Currently 250 nauties lie between me and the beach. Strong SE winds due on Friday, through to Wednesday, so we are likely to turbo even faster than our present mile munching pace. So much turbo that Ricardo has suggested an ETA of just 5-7 days hence. I am on my way and we are about to land this baby.
After some sensible chats, I have decided to keep pushing on to the beach, and discard my dreamy plan of possibly anchoring up to wait for my Mum and Matthew (and clean clothes!). The risks of not making a land to land crossing under my own steam (this is the greatest hallmark of ocean rowing), or of getting boshed on rocks or squashed by shipping are too great. Hence, everything possible is being done to try and change their flights, and I am rowing all the hours under the sun. And the moon and the stars. Needless to say I am fairly jolly zonked.
Course-wise, I am trying to stay West or WSW, to guard against the Northage we’re likely to gain with this strong stuff coming in. Don’t want to go flying North before I choose to point and shoot at the beach.
For those of you in tune with Google Earth on my tracker – the spot I’m aiming for is the Southern entrance to Grand Port. SE side of the island, with the intention of stepping ashore in Mahebourg Bay. This is all subject to change as I draw nearer – local weather conditions may force me elsewhere, but this is the goal.
So, that is the current state of play…we’ll keep you updated.
Meanwhile , please all eat lots of chocolate on my behalf – I’m all out of any such goodies. In fact, my larder now holds only porridge, mush, one bar of nougat and a final box of Boat Jelly.
And finally… The charity total for Arthritis Care is looking great, but still ever so slightly shy of 10K…So, as I go for the final 250 mile push, maybe you lovely land Tweedles could encourage all your mates, colleagues et al et al to throw some squiddlers that way in sympathy with my tiredy muscles, squealy joints and protesting Lower Deck. Teamwork is dreamwork, folks 🙂
Let’s land this baby…
Outey Toot Final-Two-Fifty Toot x x
PS
Taylagh Adams- Great email, thank you. Too much cool stuff to look at to get bored out here! Hope to visit your school next tear when I’m in Oz.
Jane – Chocstock completely depleted! Fresh fruit & veggies top of my wishlist.
Douglas Piercey – I hold RD in high regard as one of the most accessible science writers around. I think his commentaries on religion are astute, scrupulously researched, rational & logical. I have no religious beliefs, just a love of & interest in the natural world & science & evidence-based truth about it.
CLASH – Thanks for your message – can’t wait for chocfest. Good luck with the fashion show.
Ruth & Tony, Edinburgh – Pilot whales, fin whales, sei whales (I think), pilot fish, tuna, dorado!
Xtina – Meet you soon! Your boys must be nearly landed?! Send them big salty hugs from me.
George & Cousin J – Heard about festival plans – look after him George!
Dagmar – Yup, very hungry now.
Hi Sarah
Enjoyed hearing you last night on radio 2 – as someone who works for Arthritis Care I felt very proud of what you are achieving for us. I hope there will be lots of publicity for your wonderful achievements and on the back of this Arthritis Care’s profile will be raised and more people with arthritis will be aware of how to get our help and support. Thank you
Yippee!! yippee!!
Flights have now been changed!!!!
All good I hope!!
Matt and I should now be there to see her in!!!
YIPPEE!!
Hello Sarah!
Thank you for your lovely blog – I shall miss it when your adventure is over.
I am about to embark on a camping adventure in the woods in Derbyshire with my 3 boys, where it promises to be almost as wet as the Pacific, going by what I can see out of the window this morning! I am looking forward to trench foot and ash in my porridge!
I do not know if our technology will allow me to check on the last few days of your journey, so I wish you good luck and good speed (I would say ‘God speed’, but I thing ‘Dawkins speed’ is pretty good!), and thank you so much for your company for the last 3 months!
With love,
Glo
Brill news about the flights for Matt and Mum, I assume. Keep going and well done. Shame I missed you on Radio 2 last night. Are your arms aching yet?!
WOW WOW
hope to see you in Southampton Boat show
remember where Dawn, WORKS ?? http://www.welshchocolatefarm.com ???
Alan + Dawn
hi Sarah , brill news that your ahead of sched , am off with two daughters to cannoe the mighty Ardeche (small drop in the ocean compared to your jaunt)and was worried i would miss the end of your epic paddle. heard you last night on the radio and have followed your blogg , your amazing and i am sure once the good old tele and press pick up on your trip the fund will mightily swell,bet those first few steps will be wobbly ones , all the best , tony
Just heard you on the radio. Fab as ever Sarah. So glad your mum’s got a new flight. Go go go on the last push. Kate xx
Wow – I can’t believe how close you are now!!
So happy, too, that your ma and bro have been able to move their flights and will be there to wave you onto the beach. I’ve told my Mauritius friends all about you and they are dying to find our where you’ll land so they can be there to view hallooo.
