The final few days in the run-up to an expedition can be challenging. To Do lists seem never-ending and unachievable. Finances look precarious. During the day I keep plugging away (“one oarstroke at a time”) but at 3am I lie awake, the tasks still to be done buzzing around in my head like so many angry bees.

But then once in a while there is a day when it all comes good, and the To Do list suddenly looks almost do-able. Today was one of those days.

Sedna at the RPYC Annexe in Fremantle

My marvellous team of new friends / volunteers turned up at the Fremantle Annexe of the Royal Perth Yacht Club, ready, willing and able to help out. We cleaned, packed, arranged and organized. By the end of the day much of the work was done, with most of the outstanding tasks being the ones that only I can do.

Oh, and the small matter of a sliding seat that thinks it is a fixed seat. But nothing that can’t be mended.

Huge thanks to Sally, Margot, John, June, Pippa, Col and Rob. Rob (Eustace), incidentally, is setting out on his own trans-Indian adventure a couple of days after I do, but from much further up the coast (smart man!). Meanwhile, thanks, Rob, for mucking in and helping out with the Purple Peril!

Oars from Sawyers Paddles and Oars - solid Oregon ash

Would love to write more, but it has been a full-on day in the baking Australian sunshine. So I am going to go and hit the hay, and make the most of one of my last few nights in a large, comfortable bed that doesn’t move!

Margot creating variety packs of Larabars. Yummm!

We all need some cosmic love. Thanks to Samudra of Western Australia for the nuts.

Pass me that thingy, will you?

Adjusting the oars to avoid a thumb-bashing

Enjoying some well-earned cold ones from the Little Creatures brewery after a hard day's work

A glorious end to a productive day

Seems that so far this voyage's blog has been dominated by boobies,
bums, and bird poo. I felt it was time to raise the tone a bit, and talk
about my boat – or, more specifically, some of the people who have
worked on her.

I often feel like a bit of a fraud when I claim to be a "solo ocean
rower" because although the rowing bit is totally down to me (sigh… if
only it COULD be delegated, at least a bit of it!) there are countless
other people without whom I couldn't do what I do. Literally hundreds of
people give me support – financial, technical, psychological and moral.

Today I'd like to single out a few who have given very practical
support. I hope they don't mind. I know they didn't do it for the
recognition – and certainly not for monetary reward, because there
wasn't any.
I think of them often as I look around my boat, and see the evidence of
their contributions.

Ian Tuller is a retired educator living in San Francisco. He emailed me
some time back to introduce himself and offer some help. As well as
letting me stay on his boat and drive his car while I am in the Bay
Area, he came out to Hawaii to help work on my boat. Twice.

Ian is an amazing can-do kind of guy. He just gets on with it. I was
being a bit of a wimp about stripping all the defunct electrical
equipment off my boat – a clutter of stuff had accumulated over the
years, most of which had worked briefly before falling victim to
saltwater corrosion. "But we might be able to fix it," I pleaded. "We
might," he said, "but if it broke the first time it's going to break
again." The logic was irrefutable. The broken kit was duly stripped and
went to the next boat jumble.

I think of Ian each time I admire the clean lines of my newly
uncluttered cabin roof, where much of the dead stuff used to live.

And each time I look at my nice clean deck, newly painted in Seattle
Grey, I think of Liz Fischer, who I met for the first time only about a
month before I left from Waikiki. A professional woman and enthusiastic
paddler, Liz connected with me via Facebook. I don't know how we'd have
been ready in time without her help. No task was too big – or too small.
Sometimes it's easier to find someone to paint a deck than to find
someone to do the mundane, unglamorous jobs like buying batteries. Liz
would just dismiss all proffered thanks with a brisk "Girls gotta help
girls."

And last but not least, huge thanks to Scott Burgess, who I met at the
Ala Wai Paddling Challenge earlier this year. As well as being the
possessor of the most distractingly amazing set of abs I've ever seen,
Scott has been incredibly generous with his time and energy. During the
couple of months that I was away on the mainland, Scott toiled away in
his spare time in the Black Hole of Calcutta that was Pier 21 – the only
place we could find to store my boat at the time, a gloomy, grimy
warehouse – chipping away at the long To Do list. He also stored the
unbelievable quantity of stuff that came off my boat in his small
apartment. I think I had more possessions there than he did.

