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BRISTOL EXPLORER, LIA DITTON, IN SIXTH PLACE IN WOODVALE ATLANTIC ROWING RACE

Lia Ditton & Mick Birchall have experienced their fair share of physical, mental and emotional challenges during their five weeks at sea in Dream Maker, their entry in the 2009 Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race. Currently they are just a few places and 35 nautical miles ahead of Mel & Annie, in their boat Explore, fellow Bristol Explorers!

The five day enforced mid Atlantic rest during week four, to wait for adverse weather to pass by, proved to be a welcome and unexpected opportunity for Lia and Mick to heal both physical and emotional wounds.

The fifth week of the Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race has seen them put in some determined oarsman-ship to haul Dream Maker back up to a very creditable sixth place. Just over half distance, there is still a long way to row….1300 nautical miles….

The daily blogs and all other information, the crew, charities, photos & video , sponsorship etc can be found on the team website: www.oarsomechallenge.co.uk

Here are some extracts from last week’s blogs:

1 February Black, Amex black, seas 4-6ft.

You only live twice, or so it seems… one life for yourself and one for your dreams…” (Nancy Sinatra)
After 5 days and nights of low activity, the sudden demand of rowing is taking its toll as Mick and I adjust back into our routine. When I sat at the oars this morning, the action felt achingly familiar, like the forgotten memory of a strange dream. For a moment, my body was a dusty guitar whose strings had gone slack, but soon my fingers were finding the chords and the boat was making its rhythmic music merrily again.
The remaining 1692 miles looms like an impossibly large number, but our spirits are high, our manners have improved and we’ve been practicing being kind to each other!

2 February The Simpsons Cartoon blue sky blue, seas 4-6ft.

Three shifts in, of the new 3 on-3 off regime and I wake up this morning and my fingers are in agony. Pain, is never quite the same. Pain, Buddhism has taught me, rises and passes away.‘How am I ever going to last to Antigua?’ I moaned in a little voice. Please cross your fingers, that my fingers just adapt! It’s early days in Act 2, after all. The pain disappears when I stop rowing, until I go to sleep and they stiffen, but I remain optimistic. There has to be a solution. I just need to create it. Otherwise there are drugs and I’ll start with the herbs first!
As two people, endeavouring to support each other and better each other’s experience, we’re making progress with leaps and bounds. You never know, we might even become a ‘Dream Team’ by the end!
The sea this morning, was like molten gunmetal swirling about in the shaky crucible of the Atlantic, impurities in the metal, giving it a ruffled skin.

3 February Grapefruit pith pale pink, seas 2-4ft.

I had intended to write predominantly about other things, but I’m afraid the digititis right now, is all-consuming in my micro world.
In our 24/7 non-stop rowing regime, I calculated that Mick and I are doing 84 hours of exercise per week. No wonder my fingers can’t cope! So far this race, we have each rowed for 324 hours. Holy mackerel!
Sometimes off watch, when I’m lying in the dog house waiting to drop off, I fantasize that I am in a fabulous Spa and Health clinic, about to receive a hot rock treatment. I’ve never had a hot rock treatment, but right now it sounds wonderful.
Since Mick hauled in the para-anchor and we ventured off to the west again, we have been besieged by squalls. They loom like big grey jellyfish in the sky, with tentacles reaching down in long lines to the water.
Wild-life wise, we had an active day! A twenty something foot whale, popped up a mere 30ft away for a quick eyeball. Flying fish have also started appearing. Mick can’t get enough of them! It is funny, they do seem to put on a good show for him, as if they’re actually the ‘Blue Arrow Flying Fish Air show!’

4 February No colour, seas 3-4ft.

Today was completely overcast. As if a layer of cotton wool had been rolled out over us, the sky seemed familiar. Mick and I realized later in the day, that apart from the balmy temperature, the weather was kind of English! And so began a day of being slow baked rather than flash fried…The sea was a layer of old navy gloss paint that had been applied too thickly and so was left with a rippled skin.
Our day packs drop down from 5 meals per day plus a protein shake, to 3 meals a day plus a protein shake, after day 40. Since I repacked most of the food, this concerns me, as our appetites are increasing if changing at all. We are in no danger of running out of food, but I would prefer not to have to thin our diet down yet.
The good news is that the fingers are not worsening. Thank you for all your suggestions on how to alleviate the pain and the cause. This morning, Mick fished out the box of 84 gastro-resistant Diclofenac Sodium tablets for me… which sounds like it is good for everything! I am utterly pathetic at swallowing tablets and so the prospect of taking 3 per day is worth postponing for at least a few more days.

