There’s something about ocean rowing that leaves you fascinated by the weird and wonderful workings of your own body. Be it the abundance of scabby sores that spring up on arms and legs, bruises that blossom on hip bones and knees or even the donut shaped and surprisingly painful salt sores that festoon your fingers.

The inner workings of your bowels become a subject of daily chitchat, even if it’s only with the fish. As something orange (yes orange!) drifts off into the waves you’re more than a little amazed that you’ve managed to produce anything at all! The alarming lack of dietary fibre truly justifies the number of gastro-intestinal medicines required in the medical kit.

Being British we’re all a little squeamish about this kind of talk, certainly not in polite company anyway. But on a personal level the row helped me reconnect with my own body, a bit like spending a weekend dismantling a car engine before putting it all back together again. I was able to intimately discover how everything worked, or perhaps more importantly which bits didn’t! As the fat I’d so conscientiously stored began to melt away exposing ribs and angular hips, I began to appreciate how amazingly resilient and affective my body was. I gained a newfound respect for its ability to survive in the most inhospitable of conditions.

So now, as I find myself existing in a little bubble where everything fits neatly within my comfort zone, I feel a little pang of jealousy for Sarah’s adventure. She will return home probably a lot slimmer than when she left, but all the wiser to what she can achieve mentally and physically. It’s an incredible experience and the knowledge she will gain is wisdom many will never obtain.

So as you read about her adventure, and probably say to yourself “I would never do that in a million years!” think about booking out some time to go and dismantle your own engine, it’s amazing what you can discover. But however you choose to do it consider this, becoming a true survivor makes you strong, not pretty and any scars you gain should be worn with pride. Finally, if you do decide to try your hand at ocean rowing take the suppositories, you’re going to need them!

Sally Kettle

I must go and bag the next degree – five miles and two hours row away, under a setting sun. You should try it sometime – a lovely way to spend an evening.

Until tomorrow ,

S & D x

3 months at sea has produced:
-1 lean, tanned, sun-bleached, salty-round-the-edges rower with(quoteth my dear Mum) ”guns any artillery would be proud of”(unquoteth my dear Mum)
-A happy absence of scurvy and insanity (the latter may be open to debate)
-1 Rower’s Bottom
-1 heavily depleted chocolate stockpile, 1 completely decimated biscuit stash, 1 half guzzled bottle of Port
-A crazed collection of quotes and scribbles on the cabin wall
-A few barnacle communes on the hull and rudder, various attempts at slimes around the scuppers on deck
- 3 large bags of rubbish
- 2 empty gas cannisters
- 1 broken oar, 1 dead stove, various losses to the deep
- Numerous diary tapes and films
- Various artistic repairs and modifications (mostly with gaffa tape)

Perhaps most importantly, it has also produced a beautiful squiggle across the blue, too – 2,986 miles complete with knots and hairpin bends, fine latticework and knitted wonders – thankfully the current end of said squiggle being closer to the Rum Punch than the last drink I had in Oz. Three whole months ago. It was an OJ, for breakfast. With pancakes and fruit and yogurt and muesli and *drum roll* a real knife and fork. Yum with a capital Y.

Besides the squiggle, our three month’s voyaging thus far has treated us to the most brilliant adventures, trials, spectacles and wonders, too. Roll on the final 1,000 nauties – let them be a fine vintage, Westward in nature, sunny by day and starry by night, punctuated by many serendipitous encounters with some fellow seabies.

Here’s hoping July has fewer issues with troublesome wind than poor June did. And May. Poor dears. They suffered something chronic.

Signing out,

Out x

PS

Frankie Owens – My one real regret is not bringing a plankton net, ID guide & magnifier! Lots of whales…

Barry Gumbert – There are sea mounts out here though and currents with lots of food in. And some species are migratory and wide-ranging. I think they must all be appearing when I’m not looking…

We have done much the same, though with less diving. The wind is still being kind and we have clocked beautiful 40+ milers for the past 4 days. With bright, clear nights recently I’ve been putting in extra hours, too, and if the rainclouds stay away later I shall do the same tonight. I had to leave a conversation with Orion half-finished yesterday as I kept falling asleep at the oars – usually a painful action as thwacking of ribs or bashing of fingers generally follows. From oars, not Orion, you understand he is peaceful enough.

And so this is our hello from Day 90 at sea. With 20 degrees left to run, we’re looking at a journey time somewhat longer than anticipated, but no worries, mate. All is still good in the shire of the lovely Dippers – we’re not going to starve for a good while yet and the chocolate supply is still healthy enough not to warrant undue concern. Until then, we are a happy crew.

From Day 90,
Outey Toot Toot x x

PS
Flickertyroo -Still awaiting turtles…
Xtina – Choc supplies still good up here in the North – 4 bars today. And a packet of minstrels being saved for some time between now and M.Spoke to FF yday too. Invited them N for jelly breakfast.
John Skevington – Thanks for your thoughts . Double harness would get in the way of rowing, and I fear be a source of entanglement on an otherwise tangle-free boat. My single leash reaches to both ends of the boat. Knife handy.
Guy Warner – Wonderful poem,thanks-what’s the title?
Libby – Here’s hoping I’m home and dry before the new term! Enjoy Canada.

