Wow – another week has passed and the Oarsome Foursome rowers have been at sea for six weeks today. Oarsome! It seems like a long time and then it seems like no time at all since we watched them depart La Gomera on December 12th.
What we’ve heard this week
We’ve had more contact with the girls this week, mostly due to better weather making it easier to call. Ship’s Husband, Fisherman Dave, continues to be kept on his toes by the girls calling for weather and sea state forecasts. And by supporters trying work out the girls’ ETA in order to book flights to fly to Antigua for their finish! Dave now has over 20 A4 pages of his log (see top image) of the girls’ journey and I think this will make a fab momento of their adventure.
The beginning of the week was a bit hard going with the girls sitting on para anchor overnight on Sunday to avoid being pushed south at 4.5knts but they have since been back to up to rowing at around 3knts which is excellent. They passed the 500nm to go mark on Tuesday on the 4am update.
Phonecalls to both me and Dave this week have revealed them to be in very high spirits as the finish line in Antigua looms ahead next week (or this could be down to the over consumption of Percy Pig sweets – we’re not sure!). They are really enjoying the rowing at the moment and having lots of giggles. The best thing they have seen so far is the Orcas and the stars at sea are just amazing.
The girls have made good and steady progress in the last week and as of 8am this morning they have just 357nm to go! Their ETA is looking to be around January 29th or 30th at the moment but don’t hold us to that! Keep an eye on the tracking app or web page tracker to be kept up to date on this.
The finish will be live video streamed by Atlantic Campaigns on their Facebook page here so if you are on Facebook, do follow their page and keep an eye out for posts. They usually give a few hours warning of arrivals. Their live videos are also available to watch after the live event on their Facebook page.
I will try to get an advanced warning email out to you all when their arrival warning comes up but I’m supporting another, shorter, epic adventure on the 31st Jan and 1st February – I’m crewing for my husband who is running a 100 mile race on the coast path in Cornwall. He ran it last year and raised almost £1,000 for team Oarsome Foursome so I owe him that! I’ll do the very best I can to keep you up to speed.
#JokeOfTheWeek
My favourite joke of the week is yesterday’s which was especially for our motorbike riding Ship’s Husband:
Q: What did they call the motorbike riding vicar??️
A: Rev! ?
The view from the land crew
It’s so good to hear the girls in super jolly mode as friends and family fly out to Antigua this week and the Oarsome’s race and seven epic weeks of rowing draw to an end next week. I suspect that, whilst the rowers’ partners will be so glad to have their loved ones back to themselves after 2+ years of fundraising, courses, training and the actual row, the rowers and supporters will have gaps of varying sizes in our lives and will wonder what’s coming next to fill those gaps.
I, for one, am going to miss waking up at early o’clock to check the 4am update and excusing myself from random situations with the words “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to take this phonecall – my friend is calling me from the middle of The Atlantic!”. I will also miss the hours spent setting up social media posts, emailing sponsors and their PRs and media contacts and actually will miss just talking about the Oarsome Foursome!
BUT – still another week or so to go so let’s make the most of this!!
Fundraising update
Thank you to everyone who has donated on our crowdfunding page to our three charities. Your donations are much appreciated. If you have any loose change hanging around down the back of your sofa, how about putting it in our collection bucket?