If you’ve been following my progress via the web sites you’ll know I’ve been leading a two steps forward, one back kind of existence for much of my voyage so far, but, at last, I seem to be moving in the right direction all the time. Here’s hoping for a at least a couple of weeks of favourable seas and winds.

 When I began my preparations for this expedition I decided to take a variety of different foods with me. I’ve got quite a lot of pre-prepared meals that just need me to add water and I’ve tried most of the different varieties by now. One of the curries immediately became my favourite comfort food for those days when I need a reward or a bit of a lift. I also packed quite a few ingredients so that I could prepare and cook some favourite pasts and rice based dinners during some calm and quiet evenings. I wish!! The weather has been so much against me that I’ve been living on the just add water stuff for the entire voyage so far. I’m really looking forward to cooking myself a meal when the weather settles down.

 I thought all the fresh air and exercise would give me a good appetite, but that’s not the case really. I’m eating enough and am getting through my supply of chocolate like a good ‘un. I seem to remember eating a lot more when I sailed across here a dozen years or so ago. I’m drinking a lot 0f water though and at long last am able to make as many cups of tea as I like. When the boat was being designed and built we all spent a lot of time discussing and designing in as many compartments and cabinets to keep thing safely stowed away. This means that despite the seas best efforts to turn me over I don’t have to tidy up each time because there’s a place for everything and everything in its place. Most of my storage is easily reached and I carefully packed everything myself so that I knew where everything was when I needed it. Would you believe that I made such a good job of my packing that it’s taken me two weeks to find my tea bags!! And there are hundreds of them and it’s amazed me that within such a small space and despite numerous searches I couldn’t find them. I remembered distinctly packing them but was beginning to think I’d imagined it.

 Thankfully my electric water purifier is continuing to work well but I don’t know what I would do without it. I’m being ultra careful when I use it to make sure it will last out the journey. I’ve got a hand operated back-up system, but would hate to have to depend on that to produce my daily water supply. It would take much longer to produce sufficient clean water for all my brews if I had to operate the manual system and it’s a chore I could do without at the moment.

 I’ve been adding water to more things than my food recently too. Following long hours of being cooped up in the cabin, and some of my favourite comfort food (curry as mentioned earlier) I felt the need to introduce some fresh air to my living quarters! The sea seemed fairly calm so I opened the small window to let the sea breezes in to blow away the cobwebs. Of course this was the very time a rogue wave decided to target the boat and introduce about three gallons of water through a very small gap. I was strapped in and rowing at the time so couldn’t do much about it even though I saw what was coming. Consequently I’ve spent the past week living in damp clothes and sleeping in a damp bed. I turned the mattress over so that’s not too bad, but because the wind and weather is against me, and so unpredictable all the time I can’t get anything dry. Hopefully now the wind and waves are turning more in my favour I’ll be able to get some things dried out.

 My hands have got much better and are toughening up quite well. I’ve been wearing waterproofs and gloves quite a lot to protect me from the cold spray which might have helped but I seem to have got over the blistering I suffered early on, so I’m comparatively comfortable now. The damp isn’t helping my aches and pains though and I’ve started to use a ‘Ralgex’ spray to try to ease things, especially my back. Mind you, applying the spray is becoming a major exercise in its own right. I discovered to my cost that I should not use the spray in a small closed cabin and suffered badly watering eyes and difficulty breathing for my trouble. Now I have to take all my clothes off put on my harness and clip myself in on deck so I can apply the spray in the open air. It’s a good job there aren’t any spectators to what might appear to be some strange S & M ritual being carried out in mid Atlantic. It can’t be a pretty sight!

 Last weekend the weather kept me almost stationery for two days. It was marked by a spectacular 36 hour long electrical storm with lightning like I’ve never seen and thunder that shook the boat and the sea all around it. To top it all there were times when the boat was bombarded by hailstones the size of golfballs. I imagine this is what it must be like to be under fire and thought that my windows might be broken or outside equipment damaged by the ferocity of the hailstones as they pounded the boat and raised big splashes in the sea. Thank goodness I wasn’t caught outside when they fell.

 The seas are still often quite big and another rogue wave out of the blue nearly rolled me one night. The boat went further and further over and I was convinced that this time I was going 180° followed hopefully by 360°. I was sure it was the time when the boats self righting properties were going to be tested to the full. But no, thank goodness, despite almost standing on my head the boat righted itself and there haven’t been any waves like that since.

 Even though the wind hasn’t been helping, I’m still heading roughly west most of the time, and even when I only manage a few miles in a day at least it’s in the right direction.

 Thanks for all the texts, they really are very welcome so please keep sending them.

 I’d like to say thank you particularly to the following for their good wishes;

 
Climber Paul

Dave Collis

Jim

Pete the Fish

Merv

Anna

Emily and Jamie

Caroline

Chris

Paul and Ellen

 
And of course Elaine, Bradley and Joel xxx

 
Thanks again to everyone for all your messages and please keep sending them.

You can text me on 00881631635007

I’ll bring you all up to date with the latest events in a few days when there are more things to tell you about, and don’t forget to follow my progress on solosprint.com or oceanrowing.com

 Bye for now.

 Dave