5 February Pineapple jelly yellow, seas 0ft. This afternoon, Indigo, seas 0ft.

We rowed into another day with every type of cloud in the sky. Directly above, wisps of cloud hung like smoke caught in suspension and then off to the east there were rows of steam train puffs, semi-joined balls of cotton wool. Underneath this blanket I rowed on a monochrome sea.
One squall got me this morning. It was desperately hot and I had nothing on to take off, so I was quite looking forward to being soaked. Little pin pricks of cold water were sprinkled first, which was a weird sensation like very slight pins and needles. Like a scorching hot frying pan, maybe they were just evaporating off my skin!
I have also been contemplating why me? Why this? And why now? Rowers like to call themselves ‘rowers’ and sailors like to call themselves ’sailors.’ How many times you have to go sailing in order to be classed a ’sailor’ I don’t know, but on these vague terms, I am a ’sailor’ and not a ‘rower.’ Normal rowing is really nothing like trying to propel a 23ft mobile home with a 150 litres of water ballast and a sleeping 15 stone rugby player onboard, down wind and waves!

6 February Flora yellow, seas 0ft.

Can it get any hotter? It is s-w-e-l-t-e-r-i-n-g out here with little cloud cover and only 0-2 knots of breeze.
For the entirety of my past watch, our new troupe of escort fish were swimming along side. We are becoming a travelling circus! Our new recruits are three or four medium sized Yellow Fin tuna (1-2ft) and three Gran-Daddies of 4-5ft. Unfortunately since the addition of the new cast we have not seen our little family of black and white stripy fish and fear that they may have become a stripy snack.

Throughout the day, other larger fish (some 5-6ft long) have hurled themselves out of the water, hunting or being hunted we don’t know. There may not be much meteorological activity, but otherwise 19.06 deg N, 36.31 deg W is very much alive! Is it the self-regenerating organic garden on the bottom of our hull, that attracts these guys?
I was so excited today by my new creations, The ‘Super Splints’ that I wanted to whoop for joy! Could pain free-dom be imminent , I wondered as I velcro’d on the right wrist support and pulled my left through the ankle support sock-with splint inside. Standing there with two mechanical arms, I realized that I was about to get a very odd tan! My fingers have been recovering fast. The result is obvious- our daily mileages are up and the word ‘agony’ has gone from my post-slumber vocabulary!

7 February Brilliant sparkly violet (like two-toned taffeta fabric, where a brilliant sparkly blue thread is interwoven with a brilliant sparkly green thread), seas 2-4ft/0-25ft!

In DTF terms (Distance to the Finish), in the last 24hrs we’ve successfully managed to crawl up the ladder two places! With 1405nm still to go, there is everything to play for.
Fortunately we’ve been eating like truck drivers, so the weight of food onboard has nearly halved. (34 days in, only 28 hopefully to go) This should add an extra nth of a knot to each stroke! Otherwise boat speed is still king and if you’re going to race seriously (did I just confess that?!) the boat must be mollusk-less. Trawling a small vegetable patch on your boat’s underbelly is distinctly not fast!
With the return of the breeze came a slow rolling swell from the NE. Since the moon rose, this swell has built. Peaking at about 25ft in height, the waves are colossal, but it’s the fetch which is the impressive part. Between each wave peak, there is the equivalent distance of 2 or 3 football pitches. Traveling perpendicular to this swell is us; the wind and the waves being generated by the wind. The effect is mind boggling.
After 3 hours of rowing and thinking about it, I concluded that Mick and I must be crash-test dummies in a wave tank (remember the Jim Carey movie, ‘The Truman Show?!’) or that the world is actually flat… (It was definitely time for me to sleep!)

By Billy Swinton-Clark of Bristol Published in: Categories: News. Tags: atlantic and ocean rowing.