We could see the whale's eyes, mouth... the barnacles on its back
(Filed: 22/12/2005)
James Cracknell, Olympic gold medalist, and Ben Fogle, television presenter, spent last week huddled in the cabin of their boat with the sea anchor down. This year, the Atlantic Rowing Race from the Canary Islands to Antigua has been plagued by the worst weather in its history and, for a week, the pair have been unable to make progress. On Tuesday, the wind began to change. Ben Fogle takes up the story with Cassandra Jardine....
We got away at midnight, but it was not until Tuesday midday that the wind finally moved to the north-east and we started to make real progress. With the wind and the sea behind us, we've increased our speed to three knots an hour. It's fantastic, having spent the previous week being bored out of our minds. Some of our pack of cards had gone missing and we hadn't packed any rainy-day things such as jigsaws, so there was nothing to do.
Ben Fogle is down to his last two pairs of shorts
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The best moment was our amazing encounter with a whale. I saw this huge white thing coming towards us. It passed so close that we could feel its back scraping the underside of the boat. It was incredibly graceful and as it moved under the boat, we could see its huge shadow, like a submarine. It was so close that we could see its eyes, its mouth, even the barnacles on its back. One flip and it could have turned us over. Thankfully, it didn't think we were another whale and try to mate with us.
We can also be glad that we haven't had a shark encounter. One of the other boats has; they had to hide in the cabin while it attacked their boat. As we get closer to the Caribbean, there will be more sharks and we won't be punching them on the nose, we'll also be hiding. We have to go into the water once a week to maintain the boat, so it's an alarming thought.
It's great to be rowing again, but although the old blisters had time to dry up while we were on the sea anchor, new blisters have now formed on top of the old ones. I have 12 of them, but our bottoms are in the worst state as this is a relentless process, sitting in the same place for hours every day. It's like having bedsores - and it's only going to get worse.
Before long we may well be forced to go naked, because I am down to two pairs of shorts and James has had to borrow my last pair of pants because things just seem to get lost. If we lose those, we will have no protection from the seats and the weather is getting hotter as we go further west.
But our main problem is food. When you are bored, you just want to eat and we can't, although we think about food all the time. We've been at sea for three weeks but have rations for only 50 days. We are likely to be here for another month, so must cut back on our calories and we are both getting noticeably thinner. I am going to have to take my watch off soon because it is so loose.
So you can imagine my frustration when I burnt my lips on the precious half cup of hot chocolate that we allow ourselves each day, and spilled it all over the boat. I'm sure when we have arrived in Antigua and I see my girlfriend, Marina, and James sees his wife, Bev, we will be able to laugh about it, but on the Atlantic it's hard to cope with the mood swings.
Even though we are moving again, our spirits wax and wane as we have so much time to think. We've lost our position at the front of the rowing pairs. We've a long way still to go at sea and already Christmas is upon us. Everyone at home is getting together, wrapping presents. I imagine the morning frost. There's a lot to regret and miss...
Tonight, when James isn't looking, I'm going to put up some Christmas decorations that I sneaked on board. I have tinsel, a pretend Christmas tree and some Santa hats for us to wear. I shall have to sneak off when James is sleeping to decorate the VHF aerial and any other bits that need cheering up.
You can hear this on podcast.telegraph.co.uk
Xeno Muller, Olympic gold and silver medalist, indoor rowing, rowing technique.
