Monday 3rd August- Day 39
- dawnysmiff
- Aug 3
- 2 min read
The last of my chocolate stash! 🫣
The last 24 hours were spent mainly on the parachute anchor…
…and it rained. A lot.
In fact, I think even if the wind had been blowing in exactly the right direction, we’d probably still have chosen to stay tucked up in our nice warm cabins!
We’re not racing, and we’re certainly not trying to prove how miserable we can make ourselves.
Sometimes the sensible decision is simply to sit it out.
So that’s exactly what we did.
I watched a couple of films, a few episodes of Life on Mars, and spent most of the day trying to change position every so often to stop myself seizing up.
I have one of those resistance bands on board, so I try to keep stretching as much as possible, but it’s not the easiest thing to do when your living space is about the size of a wardrobe!
By sunset the conditions had begun to ease.
Then, around midnight, I opened the cabin door to have a look outside.
Nothing.
Not a breath of wind.
Despite having a lovely warm sleeping bag and the prospect of a peaceful night’s sleep, I suddenly couldn’t wait to get back on deck.
It reminded me why we’re here.
We’re here to row.
The parachute anchor wasn’t really holding us by that point anyway. For it to work effectively you need the wind pushing against the current, or at least enough wind to keep tension in the system.
Instead, we were simply drifting with the current. The 70 metres of anchor warp was hanging almost vertically beneath us because there was virtually no tension on it at all.
So…
In came the anchor.
Out came the oars.
We’ve been rowing ever since.
It’s certainly not fast.
We’re averaging just under one knot—about one nautical mile an hour—but at least we’re moving.
More importantly…
We’re moving in the right direction.
Later today the wind is expected to swing round into the north, which will mean altering onto a much more southerly course. As long as we can still make that course without being pushed backwards, we’ll keep rowing.
The good news is that, beyond that, the forecast is finally looking much more encouraging for the rest of the week.
As I write this, we have 387 nautical miles to go until we reach the area off Penzance.
Interestingly…
…that’s exactly the same distance we had on Saturday morning.
So although we’ve spent all that time sitting on the parachute anchor, at least we haven’t actually gone backwards.
We’ll happily take that as a win.
Hopefully the weather has finally decided to give us a break.
So please…
Keep everything crossed for us.
It would be wonderful if this was the start of a good run all the way towards home.
Dawn
“Together Paul and I are rowing home — the long way round.”
Hometown Row
📩 You can have Dawn’s blogs delivered directly to your inbox here:
🌐 Or visit the website:
Comments