Day 51 - It’s Hot… Damn Hot
June 28, 2009 – 9:40 am An Albatross (click to enlarge) |
Another roasting hot day out here. There’s a light wind from the east and swell from the south but we’re continuing to make reasonable progress. All good news.
The heat is completely overpowering though. We’ve made a sort of make-shift blind for the cabin door from a towel and we’ve got one fan blowing out the stale air from inside and the other sucking in cooler air (but only marginally) from the outside. It looks like some sort of strange tent but it does work and the cabin has now become habitable during the hottest hours of the day.
Last night the fog held off, and thankfully too as I heard another fishing boat before I saw it. We noticed some of its nets earlier in the day and think it was fishing using drift nets. From what we can work out these are a set of nets that hang vertically between a series of buoys that are released behind the boat. One of these has a huge aerial on it allowing the fishing boat to find it’s nets again. After a while they return to the nets and haul in their bootie. We saw one of the buoys with an aerial yesterday afternoon and wondered what it was.
The whole of today has been pretty toasty. There’s limited wind and although more clouds than yesterday it’s still very warm indeed so keeping hydrated has become a pretty high priority.
The other thing I heard last night was a whale surface. He came within 15 metres of the boat and was so close I could see the wake he was creating each time he surfaced. I was in awe of the obvious power that this whale had, and could hear the vast amount of air it was expelling from its lungs. It must have just finished a long dive as each time it surfaced it seemed to gulp at the air almost as though it was panting. After about a minute it realised we weren’t that interesting and decided to go on its way.
Other than the whale last night we haven’t seen any other wildlife except the fishes under the boat who keep us entertained as they swim alongside us.
They’re starting to grow a little bit bigger which may very well be to do with us throwing half a spoonful of each meal over the side to find out what they go for. It seems that so far shepherds pie is the winner with Chilli con carne coming in last.
The photo today is actually from a few days ago but there’s not much to photograph at the moment. It’s of an albertross who has decided that flying is just too tiring, and is taking a few minutes to rest.
Well done to Class 5 for raising so much money for the charities with their cake sale. Brilliant news. I’m only disapointed because I’d love to have been there to buy some cakes from you myself. Yummy!
32°42′36”N 173°43′37”E
Chris & Mick travelled 43.1 miles East-North-East (heading 77.1°) on day 51
They ended 3546.5 miles from San Francisco (42.2 miles closer than yesterday)
They covered miles 1493 to 1534 of the trip
Their average pace so far has been 30.1 miles/day towards San Francisco
They have 117.8 days remaining at this rate, so would arrive in San Francisco on 23 Oct 2009
Their target heading for the shortest route to San Francisco is East-North-East (heading 65.2°)
See where the boat is
Sponsor Thanks
There’s not so many sponsored miles in this section of their row, but thanks are still owed to a couple of generous sponsors from earlier in the endeavour, including Nicola Julius who sponsored mile 133 back on day 3. Thanks Nicola.
Would you like to sponsor a mile?
Click on Mick and Chris to see where the boat is
8 Responses to “Day 51 - It’s Hot… Damn Hot”
Hi Guys
Good pic of the Albatros resting. The weather sounds like a sandy desert where you are at the moment, except that you are surrounded by lots of water instead of sand. Glad you’ve been able to put in a few miles and are therefore getting ever closer to your destination. Weather here in Cornwall is very sunny and warm too - a great improvement on the past 2 summers when it rained every day! Bet you boys have good sea-going suntans-keep using the sun-screen cream and keep drinking lots of water. Keeeeep safe, keeeeep rowing and keeeeep smiling
By Sue from Cornwall on Jun 28, 2009
G’morning Chris & Mick,
Those sound like driftnets, and can be miles long, years ago I was an engineer on the “MV English Bridge” and had gone up onto the bridge just as we sailed straight through a line of buoys supporting nets that stretched to the horizon to India of to port and Africa starboard, from 100′ up the horizon is a long way.
200,000 tonnes of tanker just
ploughed on unbothered.
I suppose there were some unhappy fishermen, but laying a net across the main shipping lane was a little unwise!
By Vince on Jun 28, 2009
Good Afternoon boys - and Vince
Hey where is everyone? All having a Sunday afternoon siesta I suppose. Very interesting what Vince said about the driftnets - and pretty greedy of those fishermen to be taking so many fish out of the ocean in one go. But then, the world is overpopulated and there are too many mouths to feed, but one should remember that ocean creatures were the first to evolve on our planet, so surely they should be protected. That’s my philosophy for a Sunday afternoon dealt with! Hope you boys are okay bobbing about out there on that big blue ocean. Keeeeep safe, keeeeep rowing and keeeep smiling
By Sue from Cornwall on Jun 28, 2009
Chris, I imagine the awesome power of the whale reminded you of the old days rowing with me and the vast amount of air being expelled like rowing with Brian!
By Biff on Jun 28, 2009
And honestly stop with the “oh it’s so hot” I’ve had to have a cold shower today after spending a couple of hours in the garden. Tough days.
By Biff on Jun 28, 2009
Good ole Biff! Empathy, that’s what I like to hear!
Actually, I’m also sharing the experiences. Only this morning, around 8 o’clock, I too woke to the strange sounds of the Pacific. The only difference was that, in my case, the source of the noise was the 30ins x 50ins Pacific chart gradually peeling itself off the landing wall and crashing down the stairs [Admiralty Hydrographic Planning Chart 4008 of the North Pacific Ocean for all you fellow cartographic aficionados]. We use it to plot the revised positions on a daily basis. Sadly, the mini-heatwave currently affecting us all in the South-East had an adverse effect on the blu-tack holding it in place. See, we all have our cross to bear! Stay safe, guys.
By Dad Martin on Jun 28, 2009
Evening guys, nice bird, nice whale tale, glad your not rowing with Biff, thought he sounded full of hot air !!!
Take care in the heat, paddle gently and enjoy…. oh and stay safe
By Tracey on Jun 28, 2009
Hya - its me again - see, there’s no Andy Murray at Wimbledon today (cos it’s Sunday), so here I am blogging again when I should be doing other things! Chris I was a little bit concerned to learn that you’ve been feeding those pretty little fish under Bo with meaty tit-bits. You say they are growing larger - well obviously that is because they have become meat eaters - so do be careful and don’t dangle your fingers in the water near the fish….
Keeeep safe, keeeeep all your fingers, keeeeep rowing and keeeeep smiling
By Sue from Cornwall on Jun 29, 2009