
Day Twenty-Six of Indian Ocean Row
The start of a new month finds us once again sitting on a sea anchor, it’s demoralising and we’re all feeling pretty low.
Luckily this one should be brief, although being on sea anchor is never brief enough. We knew that there was a strong southerly coming our way and fought against it up until about 3:30 am when the winds just became too strong to row against. Since then the wind speed has picked up to between 25 and 30 knots and will keep us in the cabin until late tonight when hopefully we will then find 10 days of favourable conditions to once again push West towards our destination.
I have never had to put out a sea anchor before this trip and it is utterly demoralizing. The cabin is no place for 3 adults to have to share for any extended period of time and it makes us all grouchy and miserable. We can’t sleep, we can’t cook without raising the temperature to unbearable levels and there is nowhere to be able to get comfortable.
Right now Barry, who is probably the most affected by these halts in progress, is sitting out on deck so that James and I have a little more room. James was out there before him. And I will take his place soon enough. Robin still has the fore cabin to himself to allow him to stave off cramp attacks by being able to stretch out properly but he has to put up with being by himself and the noise is far worse up front.
*All in all this is not a happy post but we are trying to tell It like it is out here and right now it’s miserable. Bring on the blue skies and the following winds and the smiles will surely follow…..
-Billy