500,000 calories - 102 kg of food, including 300 snack bars, 100 sachets of porridge, 7 kg dried milk, 140 sachets of hot chocolate. The photo shows my mother dividing up my huge quantities of provisions into ration packs for my time at sea.
In addition to the food, there are 940 wet wipes, 6 tubes of sun cream, 4 tubes of nappy salve, an enormous first aid kit, a 20kg liferaft, axes, cooking fuel, toolkits, buckets, ropes, para-anchor, lifejacket, ropes, drogues, and assorted bits of technology.
Put aside the expedition-specific items for the moment, and just consider what it takes to keep body and soul together for 3 months, without the option of popping out to the shops. It's staggering. I'll be taking close to twice my bodyweight in food with me. Makes me wonder how on earth this tiny planet of ours manages to support such a huge population, all of us consuming, consuming. How does it do it? And how much longer can it continue?
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Pending the arrival of adequate oars, it seemed as good a time as any to do some retail therapy. Manolo Blahniks? Prada? No. Musto, cargo nets and safety harness. And a quick catch-up with my one cash sponsor, the Happy Hippy Colin Habgood. And his mate Peter Lewer, seen here enjoying a fine repast in the Mariners' Restaurant at the Boat Show. Also had the chance to see the Rowgirls, similarly indulging in a spending spree on strobe lights and other such wardrobe essentials. No girl should leave home without one.
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Minor crisis this week - after taking extensive advice from Howard Croker and Peter Hogden re how long my oars should be, turns out they're about 20cm too short to reach the water. And this despite extensive sessions with measuring tape and spirit level. Still not quite sure where it all went wrong (probably something to do with me being about a foot shorter than the average rower) but the main thing now is to make it all come right.
Somebody suggested that it wasn't that my oars were too short, but that the Atlantic was too low. Luckily the Americans seem to be doing their best to rectify that situation... :-). But pending greater effects from global warming, it seemed a good time to put in a call to the oar manufacturer.
I overestimated the time difference between here and Oz so when I rang Mr Croker it was 5.30am his time. To his credit he was remarkably helpful despite being awoken from his slumbers by an unhappy customer, and rapidly suggested a solution. This morning I'll be faxing over precise measurements and he'll knock up some replacement oar handles that will extend the oars by the required length.
He'll stick them in the post and with a bit of luck I'll have some functional oars in time for my sea trials starting next Thursday - seat-of-the-pants stuff, but that's becoming quite normal.
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16 hours on a rowing machine can take its toll, especially on the sit-upon, as my mother would call it. Towards the end of a particularly sweaty training session it felt as if I was sitting on razor blades - and this is in my living room, before saltwater and tropical heat have been added into the equation. Fortunately Green People have come to the rescue.
My nutritionist, a mother of two, recommended their Baby Salve, as the panacea for all skin-related ills. Luckily Green People had already offered to sponsor my on-board toiletries, so one quick email and 6 tubes of soothing balm were on their way.
And it works (photographic evidence NOT supplied.)... which is handy - not easy to row if you can't sit down!
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