Saturday 8th August- Day 44
- dawnysmiff
- Aug 8
- 2 min read
Yesterday’s pineapple Friday…
The last 24 hours have been…
Brutal.
We’ve been battling headwinds and counter currents which, apart from slowing us right down, have also been pushing us further north than we’d like.
It’s been one of those days where every stroke feels like hard work.
You look at the chart after three hours on the oars hoping to see a satisfying jump towards home…
…and instead wonder where all that effort has gone.
Right now it’s hard.
Very hard.
The good news is that the conditions are due to ease later today, so we’re hopeful we’ll be able to start working our way back onto our planned track.
Fingers crossed.
Despite the difficult rowing, I did have one thing that made us both laugh…
My dream.
It was one of the strangest dreams I’ve ever had.
I dreamt we were still on Penny B, except instead of rowing across the Atlantic we were floating through the middle of a city on one of those lazy rivers you get at water parks.
The river wound its way over motorways, high above the city skyline and somehow carried us effortlessly along.
Then, for some reason, we found ourselves floating through London near Tower Bridge.
Suddenly I could hear some rather evil mer people plotting to board the boat.
Naturally, I did the only sensible thing.
I hid.
I hunkered down in the cabin hoping they wouldn’t spot me.
It was all getting rather dramatic until I heard Paul calling…
“Hey… Miss Dawn… Hey, Miss Dawn…”
Thinking he could rescue me, I started shouting back…
“Help me! Help me!”
The trouble was, in my dream my voice wouldn’t come out properly.
So I tried harder.
And harder.
Until eventually I shouted so loudly…
…I woke myself up!
I flung the cabin door open to find a rather startled Paul already making his way towards me to find out what on earth was wrong.
Poor Paul looked absolutely terrified.
Still half asleep, I started trying to explain about the mer people…
…before suddenly realising I’d been dreaming the whole thing.
We both burst out laughing.
I apologised for the rather dramatic wake-up call, climbed back into my sleeping bag and, thankfully, spent the rest of my off shift without any further encounters with aquatic villains!
As I write this, we’ve got around 200 nautical miles to go before we reach UK waters.
Tomorrow’s forecast is looking much kinder, with a far more helpful wind direction.
After that it looks as though the wind wants to turn against us again.
But…
That’s tomorrow’s problem.
We’ll deal with it when we get there.
For today, we’ll keep pulling on the oars…
…and keeping a careful lookout for any suspicious mer people.
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