Happy New Year and welcome to the new decade!
Whilst we were celebrating the end of the last decade, the girls were still rowing. Claire was celebrating with Prosecco, Bird with rum and Mo with gin! And today marks three whole weeks at sea!
What we’ve heard this week
Fisherman Dave (Ship’s Husband) has been busy with forecasting, working out just how far the girls have rowed and keeping the girls up to date with weather and sea info. He’s keeping a log of his observations through the race. I’m hoping we get to see it after the race finishes.
Conditions have been better this week and the girls have been digging deep and getting some serious miles in. On Monday they passed the 1,000 nautical mile mark and had rowed 62nm in the previous 24 hours. This morning’s 8am update shows them as having rowed 1,199nm, 66nm in last 24 hours, with 1,529.5nm to go! TREMAZE! The weather forecast looks favourable. Keep your fingers crossed!
I had a call at 6.20am on Sunday morning from Claire ahead of a scheduled phone interview with BBC Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday show that morning. The rowing is hard, there are blisters, aches and pains but they are having an amazing time! I stayed up to listen to the call in – was fab to hear them on national radio. You can listen to it on catch up – around 1 hour 21 mins here: https://buff.ly/2F47htG
#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 Boxing Day’s (day 15).
This is one of Linda’s personal favourites…
Q: What do you call a French man in sandals?
A: Phillipe Philoppe!
? ? ?
The view from the land crew
I can’t believe that we’re already at three weeks of Dot Watching. Our girls are always on my mind. As Emergency Contact for the team I have to be available by phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so my phone is with me at all times. I check the app as soon as I wake up. Sometimes I see the 4am update and I always see the other updates through the day. When I’m not feeling it at the gym, I remind myself that whilst I’ve been working, eating and sleeping, they have been rowing, so I should just finish this set of squats that I’m not enjoying at all. It’s the least I can do!
Fundraising update
Everyone has been so generous and donations to our crowdfunding pagefor our three charities are still coming in. If you happen upon a bit of spare change down the back of the sofa, consider popping it in our shaking tin!
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 about a week’s time. Thanks again for all your support!