of Deck Critters had erupted and they were hoping about madly waiting for me to move. ‘Okay, okay.’ I said and prised myself off the deck from between the raft and the spare oars.

At least our ‘Forward-Moving Para-Technique’ (which sounds too wordy, so I’m going to re-name it ‘The Para-anchor Sailing’ technique), has us tracking south where we want to go. We are even managing to recoup our lost ground to the west! The ‘Para-anchor Sailing’ technique is a rather grand term for a simple play of rudder angle versus the tie-off location of the anchor and associated lines, but if it works, it works.

The deck critters, which if you drew a line between all its arms and legs -its two small forward tentacles, two forward-reaching arms (with the kink/elbow half way) and two outstretched short legs would sketch a Sterling 50 pence piece or pentagon, are water borne. They get washed in through the scuppers. Mick says that he has seen them skimming about on the water’s surface. The only thing I have seen – and we’ve seen these for weeks, are small silicon-looking beads tumbling about on top of the water. I have to say, what with all the recent media about a rubbish patch the size of Texas whirling around in a vortex in the Pacific and the awareness mission of the Rothschild ‘Plastiki’ that I couldn’t help but wonder in horror, if these were plastic particles. I had resolved to investigate this on my return. Perhaps instead they are the eggs of deck critter boat-men?
Up by THE bucket this morning, I watched two deck critters moving about. One seemed to be enclosed in a ring of line (the tail of the retrieval line for the bow-anchor strop) and was circling its enclosure in a panic. The other was hopping about merrily, leaping an inch or more at a time, springing off the side of the hull. ‘Why can’t you hop, little one?’ I thought about the first .’And you would be classed as A.D.D!’ I whispered to the second!

The new fish emerged when Mick tipped the contents of THE bucket over the side yesterday. The new fish came up and grabbed a nugget. ‘Oh noh!’ Mick made an expression of disgust. Then, ‘it’s a shark fish!’He told me about the nugget-snatching and I was able to peer over the side of the boat before the new fish completely disappeared. It wasn’t a shark, but at 2 foot long, grey in colour and with a flattish head it did look a bit like one. Mick and I then had a discussion about the possible nutrient value for marine life of our bi-products, even freeze-dried based! The new fish (naturally we have other names for it) has continued to appear and make off with our refuse the whole time we’ve been on anchor. He doesn’t seem to have a Mick/Lia preference and was most intrigued by the silver spoon when Mick lent over in the usual way, to wave it through the water for a wash.

I was planning on grumbling about how unfair it is that only we seem to be stuck with SW’lies, while our nearest, albeit slightly more southern, competitors seem to be wrestling through. But that is the nature of racing and my desire to grumble was thus short-lived. While my father has been waiting for us in Antigua since Friday (March 5th), a little para-anchor time is good for me. The conditions which lead up to para-anchor time, always seem to path the way to a NEED for para-anchor time. Is it no wonder, since 12 hours of exercise over 62 days is 744 hours of exercise, which if you do an hour of exercise per day, is two years worth of exercise crammed into 2 months?

Right now, I am tired, with that sense of fatigue you feel when you’ve been ill and spent all day in bed – heavy and lethargic. There is a general all-over ache and stiffness. For half an hour or an hour, I feel hungry and alert, then the food sinks in and I’m sleepy all over again. My years of sailing have taught me that when there’s down time, take it, so that when it’s time to move again, it is possible to fire on all cylinders. If the sun didn’t beat down mercilessly on the deck, I would still be in full foulies with waterproof socks, wedged between the liferaft and the spare oars! In case of rain, I would probably have the flap on my Musto MPX Ocean Smock velcro’d shut too. Apparently it rained again on me last night. I didn’t notice. The wonderful thing about sleeping in the scupper is that Mick never tells me that my time is up and that its time to evacuate! I am also not in the way if Mick needs to emerge from the cabin for a pee! I think after we arrive that I am going to sleep and sleep and sleep, somewhere cool and soft. But there are miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.

Mood colour of the day (8th March) – Cobalt blue, seas 6-8ft.

18.30 GMT
Barometer 1011
Wind SSW 20kts

Admittedly when you first stop rowing the rest is welcome but once each of us has had a decent sleep and we’ve done the odd jobs around the boat it is a question of killing time. Due to the tight space in the cabin we have continued to do shifts inside and outside which works well enough. Both of us have also mastered the art of sleeping albeit rather uncomfortably on deck, me crunched up in the foot well and Lia on the deck towards the front of there boat, wedged between the life raft and the spare oars.

