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Mikes latest Podcast from the Sara G. On a side note, things appear to be going well for the crew of the Sara G with their pace picking up slightly and weather conditions looking favourable for the last leg of the journey. Fingers crossed the rest of the trip goes well as they edge ever closer to achieving their goal [...]

So the Sara G is getting ever closer to Barbados! Less than 1000 miles to go now.

Mike talks about a busy few days aboard the Sara G in his latest podcast

Mike talks about what he misses most from home as well as answering other questions about life on board the Sara G.

News updates live from the Sara G. Podcast live from the Sara G on Day 37 of the Atlantic5000.com voyage across the Atlantic.

Podcast from Mike on Day 36 live from the Sara G, edging ever closer to Barbados! In fairness to the crew of the Sara G, they have been through a lot. Day 36 Podcast

As some of you already know, the laptop aboard the Sara G appears to have kicked the bucket.

So we thought how we might see if we could come up with a novel way to get Mike’s updates to you.

Hopefully Mike will call every day with a podcast of his day.

Enjoy!

Day 34 / 35 Podcast by Mike

In today’s Podcast from the middle of the Atlantic, Mike seems to be a little bit down, as he won’t be getting all the emails anymore and they appear to be making slower than expected progress.

Fingers crossed it will pick up for them!

The good news is they caught 6 fish today, so that’s another day away from the horrible contaminated food!

Thanks to www.Blueface.ie for pulling out the stops this morning to make this happen!

Another clear night last night so we broke out the star chart book and during breaks from shifts I managed to identify a couple of constellations.

So far I have shown the guys how to find the North star using the Plough and Cassiopeia and we have been using it each night to keep us on track. It is amazing how you become accustomed to having it sit just off your left shoulder and on the cloudy night I actually miss it.

What we have also been looking at is how the sky, well actually the earth, rotates around the North star during each night, this means that new stars are constantly appearing on the horizon on our port (left side) as others disappear over the horizon on the opposite side. This constant changing skyline is fascinating and I was really keen on this trip to learn a little more about it.

So once I get up for my 11pm – 1am shift I consult the star book to find something new in the sky. Initially I was using my www.Peli.ie ‘Heads up Lite’ to read the book and then turning it off to find the stars. The problem with this is that the white light from the torch ruins my night vision and it takes about 5 minutes to re-adjust and focus on the dim stars.

So instead of the head torch I now bring the book an my www.Peli.ie Mitylite 1900, which has a red filter on the lens. This allows me to check the book and keep my night vision intact so I can immediately go from the book to the sky and find he stars. So far I have located Leo and the Little Plough as well as all of the stars on Orion. IT is a great way to pass a 2 hour shift and it really brings the night sky to life. We have another 5 or 6 days of no moon so hopefully I will have many more stars located before the light from the moon cancels out the distant stars.

The day was another scorcher with temperatures back up over the 30 degree mark for much of the day. The winds also remain light and variable and came mainly from the south west today making the rowing hard work, but we are still making mile towards Barbados, just very, very slowly!

The weather has certainly improved, well in so much as the squalls have passed. They have been replaced with blistering sunshine and very light and variable winds. That essentially means we are averaging a speed of less than 2mph in temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius. It is like working out in an oven!
Our course to Barbados is more or less due west at the moment but unfortunately the Easterly trade winds have died so we are getting a light breeze from any direction between south east through to south west. This makes it feel like we are rowing the boat in treacle and every stroke drains your muscles while at the same time the sun saps your energy.
Rowing in the middle of the day is now a real chore, the evenings and night time however have become very pleasant.
The evenings are also becoming a great time to watch the fish feeding, at around 6-8pm each day we are treated to a number of fish hunting, the sight of flying fish shooting from the water to cover distances of over 5m while being pursued by bigger fatter fish is pretty cool.
In other fish news Barry is back, he has been back with us for a few days now and he has a little friend with him, we spotted them both when we went swimming. I think the 2 of them are using our large presence in the water to hide under, thus scaring off predators. They may even stay with us until Barbados.
Tonight will be our first night with no moon for a while so I plan on breaking out the star charts to find some constellations’. It would be a shame not to take advantage of the crystal clear skies and will hopefully help pass the nights.

After a month at sea we are all looking skinnier and browner by the day.  It is weird to think that we have not set foot on terra firma for over 30 days and it looks like we have about another 20 to go. Today started with a big kick in the teeth, we had rowed our hearts out all [...]