Pacific Ocean Row

With 300 miles to go, we received many messages of support from friends and family willing us to savour the last few days at sea. Little did we know that major hurricane Iselle was 1400 miles away and heading straight for Hawaii…

Numbers have never been so exciting, and checking the GPS chart plotter has become an unhealthy addiction! At the start of the trip, crossing lines of latitude and longitude was worth a celebratory cheer…

Like the Ancient Mariner, we’ve come to realise that you can’t underestimate the value of safe and clean water supplies. To produce enough water to keep us going on board we need the sun to come out and power our solar panels…

Expletives sounded from the cabin as Emily announced to her boatylicious crew that a boat would be on its way in minutes to pay a visit. Better get presentable!…

Not only did we smash the half way point yesterday morning, today we passed the less-than-a-1000-miles-to-go mark! However there won’t be any celebratory rum cocktails on board Black Oyster today…

One thing that has surprised me about ocean rowing is how little time we have to do things between shifts and how long everything all takes while you’re being shaken around in a small capsule…

Oh what a night. To celebrate the suns arrival after what seems like forever (I was starting to believe the sun no longer existed), we charged Amanda’s iPod for the first time for a fresh set of tunes…

Saturday was a special occasion onboard Black Oyster - Ingrid’s Birthday (21 again!)… it’s celebration time…

Today we were going to write a blog on 10 Things We Hate About Ocean Rowing but the sun came out, the batteries charged and we took a break from rowing to go swimming!! …

Tonight it rained, not only for the first time since we started our trip, but the first time since we arrived in California back in May. It was proper sideways rain as you’d expect on an ocean…

Getting into a routine food-wise on board, eating constantly because by the end of another two hours you’re starving again. Some of the freeze-dried meals (in a bag, add water) so far include…

Our speaker is still broken, I say ‘still’ but we haven’t done anything to try and fix it other than turn it off and on again, a classic remedy that usually works well for us on land, but no luck here…

Hygiene on board is fair to middling, we’ve all washed our hair but relying on baby wipes for everything else, considering keeping this up when we get back to land, so convenient, but somehow I doubt it…

Spending 24 hours a day out on the ocean we are getting to experience its changeable nature. Some days the Pacific can feel quite benign with gentle waves. The sunrises kiss our faces in the morning…

We can’t believe we’ve already been rowing for 2 weeks on our good ship Black Oyster. After 14 days we’ve rowed hundreds of miles, with a sobering 1773 to go! Our strategy is West…

So today celebrates our one-week anniversary at sea and I don’t think I’ve ever learned more or adapted more in a single week! After months of planning and preparing for it…

Day 1 gave us a deceptively calm start, with beautiful weather and rolling swell. We had an early start, arriving in Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club for the last time at 4:30am…