1. Eating normally. By this I mean while sat at a table, off a plate, using a knife and fork. Ditto drinking; I miss glasses

2. Walking. The most steps I do in a row is maximum 3 – the distance from the rowing seat to the cabin. Despite all the rowing I’ve developed chicken legs as the muscles we use day to day just to keep us upright barely get used

3. Privacy/ personal space. In every 5 days, I get 24hrs when I am alone in the cabin and it is so nice! To retreat in there and be able to spread out as you wish and not have to spoon around the other person is such a luxury. Also some privacy on the loo would be nice too!

4. Not having your day entirely dictated by what the weather is doing. When we can row, we can row fast, generally cracking out about 4 knots (one of which we then lose to these never ending counter currents). But when the weather decides not to play ball, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it and that for me is the hardest thing to deal with mentally

5. Work. Now I know this sounds weird, but I’m worried about my brain turning to mush. So far I’ve kept it going by reading and podcasts but it’s feeling distinctly underused; there’s only so much mental stimulation Harry Potter can provide and I’m looking forward to having to use my brain again. Also where there’s work, there’s weekends, unlike here where we are essentially working 24/7. Value your weekends people.

6. A proper cup of tea. Not quite boiling water, American tea bags and powdered milk do not a proper cup of tea make. If someone can hand me a nice hot mug of Yorkshire tea as I step off this boat, that would be great

7. Other forms of exercise. I miss my bike, I miss boxing, dare I say it I even miss the (very occasional) jog here and there. The rowing is getting a little repetitive!

8. Basic levels of hygiene e.g. A shower and clean clothes. Yesterday I changed my base layer top for the first time in about 3 weeks and the clean one felt like such a treat. Might try and do that more often going forward!

9. Instant communication. Now perhaps this is a sad sign of the times, but think we all take for granted how easy it is to get hold of people instantaneously with phones. Here our only form of contact is email and often emails cross over so you’re answering questions from 3 days ago. That said, it’s quite refreshing not to be so connected all the time and to manage when you want to hear from people. Emails are a massive boost to us all and I know are much appreciated by all the crew.

10. Knowing what is going on in the world. I miss reading the newspaper, especially with all the crazy Brexit stuff that’s been happening. We’re so wrapped up in our own little microcosm of life out here that it’s going to be so weird coming back to the UK with all the change that’s going on. I must admit I did try to update my The Times app a week or so ago but sadly to no avail; for now the updates I’m getting from family and friends will have to suffice!

We are just finishing our second week at sea and after multiple attempts at sending through video blogs, I (Molly) have decided to go old fashioned and do a written blog.

Week 1 was a big adjustment for the crew – spending the second night on para anchor definitely helped us find our sea legs. By the end of the week we began to fall in the rhythm of life at sea on Liberty which goes a bit like ‘eat, sleep, row, repeat’ (I’m sure you know the song)

By the beginning of week 2 all of the crew have found our sea legs, helped along by the big seas and big winds we had pushing us east, leading us to some great progress in the right direction. Unfortunately ‘The Big O’ (aka. The Atlantic Ocean) decided we had had enough favourable winds for a little while, we pushed on for as long as possible but eventually had to retire the the para anchor once again. For those of you who don’t know this stops us being pushed by the wind too much and is used when you can’t make way in the right direction. As I’m writing this we have the sun shining and flat calm seas which is a sign of the wind changing and hopefully bringing us some more westerlies.

Today we passe for first milestone, getting past 60W, celebrated with a peparami and a minute off of rowing- LUXURY!

All in all we are having a great time out here on the ocean so far, we have seen some amazing wildlife including Dolphins, Whales, sharks, and 2 little birds that have been following us for several hundred miles.

Keep sending through your messages to the crew, Alex has been reading them out to the crew and it’s great to here from everyone back home.

WAVES

I was going to write a blog about life in the swamp that is the stern cabin, with its sodden mattresses that make everything damp, its internal hydrological cycle including a water feature coming from the compass bracket and the painful screeching of the auto helm as you try and convince yourself it’s not going to break down. But then I thought why focus on the negatives and I’m sure that description gives you a pretty good idea …

So instead I am going to tell you about the different waves that have been helping or hindering our progress.

Firstly there’s the SLOPPY JOES, these are the ones that shake the boat side wards and cause injuries to knees, shins, thighs, thumbs etc

Then there’s the SIDEY, generally this is a last minute spot and tends to give the rowers a wave full on their laps

ROLLERS are the massive ones that come up behind you and look like they are going to make you fly but then actually you just pop over the top, if however they break on the top it then becomes SURFER and surfs up with an amazing wooshing sound of water under the boat – again a fantastic noise feature in the stern cabin.

The final thing to note, especially when swapping over the hand steering, is the discussion of where the waves are coming from, to which the answer will without doubt be ‘wherever the bloody hell they want to!!’

Despite all this in house entertainment I have been sleeping very well!
I hope this gives you helpful insight about our life on board Liberty, you will be hearing more from me and more information on our ways of life shortly
Thanks for reading,
Molly