There is only so much sleeping that can be done and the art of whiling away the time whilst awake is getting to be key to staying sane. The problem with being stopped by the weather is you don’t know when it will change, and even though we have access to weather forecasts they are never that accurate or reliable. We had only thought we would be on anchor for 24 hours this time but now it is looking 48 hrs and then the NE winds we were forecast now seemed to have faded away. If any of you have been stuck in a casualty dept waiting room for 4 or 5 hours you will get a feeling for what we are going through however we are considerably more restricted in space and cannot leave and come back another day.

I was discussing with Lia yesterday that the physical challenge of this row is tough but is nothing compared to the mental challenge. The constant ups and downs in the weather where some days you make excellent progress and others you go backwards are the thing that I find difficulty dealing with and am having to learn to cope with. After 9 weeks in this very small space floating in an enormous ocean I need to know that the end is soon, each time we think we are within a week or 10 days of finishing the wind changes the anchor comes out and the time increases.

The mental challenge to me is becoming the real battle out here and that is what makes this rowing race such a ‘hard core’ event. I constantly remind myself that the reason I entered the race was to test myself and to achieve something extraordinary. At the end of the race (whenever it finally comes) I will be in no doubt that this has been the most difficult thing I have attempted in my life and that this really is one of the most extreme sports. The reason I say this is that there is no real option of dropping out of the race unless you have a medical emergency. There is no option to say that’s it I’ve had enough, even climbers on Everest have the option to stop and climb down where in ocean rowing you just have to wait it out and then keep going with the oars. I am writing this blog to try and give you an appreciation of what the mental challenges are, although I am not sure I have done it justice. Also I want to look back at this blog in a few weeks, months or years to be reminded of just how tough it really was and how much we really achieved ( and also to remind me not to do it again!)

Thank goodness I brought with me a very big book (thanks Mark for the loan of it) I am 600 pages plus into it with 700 more to go, I intend to finish it however, lying beside the pool in Antigua. Finally reflecting on time again it took me 800 days (2 years preparation and 64 days on the water so far) to get this far another week or 10 days should be easy, right!.

In 2001 I did a ten day Buddhist meditation course in a village just outside of Bangkok, near the river Kwai. The meditation type was Vipashna, which originates in India. We were woken by bells at 4 am and then spent ten hours in one hour chunks, learning to meditate. No communication or eye contact was allowed. Some people cried, others packed up and left. The meditation was about learning to obliterate randomn thought by concentrating on trying to feel the body, at first by trying to feel the breath coming out of the nostrils! I had never tried to think-feel my arms and I probably won’t be signing up for 10 days of think-feeling again. However, the experience did leave its mark. I became more in tune with my body, but most importantly the Vipashna mantra stuck. ‘Patience and Persistence and you are BOUND to be successful.’ The translated voice would say before signing off to leave you in silence for the remaining 47 minutes of each meditative hour.

Rattling off a saying and actually putting it into practice are two different things, but 60 odd days trying to row across the Atlantic I think could definitely be classed as a good test. If we thought we were graduates of life, we became pupils once again, at the ocean academy. ‘Patience and persistence and you are…’ There have been days with good, strong breezes propelling us down waves. Those runs were fast and we grew complacent that the path ahead was mapped out in similar milage steps. When there was no wind at all, we cursed, casseroled and hauled the boat like a dead weight. When the wind became adverse, each in our own world, we set about amusing ourselves.
It has really only been in the last week or so, where the pair of us have learned to take each day as it comes with an even temperment. At the same time, I suppose, we have learned to treat each other with an even temperment, as we’ve neared the ocean academy’s final exam: the finish. What changed our atitudes, I can’t precisely say. My version would be that the experience switched from ‘infinite’ to ‘finite’ in Mick’s mind and he no longer became a prisoner of his own challenge. I like to think that really I had nothing to do with it! What I do know, is that after the third argument, I changed mode, from ‘trying to please’ to ‘resigned to endure.’ Perhaps in that process, Mick and I found a compatible wavelength that opened the doors of communication or at least, ease of communication. Caring, sharing, considerate – these are relatively new words to our relationship, but they’re establishing themselves. It’s never too late. ‘Patience and persistence…’ What I find really interesting is that it is possible to break through, to get along with someone, a stranger, someone whom through circumstances of age, profession and life-style, you might not necessarily choose to spend time with and to make that connection, to become friends. On an ocean stage, Mick has grown a beard and also, hopefully, a dear friendship. Now it’s just time to wrap up the act and finish crossing the page.

