25 January 2006 - Christina reaches Half Way point!
Greetings from approx. 16.5 degrees south and 41 degrees west as we reach the half way point on our extraordinary trip. We say hello to all our friends and supporters and we say a particular thank you to all who have sent us those very welcome messages via the Iridium website. Please keep them coming – you have no idea how great it is for us to get these messages – it’s as near as it gets here to having the postman call ! For anyone who missed the instructions how to send us those messages, please refer to our last posting of news 17th. January.
As we progress on this trip we continue to learn more about this boat. You must always remember that there is a significant part of it under the water –well o.k. that’s fairly obvious but a few days ago we discovered that the part you can’t see could be hiding a very important malfunction which, if it were fixed could help us to improve our speed and reduce our overall time. Enter Paul into the water with Tori on ‘Baywatch’ for the fat guys with the fins ! Our barnacle collection had grown to ‘Best in Show’ category and needed to be harvested urgently. After two hours of scraping – job done and Tori was back on the oars and our Morris Minor had suddenly become a Mini Cooper. Since then, we have been making far better daily speeds and our spirits have moved forward in tandem.
Our silent passenger continues to intrigue us both for his true identity and his interest in what we are doing. Paul has even noticed that our friend ‘s attire seems to favour dark trousers and black shoes. Tori’s family have done some research and interestingly have found that her grand uncle Jack Milburn served with the Canadian Navy during World War 2 and his ship sailed in the very waters we now find ourselves rowing through. The dress uniform of the time included black trousers and black shoes – so welcome aboard Jack !
We spotted a boat two days ago. So what, – aren’t
you guys in a rowing race you might ask – only problem is we have
not seen one for quite some time. The menu of possibilities sparked in
our minds – would these people have real food on board , some fruit
perhaps, maybe a bottle of beer , could they possibly have Pringles
! !
We immediately got on the VHF and made voice contact . It was a Dutch
sailing boat on a 3 year round World trip. A family affair – husband
/ wife / 2 kids so we compared notes on weather , speeds etc. Paul did
his best to diplomatically find out if ‘ they also were dining
on dried food’ – they didn’t take the bait but really
they were too far from us in the prevailing weather to make our position
and we were not for rowing to theirs.
Shows how you might grow into piracy though !