We have done much the same, though with less diving. The wind is still being kind and we have clocked beautiful 40+ milers for the past 4 days. With bright, clear nights recently I’ve been putting in extra hours, too, and if the rainclouds stay away later I shall do the same tonight. I had to leave a conversation with Orion half-finished yesterday as I kept falling asleep at the oars – usually a painful action as thwacking of ribs or bashing of fingers generally follows. From oars, not Orion, you understand he is peaceful enough.

And so this is our hello from Day 90 at sea. With 20 degrees left to run, we’re looking at a journey time somewhat longer than anticipated, but no worries, mate. All is still good in the shire of the lovely Dippers – we’re not going to starve for a good while yet and the chocolate supply is still healthy enough not to warrant undue concern. Until then, we are a happy crew.

From Day 90,
Outey Toot Toot x x

PS
Flickertyroo -Still awaiting turtles…
Xtina – Choc supplies still good up here in the North – 4 bars today. And a packet of minstrels being saved for some time between now and M.Spoke to FF yday too. Invited them N for jelly breakfast.
John Skevington – Thanks for your thoughts . Double harness would get in the way of rowing, and I fear be a source of entanglement on an otherwise tangle-free boat. My single leash reaches to both ends of the boat. Knife handy.
Guy Warner – Wonderful poem,thanks-what’s the title?
Libby – Here’s hoping I’m home and dry before the new term! Enjoy Canada.

I am a wee bit surprised not to have seen anything yet which I could positively identify as of sharky heritage. In among the pod of pilot whales back in the early days there was something breaching as a shark does, with white belly and sharky looking mouth on the underside, but I only saw it once from a distance. Given that I am always super keenly scanning as much wavespace as I can, and out on The Sun Deck for more than 12 hours each day, I would have hoped for at least a fleeting ‘hello and how do you do?’ from one in my 89 days out here. I appreciate they don’t need to surface as the mammals do, and will follow food as any animal does,and aren’t quite so fond of flying as my albie friends are, but in a mostly empty ocean, I would have hoped something as novel as Dippers, with all her fine lines, might attract at least one Curious George. Of course, maybe there have been some visitors and I haven’t seen them. I have heard noises at night though – things rubbing against the hull….

Of course absence of evidence isn’t necessarily an evidence of absence, but maybe my lack of visits is a reflection of the sorry state of the shark family. Millions are finned, utterly barbarically, for the Oriental food industry and again more die as bycatch in fishing gear. Bad news – most of the shark species have long, slow reproductive cycles so populations cannot keep up with the losses. As apex predators, ruling the roost at Number 1, this decimation has ramifications right through the ecoystem too. Poor ‘ole sharkees – they survive all these years as beautifully evolved machines of the sea and our reckless and ridiculous buddy Mr H. sapiens goes and wipes them off the leaderboard. Muppets.

Tomorrow is Day 90, so there is still time yet…Here’s hoping with all our hope and happy socks that there are some sharks left out here to come and visit, and that serendipity deals us an ace.

Meanwhile, we’re still truckin’ Westward – happily today ’twas in the sunshine, then under a clear and starry sky.

Yours in sharky hoping,
S & D x x

PS

Clare Holt -Food dreaming is the chief object of my sleep these days- I am a pudding fiend! Love everything.
Sue & R4P boys: Brill, my choccie stash is safe from pirates then. Keep truckin’! Tell Mauritius I’m on my way…
Roger Hayward – Brilliant effort – that’s fantastic, thank you St Brigid’s.

It was part of a Canadian Olympic ’stash’ bundle donated to a charity Auction I organised a couple of years ago by Buffy Williams, ex-coach and team mate from St Hugh’s, my Oxford college, and veteran (she’ll love that!) Olympic rower. Another friend bought it all up and I was kindly given the hat and a shirt. The power of that hat is unbelievable – I put it on and I have the power of champions running through my veins. I can do anything with it on – scare away any Scaredy Imps making riotous noises in my head as we face off a towering wall of water…. Row on for another hour when it’s cold and wet and exhaustion has already settled down for a ride…. Become cheered up when frustrated and incarcerated on a Cabin Day.I am so glad I wasn’t wearing it for The Wash the other day – it might have become Fish Food. Gulp.

Buffy taught me a great deal as coach and team mate – not just about the technicalities of skinny boat rowing but also how to face up big challenges,competition, attitude and approach to life. She is the sort of woman who shaved her head for charity, greeted every single pre-dawn training session with a massive smile, who was out coaching us just days after the birth of her beautiful son and was to be spotted racing down the bankside during one of our campaigns, pushing him in his ’stroller’. Dedication, optimism and 300% effort every time. That’s how you become an Olympian, I guess. Top top woman and very excited to have a part of that spirit on board. Buffy, if you’re reading this, thank you my friend, for all that you taught me.