Mood colour of the day (7th March) – pencil lead grey, seas 3-4ft.

22.30 GMT
Barometer 1011
Wind S 20kts.

With heavy heart I woke Lia and told her the news ‘it’s time to go onto the para-anchor’. At approx. 08.30 the anchor went out and we settled down to the now well worn routine of occupying ourselves for the day. After 10 hours on the anchor we have not drifted North and have lost about 3 miles West so it was the right call. The wind strengthened and has remained at around 20 knots all day so we would have to have stopped rowing sooner or later.

For a few hours I settled down with my book whilst Lia finished her sleep and then we changed over. After a couple of hours I was woken by the sound of Lia scrubbing the decks and went out to assist. The boat hasn’t looked so good since it was at home ready to be shipped to La Gomera.

This afternoon we entered the water and Lia cleaned what little growth was on the bottom of the boat. With no cleaning to do I decided that I would go for a swim and take some photos of the boat from the water, besides this is also the only way to get a thorough wash when followed with a fresh water wash on deck. I managed to get some excellent photos of the boat despite the choppy seas .

Forecast is for the winds to change hopefully in the early hours of Monday to North Easterlies when we need to row hard to get the 44 miles South that we need to be level with the bottom of Antigua. We need to actually go further than that as SE winds are forecast latrer in the week that would push us up again.

Trying to look on the bright side only 300 miles to go. My wife Vicky and the children are flying out on Wednesday, so rowing to them will be extra incentive, although looks like they will have a few days holidaying on their own whatever. Hopefully by this time next week we might be nearly there!

Thankfully, Mick had had a quality Johnson pump installed and so while I suspected that its motor was on the way out, it transpired that the duct was nothing more than blocked. I unhooked the motor and rotor drive unit from its cassette and sure enough, the rotor was choked with hair, fruit pastel wrapper and food particles welded together in that strange and disgusting slightly pink cockpit slime. I cleaned it out with tissue and a cotton bud and a handsome spray of our hardcore alcohol-based ‘Neutral PH Multi-purpose cleaner’ that I picked up in Spain. I cleaned the cabin lockers with it and if you spend too much time looking for something in one of them, it can make you high.

It was clearly ‘mechanical failure day,’ since replacing the burner of the Jet boil was next. This was a straight swop, since Mick had bought two. The metal screw thread to the gas canister and the valve were brass plated, but the annodization was thin and after 61 days at sea, the salt air had rusted the metal beyond definition. Next up was the perspex arm between the Andy-Pilot and its Morse/steering cable. Initially I thought that the hole for the central pivot had elongated, but as it happened the two bolts locking it on the pivot had simply come loose. The motor sound of the Andy-Pilot was making a strained noise when it drove. We wondered dejectedly, if it was on the way out. The ram was now pushing to max extension, so some kind of internal stopper had gone and the result was that on occasion when the rudder needed to be hard over, the pilot would shudder hard against it’s restraints – the perspex arm throe reducer and the block of wood into which the pilot’s stand was mounted. Thank goodness the wood was teak. It could take it.

For the past 24-36 hours we’ve been rowing the boat hard into a beam sea and slightly into wind. If the prevailing NE’ly wind had kicked in as it should do in the trade wind belt, we would be nearly home and dry, scooting our way at pace towards the finish. Being slightly north of Antigua, in order to make an ENE approach would then have been beneficial and those further south would have been at risk of being locked out. As it happens, this year, the sky has fallen in, the weather is on its head and these latitudes, famous for their consistent E-NE’lies have dished up everything but. The consequence is that basically we’re stuffed. The ‘beefcakes’ on ‘HCL Workforce 1′ and probably the boys on ‘Red Arrow’ also, have got us.While we’re sitting on anchor once again (we threw it out at 08.30 GMT this morning), if the latest GRIB weather file is anything to go by, our competition are probably able to battle on with slightly more favourable Southerlies or SE’lies, rather than the SW’lies we have. Mick and I always take the decision together, but when our bodies become beat up (my oar got caught in a wave last night and came down so hard on my thigh-bone that I thought it was going to karate-chop my leg!), we begin to loose ground to the north and barely make headway, the decision becomes obvious.

Mood colour of the day (6th March) – Fleshy peach, seas 4ft.

11.30 GMT
Barometer 1013
Wind SSW 20kts.