Day 26 – If this is Eventful, Can I have Boring Back Please

Dictated by Roz at 21.17 on 14th May, and transcribed by her mother, Rita Savage.

Position: -05.19215S, 154.35426

Today was eventful. Mostly in ways that made me wish for boring.
It got off to an early start about 4am when I checked my GPS. I was happy with my nice west/southwesterley course that got me safely past Cape Henpan but during the last few hours the currents had changed and now the Cape and I were on a collision course. Some emergency rowing was called for, but as I went into the darkness of the new moon night to try and avoid shipwreck, it was not a very mellow start to the day.

It didn’t get much better. By lunchtime I had managed to break off an arm of my one and only pair of sunglasses and my watermaker ground to a halt for no apparent reason and refused to restart. I have no idea what the problem is. Battery? Motor? But I didn’t have time to investigate. I was still rowing strenuously west to try and avoid dry land.

As the current dragged me closer I could see cliffs, dense trees and white sandy beaches. It all looked very nice but most definitely not where I wanted to be. I was probably a mile or two off shore when three fishermen came out to say hello or, to be more accurate, so say whatever hello is in their language as they didn’t speak any English. They were paddling dugout canoes with outriggers with large carved wooden paddles.

The first guy to approach was a big fan of the betel nut, judging from the colour of his teeth. He wore a faded red Digitel t-shirt and a baseball cap with USA embroidered across the front. In his canoe he had a spool of fishing line, a collection of coral he used as weights and a small backpack. He next man to arrive had dreadlocks and a pair of sunglasses on his forehead. He was stripped to the waist. The third kept a more cautious distance.

I tried showing them on my charts where I had come from and where we are now, but I did not see any flash of recognition. Feeling the need to be hospitable I gave them each a Larabar which seemed to please them. Conversation was flagging a bit given our lack of a shared language so I unshipped my oars and departed, giving them a cheery wave. I have no idea what they made of me and my strange craft. But that was the best bit of my day.

Since then I have been trying make some headway west but with limited success. Looks like those happy days of cooperative currents are over. Lee the weathman sent me an SMS asking me to give him a call, and I know from the context that it is not going to be good news. Or it might be another of those “You can’t get there from here” kind of conversations. I will report back tomorrow.

Towards sunset I was feeling rather discouraged with life, when moral is low I try to do some boat maintenance. At least doing that gave me the feeling of being in control. I needed to beef up my ship lights now that I am going to be spending more time closer to land. I improvised all round white lights from the refractive plastic covering of a raillight fitted over an LED light from relics of an old video camera system. Not pretty but it works, and cheered me up before bedtime.
Oh please let tomorrow be a better day!

Visit Roz’s EBay Store on the right hand side of the page:
You can bid on an autographed picture of Roz Savage on her boat (The Brocade). Roz Savage is the sixth woman who has rowed solo 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, and aims to be the first to row all the way across the Pacific. This is the 3rd auction of the 5 autographed pictures that were available. The dimension of the picture is 8 1/2 by 11 inches. The 4th auction will happen shortly before Roz reaches her final destination. The 5th auction will happen after Roz reaches land. You can find the auction in the Roz Savage Items section or by following this link: http://stores.ebay.com/Roz-Savage-Ocean-Rower?_rdc=1

Sale! Reduction! The price of the Roz Savage Organic T-shirts has been slashed by 31%! Now selling at $19.99 each.

Did you know that you can also buy personalised SIGG Water Bottles and Coffee Tumblers – Roz was really excited that these can help reduce plastic pollution.

Please remember the request from Blue Frontier Campaign to vote EVERY DAY for Roz and Margo: http://pep.si/9ZMuai
Also vote for our coalition partner Project Kaisei to help remove tons of floating plastic debris in our Ocean! Vote here: http://pep.si/alxXp