Go Sarah, go!!
HI Sarah,
I’m callums (st hugh’s grandson) father and have been tracking you since aus. Having been a fisherman for 30 years I have so much respect for you out there. You will be getting a stiff neck looking round for land over the next few days so get yourself ashore soon as poss,
stay safe,
Best regards,
Robert
Hey Sarah,
Good luck with the mush situation. Maybe you should see it as a kind of extreme detox before you reach the mountains of chocolate (and Land Food) that must be awaiting you in Mauritius. Or just make the most of the boat jelly, mmm!
Nearly there now, awesome!!!
Sarah B
Hi Sarah,
You were great on radio 2 last night and after you’d gone, Stuart told his Listeners how the show was always ‘deluged with emails’ whenever you had been on – with people writing in to say how ‘inspirational’ you are – not just what you are doing, but your attitude to the challenge and to life in general, and your good humour. And he gave your blog address and urged people to look and see what you’d been doing, and to ‘chip in’ with some dosh for your cause. Said he was looking forward to meeting you soon. So good one!
Hurrah that Helen, Sarah’s Mum, and Matt have got fresh tickets to RumPunch…what a party you’re all going to have. I suppose those yorkshire puddings are already getting a battering at High Commission House!
Sorry you are down to oat cuisine – but the rum and rosbif will taste all the better when you get there as a result, best Jane
Hi Sarah,
My class at Stafford Leys Primary School, Leicester and my self have been following your journey for the last three months and are totally in awe of you and your achievement. Only a short way to go till those rum punches, chocolate and fresh food. We do hope that perhaps you might be able to fit in a visit to our school when you return to the East Midlands although I guess your time will be in great demand. I hope the wind blows in the right direction for you to land safely where you want to. I will be watching the tracker closely over the next few days.
Diana W
WOW WOW WOW is all I have to say, you are absolutely amazing, I can’t believe you’re nearly there, be safe in those last 250 nauticals, saw your mum and bonnie in town yesterday, but I don’t think she remembers me!!! Bonnie definitely winked at me though.
keep rowing, everyone is cheering for you, Mr Michael of the Morpurgo variety, asked me to pass on his best wishes once again.
So proud of everything you have acheived. Stayin Mauritius as long as you can, the English summer is predictably wet!!!!
Sending you lots of strong, happy wind vibes
x x
S…… When you first tottered out inMarch I thought early August would be good ….apre April 1 the gloriest 12th grouse season openening looks promising… stay happy !!!
John T Perth
I hope that the good winds, your mum’s & brother’s changed flights and cravings for fresh fruit & veg will get you rowing fast and make up for the depleted food stocks!! Am also keeping my fingers crossed that hunger won’t get in the way of your good mood. Enjoy those last few days, Sarah, the life out on the ocean that I cannot even begin to imagine!
oooh – very exciting whaley news!!
A Beluga whale has saved a woman who was in a free-diving lark in a 20 foot deep tank in Arctic temp water with Beluga whales in China – the diver got severe cramps in her legs and was at the bottom of the pool, choking. She felt this huge force pushing her upwards; it was the Beluga whale pushing the diver toward the surface using his teeth round her leg. The officials hadn’t even spotted the problem!!
Dearest Sarah
It’s heartstoppingly exciting reading your blogs as you near the beach…really, really cheering up our dull wet British summer! What shall we all do once you’ve landed? Can’t wait for your next adventure – I have a sneaky feeling there are many more to come….
I’m so thrilled to have had a chance to meet and film you, and I really hope I have the chance to meet you again!
Love Clare H
Hi Sarah, I am so excited for you! you are so close to land now, and so close to finally have that Coco Punch…..on the other hand I must say that I am so sad not being able to make it to Mauritius…..to experience all the excitement of you “Touching Land” and to meet again with your mum and brother….Such an achievement! I am very proud to have met you! and hope to read your book soon, as I am thoroughly enjoying your blog and will definitely miss reading it. Marcel may be coming to Australia, and he will have to give me every details of your arrival in Mauritius. Good luck Sarah! will watch with anticipation your track!!!
Yippee! I’ve just seen the post from your mum saying her and Matt have changed their flights – I’m so chuffed you’ll get to have them waiting at the port to welcome you in, along with clothes and chocolate! I’ll be ready with more chocolate for your arrival back in England! Can’t believe how soon you’ll arrive – Rum o’clock is getting closer! All the best, Flickety-roo xxx
Hi Sarah – Jamie and I will be making a donation today to Arthritis Care! We are totally amazed by you and your progress, and you are so nearly there!!!! Roll on the clean clothes, familiar faces, lots of chocolate and that rum punch. Your a star! Love Emily and Jamie x
Looking forward to the landing video and after so long at sea I can only imagine what that first beer (or mauritian rum) wll taste like, pure bliss I expect.
Take care of yourself.
