Day 24 – New Years Celebrations

Rowing Stones are on final approach into Barbados. They have 15 nm between them and the finish line and half of that will be from the northern point of the island down the west coast to Port St Charles. The crew will have spent the night rowing and looking over their shoulder at the lights…

It’s about now that we can start to think about relaxing…a bit. The crews have both made some excellent progress away from Gran Canaria and are now progressing out into open waters where the waves will start to become less choppy and more rolling. The reports coming back from the crews continue to be encouraging…

The crews have already received welcome visitors from whales and dolphins from beneath the waves. Now they are starting to receive visitors from the air in the form of birds and insects. Despite having rowed for more than a week and even through they have rowed more than 300nm they are less than 250nm off…

The wildlife for the crews on this trip just keeps coming and coming. Rowing Stones saw three dolphins swimming in the waves yesterday but they didn’t stop for a closer look and overnight there were a load of random fish and plankton all around the boat reflecting the moonshine. It sounds absolutely magical. With so…

Yesterday was a day of fixing systems for both crews. This feels a little bit like a right of passage in some ways. The first week was marked by the crews becoming accustomed to their environment, being challenged by the wind and waves and discovering their new normal. The second week has been marked by…

Rowing Stones have had an absolutely unique evening on the water yesterday. We’ve been in contact with a crew who were sailing across the Atlantic departing from Gran Canaria just after Christmas and knew a few of the rowers in the Rowing Stones team. As a sailing boat they are a lot faster than the…