Life aboard In Full Cry
I have now been at sea for nearly four weeks. Life aboard In Full Cry has taken some adjusting to. I started the journey rowing for two hours and then resting for two hours. But within that two hours rest, there are also jobs to do and that time also has to include eating. As a solo rower, this just wasn’t sustainable and I couldn’t keep that routine going. I am now rowing more during the day and then mostly resting at night. However, I do still get up once or twice in the night to row for an hour or two depending on the weather. When the weather is bad and especially if it’s raining, trying to row in the pitch black is hard, you can’t see the wave pattern and it makes it really difficult.
I’m trying to eat four meals a day and about 5000 calories worth of food. Everything from reindeer soup to my favourite crunchie bars and wine gums. I heat up water on a jet boil that is attached to the boat and then add the boiling water to freeze dried meal packs trying not to spill it everywhere which as I am sure you can imagine is sometimes hard. They are rather good actually, last night was pulled pork and rice. The rehydrated meals are highly calorific so perfect for the amount of energy I need for rowing. You would think trying to consume 5000 calories worth of food a day would be easy but it turns out it is quite hard on a rowing boat and especially in that first bout of seasickness. I was surviving off porridge in those early days.
Simple tasks you take for granted in normal daily life become a bit of a challenge. One thing I have had to get used to pretty fast is drinking tepid water produced by the desalinator which runs off the solar panels and turns sea water into drinking water. What I would do for an ice cold cola cola right now! If anything happens to the water maker, I will be a spot of bother with only a limited amount of bottled water onboard only to be used in an emergency. It takes me half an hour to make 10 litres of water each day which I fill into bottles for cooking, drinking and washing.
My favourite part of the day is without doubt sunset, where I row towards the setting sun. I have never seen it before where the whole sky lights up in electric orange filling the horizon so vividly full circle. At night coming out of my cabin to be greeted by a sky filled with a million stars is a true spectacle. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
I feel I am getting into a good rhythm now and getting used to row boat living, the waves, the salt, the dampness, the repetitiveness and only having the huge pods of dolphins and fish for company.
I am very happy that I am now heading West after having initially rowed 750 miles south to get into a good position to head towards Antigua with the trade winds. And now I have gone 1000 miles which equates to a third of the way. Just two thirds to go, it’s a long way isn’t it!?
Certainly what I do know is that this is all going to be worth it and I would like to thank everyone for their incredible ongoing support. It is what is keeping me going through this challenge and knowing that the money raised is going to help so many people spurs me on to pick up the oars over and over again, day after day. Onto the next 1000 miles!