I suggested the other day that the time of these blogs showed a pretty good correlation with how things were going. So does the number of pictures. Over the last few days, these have been getting earlier, and there have been no pictures. I’m not exactly having the time of my life out here.

This is definitely a huge mental challenge, and I’m currently proving far from up to it. At the moment, I can make progress, albeit slowly. But I stop within about 20 minutes of rowing. It’s not that I can’t row another stroke, I just can’t bring myself to. Tomorrow’s going to be very quiet - very much the calm before the storm - so I’m going to have to make the most of it. Whether I will or not is another matter.

If the bad weather was going to fly over quickly, given me one horrendous day but leaving behind beautiful easterly winds, that might be ok. But it appears to be sticking around for a while. At the moment, my radar reflector is going off; there’s a boat in the area. The temptation to call it up and try and persuade them to take me with them is huge. Or even just put my rudder straight and go where the sea takes me. I’d be on dry land within 7 days. But it wouldn’t be Antigua, and therefore I’d have failed in what I set out to do.

So, here I am, drifting in the Atlantic ocean under 400 miles from my destination, not able to either admit defeat or push myself to success.

Feeling sorry for myself? Absolutely!!