March 11th  - Mike and the crew of the Sara G have landed safe and happy in Barbados after 57 days and 20 hours at sea. He will no doubt update the site once he has a sleep!   MARCH 10th 2010 – Webcams live from Barbados We are hoping they will land sometime between 8pm and 10pm Local Time [...]

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.

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 [...]

It was a pretty overcast day with squalls threatening all day, we missed most of them but got caught on a few occasions. One of the worst came in around 1200 noon when Matt, Mylene and I were at the oars. It blew pretty hard from the south and our auto pilot struggled to correct our course, this resulted in the boat loosing speed and us rowing hard to go nowhere, it last about 30 minutes and we finally got around the edge of the cloud to some reprieve, not before we all developed some serious back ache from the effort going into each stroke. Just another small reminder of how we have to respect mother nature.

We also had a close encounter with a rather large Tanker in the afternoon. Pedro spotted it off our starboard (right) side when it was about 3 miles away. From early on Pete and I were convinced we would clear his bow. Matt managed to hail him on the Radio and he spotted us from over a mile away and changed his course to be sure to miss us. In the end he passed about 600m off our stern, pretty close considering the miles of empty ocean surrounding us.

At the same time as all this excitement was happening I was due to finish my shift and do an interview for News talk, in the commotion I didn’t get to the phone until about 5:20pm only to discover the battery was flat, so after a quick charge I tuned it on, unfortunately I missed them, hopefully they will get through tonight.

We finished the evening with a spectacular encounter with the last big squall of the day, we watched it from miles away as it gained on us, for a while we thought we might just out run it. At the last minute though it swept towards us and as it did so we could clearly see the effect of the wind and rain on the water then it engulfed us for about 15 minutes before moving its way swiftly across the ocean.

The past 36 hours have been a bit of a mixed bag, during the day we have had the usually sunshine but at night we are being subjected to horrible squalls. The first night of these we were all taken by surprise and by the time I got my rain gear on I was soaked inside and out which made for a pretty miserable damp night. Last night however I was a little smarter and as the sun set on a cloudy horizon I took the option to throw on my Helly Hansen waterproof Salopettes and got my Palm equipment Tasman dry top at the ready. It was not long before I needed it and as the first sprinkle of rain I threw it on, zipped it up and cinched the hood tight as we rowed threw a torrential down pour, this time though, with my kit on early I stayed nice and dry inside so when the rain passed and my shift ended I was able to climb into the cabin nice and dry. It makes such a difference to morale to stay dry, the night before was one of my lowest points so far, sleeping in damp kit knowing that you had to get up and put on more damp cold kit and then go and sit in the dark waiting for the next downpour. Hopefully tonight stays dry.
As we have now passed the 4 week mark and are almost a month in to the voyage I thought I would give you a quick update on how my body is holding up. Most of the weight I gained in advance of the row is now gone, we don’t have a scales on board be I would guess that I am now down to around 70kg (from 78kg) which is only 2kg higher than when I started training. My body fat has also dropped significantly although I still have some around my belly it is probably down 4-5% to about 11% overall, I will probably drop to around 7-8% before the end of the trip. The one thing that has surprised me about my body is that in the first couple of weeks it was muscle mass that disappeared and not fat, most of the mass I gained in my legs, glutes and shoulders is now gone although my back is still ok, probably because it is getting so much work.
As for blisters and chaffing I am doing pretty well, My hands although a little dried out are perfect, no blisters and this is partially down to a relaxed grip on the oars and also to my leather Helly Hansen gloves. As for other high wear areas the butt is normally where most ocean rowers suffer and some of the crew have serious blisters and sores. I have escaped this for the most part and this is down to 2 major factors. First I have managed to stay dry, salt water is very abrasive and if you row in wet shorts it will do a lot of damage very quickly. The other factor is good administration, each day you have to take care of your body and to do this I use a couple of different products. Sudocream (which my bottom had not seen since the early 80’s) is invaluable to prevent rashes and stop infection, it I essential to apply this at least once a day and certainly after you have gotten wet. The second product which not everybody is using but I was fortunate enough to be sponsored is called “Body Glide”, it comes in stick form and is used to prevent chaffing and blisters. I have also been using this at least once and sometimes up to 4 times a day. It is a super product and has without doubt made my journey so far, much more comfortable than most ocean rowers get to experience. Cheers to David Niblock for hooking me up with it, it almost makes ocean rowing fun!

