Day 19 – Another day in paradise

After the excesses of their festive period the crews have returned to the oars (not that they took much of a break anyway, but a change is as good as a holiday) with renewed passion and focus. Both teams have enjoyed meeting new things in the last 24 hours.

Ocean’s Elite have seen their first white tailed tropicbird. It’s super slender and about 70-80cm long when fully grown but can be easily identified by its super long tail feathers which can double it’s length. The team have also received their first visit of flying fish. These part aquatic part aerial masters jump out of the sea and glide for significant distances between waves to evade water borne predators. We expect it won’t be long before they start landing in the boat and then things have a tendency to get a bit smelly.

Rowing Stones on the other hand have kept their close encounters to a more similar kind by meeting up with another ocean row boat. Some of you may be aware that the “World’s Toughest Row” Atlantic race is going on at the moment. One of the four person teams “SeaSoar” was close enough to the team to have a little conversation. What a chance coincidence that must have felt like in the middle of the ocean. Ocean rowing is still a very rare occurrence and the ocean is a very big place with crews not being able to see other vessels more than a few miles away from them, so to actually meet up with one of the few other boats on the water at the moment is quite exceptional good fortune.

Here is hoping that the good fortune continues for the rest of the trip.