Day 16....
The last two days we have had light or no winds. The advantage of this is that the sea is calm so moving around the boat and completing tasks is much easyer, however our progress is vey slow. Today we have been having squalls coming through with strong winds which have been mainly from the right direction which is nice :0)
We are all keeping well and in very good form. So far the only real physical problems have been bums! Now if you sit and row for 12 hours per day you get a brused bum, in addition the skin does not really have enought time to stay haelthy, the result is a paintful brused bum with blisters and raw bits. Both Al and I seem the be suffering the most from this at the moment. The feeling is a little like sitting on a cushen full of sharp pins then rocking back and forth for 2 hours. Forunatly we have lots of baby cream and pain killers but we are hopeful we will be able to keep this from getting any worse. After each shift we go to the cabin, strip off and use baby wipes to take the salt off the skin, we then smother our cheeks in sodacream and put on boxer shorts to let it all air a little. We have a mirror so we can check our owm bums if we have concens, otherwise we have to ask each other! (I am not sure it will ever quite get to that stage!!!)
Our bodies are trying to adapt to the 2 hour rota but each of us are still having some difficulty with this. There is nothing worse than waking up at 2 am, struggling into your rowing kit in a cabin which is 3ft high by 3 ft wide (so you cant even sit upright), going outside to start your shift in the wind and spray, and being told it does not start for another hour! Back to the cabin, change and sleep until you have to do it all agian 50min later.
Beards - non of us has shaved since leaving Gran Canaria, Simon and Marin decied to not shave or a couple of weeks before we left but Al and I left nicly clean shaven. This is the first time i have had a beard and i must say it has advantages and dissadvantages. On the one hand it is a little itchy and so you want to scratch it all the time, on the other in this enviornment where we are burning a lot of callories you can always find a little bit of your last meal if you look hard enough! I am fairly sure i will be shaving mine off as soon as we land in Barbadoes however as i dont think it suits me.
Bodies - our bodies are starting to adapt to the enviornments now, our pot bellies are starting to shrink a little (a combination of sea sickness and regular exercise), our shoulders are starting to adapt to the 12 hours rowing per day. I do feel however that we will be walking around hunched over and deformed for some time after this row is over.
Fishing - we had another fish last night on the line, it also however got away, although we did not actually see it the fish certainly felt big, spinning the reel out as it pulled (and nearly pulling me out of the boat with it ), I am not sure i want to be swiming with a very large fish who is angry about the hook i just put in its mouth! On that note there is not algi growing on the waterline of the boat. We have heard that the row to recovery lads have shark repelent for when they have to clean the hull. We however have "Ginger Teriyaki", beleve me the taste of that stuff in the water will keep us very safe indeed, we have eneded up with bulk storage of it as non of us can eat it!
OK i best go and do some rowing.
Steve
ps we are not reading each others blogs as we thought it would make them more interesting if non of us know what the others have said, that will help to explain some of the inconsistant entries. We hope you are enjoying this blog and please feel free to ask any questions you might have.
Steve
