| At sea. Atlantic Rowing Race: Row 4 Cancer and the lazy ocean |
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| Tuesday, 27 December 2005 | |
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Liz and Richard: "Morning all and a very happy boxing day to everyone, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day and were munching away on your final Christmas puddings and mince pies whilst playing the 50th round of family Charades, well into the wee hours! Yes I will never forget forcing my brother in law to act out the entire of the book title "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" .... "nope sorry I still am not getting it, do the first bit again, Matt!" We were of course up late into and through the night last night, but for nothing other than our rowing shifts .... uurrcchh back to the grindstone! We did have a rather bizarre encounter with a yacht though, whilst enjoying our dinner (of Pork Casserole, Mashed Potatoes and Veg). It is a strange thing out here, if we see another yacht or ship or something, we do as much as we can to stay away from them. Other people seem to be drawn to other boats ... this one was sailing quite happily off on a course 90 degrees to us, when it obviously saw us and turned to make a bee line towards us. It turned out to be a Spanish ketch and they stood there staring at us taking pictures as we stared at them taking pictures! Very strange, we felt rather like we were in a Safari Park and we were the 'rare, yet fascinating lesser spotted breed of ocean rowers'! Anyway they went on their way after about 15 minutes and the ocean was ours again. As the night marched on it became obvious that the ocean had enjoyed a heavy Christmas along with everyone else. Its a funny thing, sometimes the ocean can be extremely helpful, pushing and shoving us westwards, sometimes very obstructive ... see the sea anchor days. Today the ocean is being nothing but bloody 'boxing day' bone idle, it can't be bothered to be either one thing or another .... it is 'too much turkey' idle, 'lying around on the sofa watching the 15th repeat of Sound of Music' idle .... in a sort of "look I would help you" kind of way "but well it's boxing day and I just can't be bothered" .... not very helpful!! (Brief pause in writing as I was called out of the cabin to see a whale that had decided to visit, very nice. We think a larger pilot whale perhaps (about 20 / 25ft?)). We have also started a new game 'Flying Fish-Kerplunk'! Basically it goes like this ... as flying fish fly they really don't seem to see where they are going. So as they hit us, the boat, the oars etc either us or the fish score points! The scoring system is as follows: - Fish Hits a Rower = 10 points to the fish Fish Lands on the Boat = 10 points to Bilbo Fish Wings (but does not hit) Rower = 5 points to fish Fish lands on boat but falls off leaving scales behind = 5 points to Bilbo Fish Hits outside of boat = 1 point to Fish Fish Hits moving part of boat i.e. oar (our defence) = 1 point to Bilbo (Any other scenarios, we'll have to make it up as we go along) So the scores so far are: - 2 days ago: - Fish Wings Richard = 5 points to fish Same fish lands on boat but falls off leaving scales behind = 5 points to Bilbo (all equal) Last night:- One fish hits outside of boat = 1 point to Fish Another fish hits oar = 1 point to Bilbo So the scores are currently drawn at 6 points all. We will bring you updates of the latest sports results each day! Bet you can't wait!! That's all to report for now, we are making very slow progress west today as the water is basically flat calm with no wind to assist us. It is incredibly hot today (again) and makes rowing very hot and hard work! Love to all at home, hope you're enjoying your turkey sandwiches, turkey curry, sprout pancakes, Christmas pudding toast etc etc etc. With love L & R xxx" Row 4 Cancer is crewed by Richard Mayon-White and Liz O'Keeffe from Southampton UK http://www.row4cancer.com/ Event website http://www.atlanticrowingrace.co.uk |
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 26 December 2005 ) |
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