Happy Christmas everyone!
We hope you had a lovely day yesterday. Incredibly the Oarsome Foursome, and all the other teams, have been at sea for two weeks already so here’s your week 2 update!
On Christmas Day Bird, Mo and Claire feasted on rehydrated mac n cheese and mince pies. YUM! Claire celebrated with Prosecco, Bird with rum and I hope Mo had a cuppa! They also called Linda for a catch up and a natter on Christmas Day, which she really appreciated. And we all wish you a Very Merry Christmas!
What we’ve heard this week
As you know we have limited comms with the rowing crew but the land crew has been kept on their toes with a few calls this week, mostly to Fisherman Dave (Ship’s Husband), so that he can keep them posted with his observations on the local weather, wind and current conditions and strategic advice.
This week the girls had a few days of ‘washing machine’ conditions which they were so pleased to see the back of until conditions turned into ‘treacle’ with high temperatures and no wind. Worse than the washing machine days. They have sore bums and blistered hands as you’d expect. They have seen a sea turtle, birds and lots of dophins. The stars, the sunsets and sunrises are just incredible!
On Christmas Eve the girls passed the 700nm mile mark, with under 2,000nm miles to go and had crept up to 18th position! As of today, they are back in 20th position with 1,879nm to go but, as always, they are rowing their socks off!
#JokeOfTheWeek
Linda is still sending the crew her joke of the day (#JOTD) every day, which is keeping them, us and our followers on social media entertained. My favourite one this week is Christmas Day’s (day 14).
This is Bird’s favourite Christmas joke. I have seen her crying with laughter, unable to speak, as she told this joke for the 1,248th time:
What did the snowman say to the carrot?
‘…Get out of my face!’
? ? ?
The view from the land crew
This week has been another amazing week of Dot Watching, updating everyone via WhatsApp and social media and tearing sourselves away from our screens to fit in Christmas festivities with our families.
Bird ALWAYS calls me at the most inopportune moments – whilst I’m driving, during a dog hydrotherapy appointment, whllst I was at Tesco just before closing time on Christmas Eve! BUT it’s always amazing to talk to her from the middle of the Atlantic. She’s always Bird – hilarious and making me laugh with her tales of boat life.
Keep on Dot Watching!
The YB Races App mentioned below and the website version (which we’ve discovered is better than the phone app – it has lots of interesting overlays for weather, wind etc) now updates positions every four hours at 8am, 12pm, 4pm etc.
Details of how to follow everything are below, just in case you didn’t see them before. Keep cheering the girls on in anyway you can. Every single message, thought and donation will keep them pushing on.
Our next email update should be in a week’s time. Thanks again for all your support!