The sun was out today and naturally I was to be seen singing and rowing my way Westerly in said Canada hat. Thankfully the sea was a bit less crazed too after its rioting the last few days. So not only could I relax into the rowing a bit more after the nervousness since The Wash, but I could also do some washing and leave the waterproofs to one side – the latter doing wonders for the rehabilitation of my derrière.

Yes, I think we like what we’ve seen of the 70s so far. We’re about three nauties from jumping over into the next degree after a cracking 50 miler this last 24 hours. Happy happy days.

S, D & my Olympic hat x x

PS

War and Peace – Wonderful wonderful wonderful. I cried!
Maggie & Dick – Nothing tame about the Yukon-it’s on my list of things to do. Good luck!
Geoff – David Dicks 360′d in his boat?! Amazing.
Cousin J, George & Monsters- Can you premonitionise some more choc too ? And I still need a shark and a sea turtle? Juicy steak which magically lands in my boat?
Chris & Trevor- Happy 60th & enjoy the bus pass!
Barry Gumbert – I love Monty Python, great offering.
Charlie Chase – Mars bars always welcome.
Dominic Carrington – The ‘How do I hit Mauritius ‘ question. Time will tell.

Fossil hunter #1:’Why, this is strange. Homo sapiens appears to have left the land and returned to the seas sometime during the 21st century…and taken up rowing instead of walking. How curious.’

Fossil hunter#2:’Blimey, ‘ole chap – you don’t think we’ve just found an example of that new and poorly understood breakaway hominid branch do you. Homo rowiensis or something? Look -it’s got marvellous socks…’

And so they would continue digging about in the mud.

Anyway, no fossilisation happened and we are safely over the border into the 70s.

Pleased to say that the sea is marginally less wild today, with 25 (instead of 35) knots of wind. Happily it is blasting us from a better direction for our Rum Punch Campaign. Still, it’s fairly jolly mountainous and rather foamy in places – white horses have been ousted and there are herds of sun bleached woolly mammoths charging about in all directions. Nothing like steep seas to keep you on your toes, eh? Well, I prefer being on my toes to being on my head.

We should eat up miles West in the next few days while this weather lasts and by tomorrow should have fewer than 1200 nauties to run. We are now 2000 from Perth, so nearly two thirds home. However, I’m making no guesses as to how long it will take. It will all depend on the weather, as this last 40 odd days has shown. What’s clear is that we are in for the long haul – longer than planned, but worry ye not, I have plenty of food yet and am still going strong. Mauritius – I shall be rocking up for the rum punches before you too long… Just don’t hold your breath.

So it’s cheerio from me and our new mates, the 70s.I’ve heard they’re a cracking crowd and faster than the 80s- let’s hope so.

S & D x x

PS

Miss Faux’s Y7 Maths Class – Great to hear from you Cambridge! Ask Miss Faux about the Latin Tea Parties. And adventures in Greece. And America.

To everyone who asked about tethering etc – I am ALWAYS attached to the boat.

Firstly, we survived some of the biggest seas I’ve seen out here and a rather soggy somersault – this has to be worth a smile. Said somersault was awarded 9.64 by The Tweedles. They said it would have been a perfect 10.00 but that my toes weren’t pointy or something. Fusspots.

Wrist not as bad as I thought either, it should be OK in a day or two. Found I had split my waterproof trousers in the scramble aboard. Now not very waterproof at the front. Ironic.

Now tucked up inside the cabin, Happy Socks on, munching chocolate and just having read all the lovely bloggage.

We are going West – this is always worth a thousand hoorays.

Fewer than 1300 nauties from Mauritius and with lovely SE winds forecast to stay and play until Tuesday, we’re going to rip up some miles. In 40 miles we’ll be over 2,000 from Perth and in 4 days we’ll have been at sea for 3 whole months. Crazy! One quarter of one year.

The Frustrated Imp has been banished again after his recent sneaky return. And Ricardo says all is OK, therefore I believe him.

Thank you everyone for the sweet messages for Mum and I. Worry ye not though, I am still laughing, Dippers is looking after me and I am looking forward to tomorrow. Whole new day. We may even make it across the border to the 70’s! Only another 30 nauties…

Cheerio, S x

 I am so glad that she is so particular about being ” hooked up” at all times………if she wasn’t………..well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.!!!

Many thanks to all those who respond to the blogs . Sarah gets all the comments, and she is so grateful for that contact with everyone. Also to those who have given so generously along the way, both to the charity funding, and to help ” fund ” the row…………………………its an expensive trip!!……..satellite charges …………………………for blogging and keeping in touch are  HUGE, so we are grateful for monies that have been given to help.

 Just a quick reminder to people, that to sponsor the charity , the easiest way is to click on the ” charity” bit at the top of the home page, and do it through justgiving,or to help with the trip costs please contact  Amy.middleton@whisper.pr 

Once agin, a huge THANK YOU to everyone for their ongoing help and support!!

 Helen             ( Sarah’s Mum)