Tony
What a tale Clare of mammal saving mammal – aren’t newborn whales meant to be got to the surface soon after birth to breath? what a natural instinct to recognise a human in danger and taking action, kind of makes us humble considering what mankind does to whales!
Maybe Sarah those earlier encounters with whales during your crossing, were just for them to check that you were doing alright!
The stories and descriptions of what you have experienced have been wonderful to read each day and the radio interviews amazing. We are looking forward to your book and hope that someone has at least tried to fixed up a film deal so we can experience the challenge too!!
Keep striking out for shore.
Susie
Dear Sarah,
You have given us the ride of our lives,not to mention expanding our horizons, introducing us to wonderful and amazing reading (both yours and others in your library)and a whole new dimension to being alone and especially in the vast blue seas.
Can’t believe this could happen, but your love, observations, descriptions, etc of nature and your sense of the ridiculous, has surpassed all those who I’ve read and watched in the past.
I’m sending another donation shortly, but I have to say (as one with R/A), the best medicine has to be you.
I hope we can return the hospitality you have shown us by letting us share your incredible journey, when you and helen and hopefully Mathew come here nwxt year, JIll
Hi Sarah, so excited that you are so close!!Back from Canada off to Israel next week – thinking of you all the time xx
Hi Sarah! Oh dear, oh dear! Re. our thoughts on Richard Dawkins and your absence of faith, I suggest a good start might be for you to read “There is a God: How the World’s most notorious atheist changed his mind” by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese”. I’m sure you keep an open mind! Anyway, I think you’re doing a marvellous thing out there and I wish you the very best and a safe landfall. God bless. Douglas.
Sarah. You keep reading Dawkins babe. I can’t believe the arrogance of the so-called “believers”. Douglas, you do your god-bothering elsewhere. Just you wait until I start my blog on the Atlantic crossing in December – I’m hoping Dawkins will do a “guest blog” (seriously). Anyway, my crew member Susana is going to have a choc-fest in your honour tonight and has asked that you visit our boat at the Boat Show to give her the experience of your choc-stuffing expertise. We think you ought to have one last rummage, you never know what you might find. I saw Alans message above – I clean forgot that Dawn work in a chocolate factory. Oh happy days. Off to Plymouth to bring boat back to Solent this w/e. Can’t wait to show you around. Row Safely and enjoy every last minute.
Hello Sarah from smack dab in the middle of the USA! I have been following your blog for several weeks after a nod from Roz Savage.
Just had to stop by and wish you beneficial breezes and a warm reunion with your friends and family. For a former Canadian Great Lakes sailor, the adventures of you and Roz are a reminder of stormy nights, refreshing splashes and past adventures for this land-locked kayaker!
Well done, Sarah!
PS I echo Geoff’s feelings on Dawkins and am pleased to have learned of Geoff’s site just now….another vicarious adventure for me!
Hi Sarah – been listening to your progress with Messrs Radcliffe & Maconie for weeks, but only just picked up your website & blogs – we are dinosaurs in a modern world! We love you, so keep pushing – not much money in our kitty, but we’ll find some for you very soon, even if it’s small. TOTAL admiration!!!!!!!
Hey Gorgeous girl, Are you rowing or flying???? Careful, or you will end up in Madagascar.
I’ve been feeling a bit guilty lately spending my meager Tax refund on computer repairs (my iBook went schizoid 2 years ago) but the repairs were less than expected so I dropped by to drop 5 pounds (about $10) in the Arthritis bucket. I wish I could donate more.
So all you lurkers out there, If an unemployed disabled Yank can come up with $10, so can you!!!
Hey Sarah, Tuesday’s Radcliffe & Maconie show is the second most popular on iplayer – can’t imagine why!!
So so pleased at your progress and v excited at the thought of you hitting land in less than a week, amazing. Can’t wait to see you when you get back home.
You will be pleased to know that J’s requested ‘top notch’ camping gear has been acquired and I am managing his expectations as to the realities of festival land. It is only a tiny 5,000 capacity gig so more like camping with your mates really. Will take good care of him and will ensure sufficient photographic evidence of the escapade.
Enjoy the rest of your short time at sea, you will miss the beauty and wonder of it all dreadfully when you get back to land life.
Love G x
Dear Sarah,
You are a real star. I really hope you make it safely and raise the 10K. You have inspired me more and more.
Thanks for the blog. Thanks for what you are doing.
Steve
Hi Sarah
Just as well Geoff H didn’t let his crew know that Dawn worked in a chocolate factory. Otherwise the Personal Everest Circus may never have got beyond S Wales !! (btw, Hilary is consuming Arbroath smokies at the moment; maybe that will slow her circumnavigation)
Brill CMG and very wise planning not to extend unnecessarily at sea. Superfluous consideration now that Mum’s flight is changed. Wishing you the best arrival weather. Hope to see you in Southampton.