Amazing to think we have now spent a full 4 weeks living on board an 11metre rowing boat on the Atlantic Ocean, and strangely it now feels so normal to be here that getting off the boat will be a very strange feeling indeed.
Before I give my update for the last 24 hours a quick funny story. The night before last I was just finishing my shift at 1am and as I was swapping with James Pedro got up to have a quick scout of the horizon for any ships. As he did so a 6 inch flying fish burst up from the water on the starboard side smacked into his head and ricocheted into the stern cabin, Hilarious! Only problem was I had just ducked my head into the cabin but the immediate account from James and Pete still roused a good laugh, although it did take a stunned Pedro a couple of minutes to see the funny side.
Other than that bit of excitement there has not much else being going on, I did get some great news form Andree though regarding fundraising. We have now nearly reach half way in the quest to raise 25,000 euro. This is due in no small part to my Mother who has been working tirelessly selling cards and getting sponsors and my mother in-law, Therese, has also been tormenting all who will listen and is doing a great job of keeping the funds coming. Thanks so much to them both for their support, I know that if they had their wish I would be tucked up safe back in Ireland so the fact that they are giving me such fantastic support means a lot to me. The other person I want to give a quick mention to is Jason Carey, he has been a fantastic friend to have and has single handedly organized 2 poker nights raising over 1,000 euro, cheers J I owe you pint or two when I get back.
Finally I just want to say thanks to all who have supported me over the past few months there are too many to mention but you know who you are. Your support is greatly appreciated and the thoughts of the hard work and effort that has been put in by all who have helped gets me through those long 2 hour sessions on the vast dark Ocean late each night.

Just a quick update to say we are still making mileage in the right direction but not much else going on really. The days are hot, back up around 25degs Celsius today and the nights are a little chilly, but still in shorts though. Today should be around the half way point in days as we now expect to cross in around 48 – 50 days but the half way mileage point will not come until next Wednesday. I am really looking forward to that as we will finally have only 3 weeks to go, for the past 10 days I have been telling myself we have 3 ½ weeks so it feels like we are standing still.
We are also each stock piling any orange rations to ensure we have enough to get u to the end without having to delve into the contaminated green packs, the thought of them make me feel ill.

Day 21

Today was a great day, after what was the worst night on board so far. We got slammed by a big storm during the night, wind were up over Gale Force and probably gust force 9 most of the night with swell in the region of 7-8 meters. James an I got seriously thrown around in the bow cabin and had a god laugh as we would in turn get flung across on to the other , apologizing all the time although the actions were completely out of our control. Funniest of all must have been opening y eyes to look across at James and we both went airborne and levitated above our bunk for about 2 second before slamming back down as the next wave crashed in. It is probably the closest I will ever get to being in a zero gravity environment.

But finally after 124 hours (over 5 days) on sea anchor we finally got moving again at 1500, what a relief. We also had a major morale boost as we caught 2 Derado fish. They have been hanging out under the boat and we didn’t think our rubber lure would catch them but with some foil from our rations and a neat whipping I dressed up our lure to make it look nice and tasty. So much so that Matt had the first fish on board after about 60 seconds and I had one hook before I even realized I had the hook in the water, like catching Mackerel back in the camber in Cobh.

The Derado are a nice big fish and after I gutted and filleted them we fried them up to give everybody a tasty fresh treat. Surprising they also taste very like Mackerel.

Just as morale was boosted we took our eye off the ball and a large wave crashed into the stern cabin shorting out the laptop charger an nearly toasting Mylene. Bit of the kick in the teeth but we were so glad to be moving again we didn’t let it get us down.

After a couple of hours drifting down wind and sorting out the boat, bailing the hatches and resorting the food rations we got back into rowing at 8pm and it was back to the 2 on 2 off grind, at last!

Still on Sea anchor as of Sunday Lunch time but it looks like we only have another 24 hours to go before we finally get the wind shift we badly need. Funny thing a about the past few days is that the boat is pointing in exactly the right direction, this is due to the fact that when a boat is on anchor it will always point directly into the wind.
It has been pretty boring on board so not much to report. We have had some equipment issues since we went on sea anchor, some of them have been sorted but we are still waiting to get a couple of them fixed.
First up the water maker is tripping the switch when we run it on 2 pumps, we don’t know why just yet and will have to wait until Monday to talk to the electrician. Hopefully he will have an answer for us, it is not a major issue it just means it takes longer to make water on just one pump.
Second problem is that after a couple of days going backwards on sea anchor the cable connecting the steering snapped. Thankfully we have a spare but it is very early in the trip to lose our primary cable.
Third problem is that our satellite data connection has been down for the past few days. We can still make voice calls but it seems there is a problem with the server receiving the messages from the satellite in America. Hopefully this will also be sorted once they get back to work on Monday.
In other news we have a few fish living under the boat, the first guy to arrive was a blue and black stripped guy that we have named Barry, we think he might have some friends bit we only ever see one of them at a time. Yesterday we had some more visiting fish, one of them looked like a 2 foot long tiger shark. He was pretty menacing and was circling the boat for quite a while. No sign of him today though.
We are all looking forward to getting back on the oars tomorrow, only 1 more sleep!

