Day Nineteen of Indian Ocean Row

I never thought I’d love rowing so much!

From the darkness of being on sea anchor for so long to suddenly being able to make some progress, albeit slow, and northerly, but just the routine of being able to inch our way to the end goal, to be able to just row for 2 hours, cook and eat easily, and then sleep in relative comfort before repeating the process is a joy to me beyond words right now!

Blue skies

Today was a day of interesting rainbows:

Moonbow: Billy was on the 06:00-08:00 shift this morning with Robin and they saw a silvery moonbow, pretty cool thing to see.

Mostly underwater rainbow: this rainbow appeared to be mostly underwater and just the very top of the arc was poking out of the water when the swell went down, and the whole thing was just 10 feet from the boat. I know that you can’t chase and catch a rainbow, but the beginning and end of this rainbow were literally right next to me and it felt like I could jump into it!

Inside out rainbow: after a cold rain shower a rainbow appeared, but with red as the inside colour and the indigos and violets on the top….I don’t understand how this rainbow became so confused.

Southern Lights Rainbow: James pointed out that he thought he could see a red glow on the horizon, after a while I could see it too, this then grew and more colours were added until the horizon was glowing in rainbow colours, but not in rainbow form, and looked a little like a rainbow coloured northern lights display.

Morale is well and truly back to normal now that we’ve been able to make some headway. We know that we have 30 knot winds on the nose this evening and will probably require our 6^th visit to sea-anchor-city but it should only last 12 hours or so and then winds are favorable for around 10 days. If you bear in mind that with the exception of the first two days that hasn’t been a single moment so far where we have not been rowing into the wind, this is very exciting news!

-Barry

About the author

Billy

Billy, 45, is a fire fighter and lives in Bracklesham Bay on the South Coast. Billy sailed from Australia to England aged 17, delivered yachts all over the Mediterranean for many years and has sailed across the Indian Ocean twice. He has rowed across the Pacific Ocean with Barry Hayes and two other crew members and achieved two world records. He has run ultra-marathons and was also a consultant for a record-breaking ocean row across the Black Sea. In his spare time, Billy likes nothing more than romantic walks on windswept moors, needlepoint and curling up with a good Julie Cooper novel.

Day Sixty-Two of Indian Ocean Row
September 13, 2018