These last few days, things have been going fairly well, but not spectacularly. While I’ve been making decent progress west and gradually returning north, it was all with no help from the weather, and I’ve really been wanting it to pick up. Well, last night, the wind kicked into action. It turned out that I’d forgotten one thing: how often is the weather actually helpful?!
So, I woke up having been pushed a few miles south. Not a big problem but, throughout the day, the wind’s started to come even more from the north. Rather than the beautiful straight ascent towards Antigua, I’ve returned to the zigzag of old. It’s got to the point now where, even though I’m rowing as far northwards as is sensible, I’m moving gradually south over the course of the day.
Luckily, I’ve still got just under 600 miles in which to get myself back up to 17°N (although I wouldn’t complain if it was only 50, for other reasons!), and I’m quite comfortable that it shouldn’t be a problem, it’s just a little frustrating. I didn’t set out on this row expecting everything to go straight-forwardly, but it seems the weather is determined to make it awkward right to the very last stroke.
I’m starting to feel like a broken record, but I’m ever the optimist, and the forecast says (here we go again …!) that the winds should come round from tonight, and stay there for the time being. Also, the equatorial current, which is supposed to be helping me along, starts to push a little north from about now, so I should receive a bit of a helping hand. Right now, I really feel like I could do with one!
Still, I managed to cover 20 miles in the first 8 hours of rowing, have had my customary bad/grumpy patch when it gets too hot, and I’m hopeful of covering close to another 20 miles in the final 8 hours. With the bits in between, that makes 50-odd miles, and if I cover that every day… We know what a bad idea predictions are. Having said that, I pretty much predict my arrival time to the hour every day. That it gets put back every day isn’t the point. Optimism’s a good thing!