As of this evening, Friday, we are still on sea Anchor. It has been a long couple of days sitting around hoping for the wind to change. Thursday was particularly rough with gale force winds, we got throw around a lot in the cabins and with the hatches closed it gets pretty stuffy very quickly.

Wednesday night we set up a watch system which involved us hot bunking so when you woke somebody to go on shift you took their bunk, this was because we only had 5 bunks in operation for the 6 of us. This resulted in both James and I having to depart the sanctuary of the bow cabin to sleep in the stern cabin. It is very wet, hot and smelly in there, as somebody keeps farting. I’m not pointing any fingers but let’s just say it isn’t any of the lads.

Today Friday has been relatively calm compared to yesterday with some squalls pushing through as the cold front of the depression passes over. The winds have been up and down but we have been able to spend most of the day on deck getting some sun. We also did some more admin getting kit dried out and moving the life raft out on deck to free up the sixth bunk. Now everybody will have a proper bed for the night.

According to Stokey we might have these southerly winds until Tuesday which will mean a full week on Sea anchor, Disaster! But hopefully over the next 12-24 hours as the low pressure system moves south east we will get northerly winds and will finally be able to get moving again.

The one thing that has become very apparent over the past 50 something hours is that we are now on an expedition, for a while there it seemed like a holiday as we racked up the miles. Now after being pinned down for a few days and having our resolve and our patience tested I am really beginning to fell like this is a pretty big undertaking. We will relish every mile we row for here on and take nothing for granted and hopefully the weather and mighty Atlantic will grant us a safe and swift passage to Barbados to be reunited with our loved ones.

Apologies for the slight gap in posts… Long story short, The Sara G was on Sea Anchor for the last few days going backwards (slowly) and then the email on the sat phone broke down. The Great news is the Sara G is on the move again with an expected target arrival date of February 28th in Barbados. They are [...]

Weekly Overview Update from Atlantic5000

Unfortunately the satelite email system on the boat isn’t working too well due to a massive low pressure system about 600 NM north of the Sara G. Therefore there was no update today. Phone contact was made with the boat and all are well. The downside to the low pressure system is that they have had to drop the sea anchor and they are moving north rather than west, although they aren’t going that fast. This was expected but is a dissapointment to the crew as they were on target and hoped to break a 40 day crossing earlier in the week. It is expected that the sea anchor could be down until Tuesday. …. Further Updates to follow…

The wind that has been pushing us along and churning up the Ocean finally died off last night, just as predicted by Stokey(our weather man back in the UK). So we are now plodding along in a light breeze heading south to dodge a weather system which is due to blow 20-30knts from the south at 0100am on Friday morning. If we don’t manage to get below 21degress by then it could mean a day on sea anchor, which would not be a disaster but would most likely remove any chance of a sub 40 day crossing. So fingers crossed we get low enough then we should pick up the trade winds and we are westward bound!
We are also fully back into routine by now and those of you following the updates will know that I am now on lunch. I get back to oars at 1500 until 1700 and then it is dinner time. Depending on how hungry I am I sometimes eat a full meal other evenings I just have a snack. Once I have eaten I fill in my diaries, one is a personal account of what I get up to during the day and what has happened on board, the second is a special account of the trip for my sort psychologist, Aine McNamara. She has asked me to record specific information each day and she hopes to analyze the data when I get back to see just how mental I am !!
Once the diaries are done it is time to chill out and get my kit ready for the night shifts, I try not to sleep during this rest period as if I do it normally means I can’t sleep when I come off the oars at 2100.
More on how we are getting on with the pending weather system and on life on board tomorrow.

The honey moon is now over and it is time to get the heads down to bang out some miles. This was always going to be the toughest phase of the trip mentally as each day is like the last and we are a mere spec in this vast blue rolling square of ocean. Each day the horizon to the front, back, left and right all seem to be in the same place so it appears that we are rowing to stand still, the only reference we have to tell us we are moving is our GPS plotter. Thankfully we do always appear to be rowing downhill with a gentle Atlantic swell nudging us along our way.

Nothing special for the past few days, up early each morning to train at home then on to work for the day followed by another session in the evening.

I have been working on my technique on the rowing machine in the evenings and it seems to be coming along nicely.