If anyone ever tries to tell you that rowing the Atlantic is like a walk in the park, it pretty much is. There are lots of lovely animals, the weather’s delightful, and it’s just a thoroughly pleasant place to be.
What a difference a few days make!
Since the last entry, pretty much all has gone to plan. Most importantly, the weather is still in my favour, and fairly gentle at that. That meant that this morning I woke up, looked at my GPS with the usual dread, only to find I’d been following exactly the path I wanted to while I was sleeping. Those were the easiest miles I’ve made so far!
I didn’t feel great this morning - probably didn’t drink enough yesterday - so not quite as much rowing happened as it should have, but overall the day’s been positive. Very nearly got below 25 degrees north, finally (by the time I finish this, I may well have!).
However it’s not just the rowing that’s gone well. The battery’s been fixed, although the repair work is as dodgy as expected - still, it works for now. On a more surprising note, so is the solar panel! I removed some tape on the lead to discover the cause of the problem - a very professional previous repair job, as you can see from the picture. I was not impressed.
Oh yeah, and I swam with dolphins today.
Well, I say that. It would be more accurate to state that I tentatively treaded water by the boat as a load of dolphins looked on bemused at the pair of legs that had joined the blue tub they were investigating, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. No pictures I’m afraid. My cameraman didn’t turn up today, and I made a brief attempt at recording a video before throwing everything inside and jumping in. Sadly I recorded it too big, and it would take the best part of the next decade to send it. It was good though, really!
I’ve decided I should work out what I’m seeing, so all help would be appreciated. There was the whale that there are pictures of, the other whale that there wasn’t any of - that was a similar size, but had a vertical tale rather than a horizontal one - the dolphins today, and there’s one type of bird that always hangs around: it’s got a wing-span of about a foot, dark with a diagonal lighter stripe on each wing, and a white blob on its tail. Any guesses?
Sorry, this has been a completely self-indulgent, slightly boring message, hasn’t it? (Aren’t they all?!) I’ll try and return to being entertaining just as soon as the next disaster happens. Knowing the way things seem to happen out here, that should be all of half an hour!
