Day 8 – The Retrospective Perspective

Today I've been listening to the audiobook of The Time Traveller's Wife,
which has got me thinking about the whole notion of seeing my life as a
whole, birth to death, rather than being so bound up in the present
moment. It's quite a useful perspective – the retrospective perspective.

Makes it a lot easier to handle a bit of discomfort when I imagine it
from the point of view of my future. This rowing is one of those things
that it will be great to HAVE done. The only problem is that in order to
have DONE it, at some stage I have to actually DO it, and right now I'm
going through that inconvenient but necessary "doing" bit – but in fact,
it's not too bad.

Progress today was slow, with the wind coming out of the southeast(where
ARE those trade winds?! See forecast below – no sign that they're going
to show up any time soon, alas) but I've managed to slog a few more miles
closer to the equator. And the onboard cuisine is going down well, so life
is good.

Other Stuff:

A week into my voyage, and I'm settling into my routine. The main
difference between this crossing (so far) and my previous two crossings
has been the temperature. Hard to believe that there were some nights
after I left San Francisco this time last year when I had to finish
rowing earlier than I wanted because my feet were too cold and I feared
long-term damage to my extremities.

Now I've got the opposite problem – heat. I've become quite addicted to
my regular cooling plunges into the ocean – 4 today. I just hang out by
the boat, enjoying the refreshing coolness of the water. I've noticed
some little black fish also hanging out in the shade of my boat – I'll
try and get a picture of them tomorrow.

The Ricoh camera has resisted all attempts at resuscitation so I've
retrieved my trusty old Pentax Optio WP, veteran of the Atlantic crossing,
from my case of backup gadgets in the fore cabin.

Thanks, Ian T, for confirming that the Ricoh IS meant to be waterproof to
1 metre. I didn't even immerse it – it just got splashed and then handled
with wet hands. So it's a bummer that it's decided to give up the ghost,
because it wasn't cheap. I just really hope it's not a case of it having
to be returned within a short period of time after the damage occurs, or I
might be out of luck!

Some people have been asking why I don't row at night and sleep in the
day. It's a great idea in theory, but in practice the cabin is
positively sauna-like during the day, and any attempts at sleep result
in a sweaty, sticky, severely discombobulated rower feeling even less
rested than I did before. Remind me to get air conditioning installed
before the next stage…

One final thing – if you get my blogs by email via Feedblitz, you might
not be aware that I'm posting weekly video updates as well. If you
missed last week's video, it's now available on YouTube. Easiest way to
find it would be to go to rozsavage.com and go to the RozTracker. Where
you see the little YouTube icon on the map, click there and it will take
you to the video. Cheers!

Weather:
Wind: 5-10kts, E-SE
Sea: swell around 3-4ft

Forecast courtesy of weatherguy.com:

The trade winds are being stubborn, but have picked up slightly.
However, there is too much east or south in the wind direction to offer
much help in rowing south. This should be the case for the next several
days.

Forecast below is for a SSWerly course at 30nm/day. A Serly route (180
deg T) is preferred.

Date/Time HST Wind kts Seas (ft)
31/1800-31/2100 E-ENE 7-12 3-4
31/2100-01/0600 E-ESE 5-10 3-4
01/0600-01/2100 ESE-SE 7-12 3-4
01/2100-02/1800 SE-ENE 5-10 3-4
02/1800-03/1200 E 10-15 4-5
03/1200-04/0000 E-ENE 15-22 4-6
04/0000-05/0000 ENE-ESE 15-20 4-6

Clear and sunny to partly cloudy with little chance of rainshowers. Sky
conditions are mostly dry.