Scott got the worst job of all, the one nobody wants to do – sanding and
repainting the bottom of the boat. Covered in blue paint dust and
wearing a white paper overall, he looked like a hard-working Smurf. A
Smurf with great abs. Did I mention those already? (Sorry to embarrass
you, Scott!)

I can't possibly name everyone else who helped out, but would just
quickly like to acknowledge Morgan Kavanaugh, Ellen Petry Leanse, Aenor
Sawyer, Melinda Griffith, Nancy Glenn, Lyla Kempker and Brian Bilodeau,
all of whom contributed their unpaid labor during those last frenetic
days on dry land. I see little signs of your care and affection all
around me on this boat, and it helps keep me motivated to know that you
all believe in me.

And if any of you can remember seeing my shower gel on board…. Let me
know where to find it!

[Photo: I think my trusty old Pentax Optio WP is on its way out. This
photo I took today is looking decidedly psychedelic. And the ocean
wasn't. Sigh. That's the second camera I've killed so far this trip….]

Other Stuff:

32 miles today – not bad. Conditions rough but I've been in worse. Heat
continues to be the main issue.

Nicole sent me some extracts from the blog of GoldenGateEndeavour.com –
my two friends Chris Martin and Mick Dawson who are rowing the north
Pacific from Japan to San Francisco. They are suffering from the cold –
woolly hats and warm socks being their most cherished items. While I
swelter. Funny to think we're on the same ocean. But also quite
reassuring, in a way. They're a couple of thousand miles north of me,
but nice to know I'm not the only lunatic out here!

Thanks for a great batch of comments on my last blog. Too tired to reply
to all (and need to get off my bum – still taking good care of it), but
here are a few hellooos:

Sindy – so my average is up to over 30 miles a day. Woohoo! (not in
danger of breaking any water speed records any time soon though!)

Beau – getting a bit crowded on this rowing seat. You might have to take
the night shift!

Pegola – hi to all in Hood River. And have fun at the Guac Off! I hope
to be there in October on my book tour – see you then?!

Daniel Dion – I can't believe I've managed to connect with someone in
Gravelbourg! Your town, I'll have you know (with a smile) was the bane
of my planning exercise. About 1000 miles out of my way, the back end of
beyond, on the way to nowhere. Exactly the kind of place I would LOVE to
visit! I will be sure to look you up if I get around to my Johnny Cash
adventure.

Weather report:

Position at 2120 HST: 14 18.444N, 165 05.104W
Wind: 10-20kts ENE
Seas: 6-8ft ENE, breaking, rough, generally inconvenient
Weather: some welcome cloud towards the end of the day, otherwise hot,
hot, hot

Weather forecast, courtesy of weatherguy.com:

As for Monday. New forecast arriving tomorrow.

Image by rozsavage via Flickr

It is now less than 4 days before I launch, and it’s all happening. There is still so much to do, and I know it WILL all happen – just not quite sure HOW. But if I’ve learned anything through the last few years, it’s that if you keep the faith, and work your butt off, you can make almost anything happen.

Oh, and it also helps to have a band of angels, aka extremely good friends. We’ve made some amazing friends here in Hawaii – and tomorrow Team California arrives. Six or seven friends are arriving from the mainland to help with final preparations and to see me off on Sunday. They will all be put to work (I hope they know this!) to run around for final provisions, fix up the boat, and help get me packed. The team includes Nicole’s granny and brother, my friends Aenor and Melinda (veterans of the post-airlift salvage mission of 2007), Nancy our hostess in Sausalito, and Ellen of Google fame.

I truly could not do what I do (or at least, not with any shred of sanity) without the assistance and support of these incredibly dedicated friends. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able (being British and all) to let them know just how much I appreciate them.

So while I’m in this rather emotional, un-British kind of mood, I’d just like to say how amazing it has been to work with Nicole over the last 3 months. Working alone was…. well, I managed. But working with Nicole has been so much more effective, and so much fun. There have been some amazing comedy moments that I wish I could share with you, but unfortunately we didn’t know they were about to happen so we didn’t have the cameras rolling. But there has been a lot of hilarity, interspersed with serious, profound, how-are-we-going-to-save-the-world kind of moments that will stay in my (very unreliable) memory forever.

When I get to meet incredible people like this, who are prepared to give so much in return for so little, it makes me feel that I must be doing something right – or at least doing the right things for the right reasons.

And on that note I will hand over to our latest RozCast – recorded by Nicole and me in Waikiki last night at sunset.