First day at sea blog No 1

First Day at Sea

To my great surprise, when the sun came up I couldn't see anything but water. This is awesome, I finally feel that I’m where I've wanted to be for so long: by myself, rowing and being one with the environment.

When someone told me last Monday: "You do know you'll need three days to find your sea legs?", I didn’t want to believe it. After only forty minutes, I was sick as a dog! Already! With barely two short miles under my belt… Now here’s a new challenge: to push on even though I really only want to go inside to sleep or lie down. Not very proud to utter the seemingly unavoidable sentence: “I’m seasick!”

With winds gusting up to twelve knots, it was hardly surprising that the sea was so rough all through the evening. Which leaves us, my Peta and I, somewhat wary! I was still able to slide down slopes four or five times by surfing on them, with ensuing unparalleled speed bursts. When I went to get some rest at the end of the day, I had to touch my cabin’s ceiling a few times as I incorrectly thought that Peta was going to overturn, and thus confirm the proper operation of its self-righting system.

I was able to get some rest in the evening before starting to row for the whole night. As I was coming out of my cabin, I saw a bright glow in the sky. It was so bright that I thought a plane was shining a light on me... Well no, simply stars in the thousands! So numerous, with the Milky Way as background. I admired them all through the night.

Near dawn, I was able to raise hull speed to three then four knots. My goal was to travel 20 nautical miles in 24 hours. Mission accomplished.

Last night, Papi Hermel phoned to ask me what was going on: “You don’t seem to be moving forward any more!” The communication was cut off… Papi, it’s simple, I sometimes need to sleep! ;)