At some point in the wee smalls of Friday morning we made landfall in Antigua to the rapturous welcome of our nearest and dearest and all those that Woodvale were able to rustle up for a dockside welcome at quarter past two in the morning.

Our finish time was 59 days 16 hours and 17 minutes which means than not only have we won the pairs class, having now passed scrutiny with the post-race officials, but that we’ll be the only traditional rowing boat in this year’s race to break the 60 day barrier, a feat of which we’re immensely proud, considering both the conditions and the competition.

Having taken some time out this afternoon to catch up on e-mails and messages of support from everyone back home we just wanted to extend our deepest thanks and appreciation to everyone who has followed us so closely over the past 2 months. Your support and encouragement has meant the world to us and truly has helped to propel us across the ocean. We couldn’t be happier with both what we’ve achieved and the response and reaction our little adventure has inspired in everyone back home.

We’ve only got a couple of days here in Antigua and are determined to make the most of them. Our bodies quite literally started to fall apart in the last few days of the crossing so it’ll be a combination of vigorous ointment application, sunbathing, gentle swimming and very fine dinning (we’ve lost a little over 30kg in body weight between us since leaving La Gomera).

Before I sign off I’d just like to say best of luck to those crews still out there and, whilst I really hope this doesn’t come across as patronising, believe me when I tell you that it really, really IS worth it. I know it may not feel like it right now but keep pushing (pulling) hard and when the time comes to step of the boat in Nelson’s Dockyard and finally take your families in your arms the feelings you’ll experience are truly indescribable and worth every single one of the strokes between now and then.

So thanks again to all our supporters and to everyone that has posted messages of encouragement and congratulations. We’ll hopefully see you all very soon back in Blighty and do our best to bring the weather with us.

 For the last time: much love everyone.

What's this? Another blog within 48 hours? They must be spoiling us!

Well I'm afraid not everyone, we just wanted to say that after having battled some savage south and south westerly winds for the last 24 hours we've finally given up and decided to go back on to para anchor once again. Believe me when i tell you this wasn't an easy decision, we swore to ourselves after last time that we would do everything humanly possible to avoid getting it out again and we really have but it's just not worth it anymore. In the last 2 hours we've started to go more north than west and that's a clear sign we can't beat the conditions.

On the plus side this system is only due to hang around until late on Thursday so we'll hopefully be under way again very soon. We're just about a week out from Antigua (conditions permitting) so as soon as we come of anchor we'll be going like a bat out of hell to make it before our families have to fly home again.

Really sorry everyone, we tried.

Once again apologies for the gap between blogs; this time it's been down to lack of power i'm afraid. Despite relatively calm weather conditions the amount of cloud cover of late has prevented us from charging up the laptop and hence from spewing forth any more of our inane ramblings.

Now that we're back in the blazing sunshine, however, i'm free to once again fill you in on the goings on at sea. First and foremost we're now within 10 degrees of the finish and are most definitely in "finish mode." We've set our sights on a March 4th finish, hopefully early morning sometime as this would give us a sub-60 day crossing, so if anyone is going to be hanging around the docks in English Harbour and fancies bringing along a couple of cold tinnies to welcome in a pair of weather beaten and weary seamen we'd be most grateful.

With regards to the race itself, i hope it's not too big headed of suggest it's now very much a two horse affair between us and Pygram (at the time of writing there's over 180 miles between us and third place), but we experienced something this morning that suddenly made the race seem wholly inconsequential.

Up to this point we've had regular visits from various assorted sea birds, i'm not sure of the type i'm afraid as we're not really that into birds (1036 members feel free to insert your own joke here), and we've been blessed with a couple of very close sightings of whales, one of which saw a mother and her calf pass directly beneath our port oar so close we actually thought we might hit them, but today we had one of those "never to be forgotten" experiences that i'm sure will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Just as i had finished preparing a delicious lunch of Mexican Chicken and Mixed Berries with Custard Ollie downed the oars and shouted that the dolphins were back. We'd seen/heard them the night before but it was really too dark to make them out clearly, and prior to that our only previous sighting had been two phins on the very first day. This time, however, we were surrounded by them, i'm really not exaggerating when i say there were dozens of them all around us. They were popping and cresting out of the water and swimming up to, around and underneath the boat all inquisitive as to exactly what sort of strange creature we were. Immediately the race and desperate attempts to stay ahead of the Frenchies fell out of the window and we instantly pulled on our masks and dived over to go swimming with our new friends. Now i know swimming with dolphins is a bit of cliché but i really don't care. It was freaking amazing, and i'm not talking about any captive, tourist friendly dolphin pods here. We're still over 500 miles from the Caribbean and to be that far from land and swimming with a pod of truly wild and beautiful creatures has instantly eclipsed everything we've experienced on this voyage so far. If we do manage to hold onto our lead and beat Pygram that will be amazing and a great achievement but if I were to be given the choice of which experience I could chose I would take the dolphins everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the radio silence of late it's just that we've been chasing the weather for the best part of a week now in a desperate attempt to pick up some speed and we just can't seem to get out of the clutches of this latest depression. We're down at 17'45 N now and still, despite what the weather reports are telling us, can't seem to find the slightest breath of wind in a helpful direction.

In the last 12 hours we've seen our lead over Pygram and Atlantic Dragon take an absolute pasting and morale on board is pretty low right now. I don't mean to moan but we'd had for anyone back home to think we were just taking it easy. I promise you we're really NOT!

Oh well, on the bright side it's Valentine's day and while Olli hasn't said anything yet i'm pretty sure he's got some sort of romantic surprise dinner planned, that sly old fox.

We'll keep you posted on any changes in the weather, but the best indication will be when we stop posting 30 mile DMG days and get back to 60+ conditions we had last week.

Much love everyone.

At last, after all the trials and tribulations of the last 4 and a half weeks, we're finally at the halfway point. Well that's to say we're at what we hope will be the halfway point as there really is no way of knowing for certain exactly how many miles we will eventually cover between here and Antigua as it is virtually
impossible to maintain a straight line, and therefore predict the total distance left to travel, in conditions like we have been experiencing, and in the seas we expect to encounter on our run in to the Caribbean. (Jeez that was a long sentence). That said we've been very pessimistic with our "halfway" marker and hope to find the 2nd half a much speedier affair than the first.

On a completely unrelated note, I mentioned a while back that when we're rowing we get plenty of time to think about what we'd like to say in our blogs but more often than not end up forgetting it when the time comes to write it. Well not in this case. I've been thinking about what I'm about to write for a good few days now and I guess halfway is a good a point as any to talk about it: My top five best and worst moments of the crossing so far.

The Worst:
1)  Being  stuck on  para anchor for 100+ hours. Uncomfortable, frustrating, and mind numbingly boring. Easily 118 of worst hours of my life to date.
2) Flooding the cabin not once, not twice, but thrice in the first week and half was a steep, if not altogether hastily adopted, learning curve. Coming off watch at night only to have to crawl into a cabin more damp and unpleasant than the deck is not an experience I would wish on anyone.
3) Losing the compass light. Navigating at night with only a digital GPS repeater and our limited knowledge of the stars, cloud cover permitting, was a novel experience but not exactly one that has been conducive to a speedy crossing.
4) Beef and Potato Hotpot / Rice & Chicken. When we left the UK we were really rather chuffed with our menu. We had 19 different "flavours" of main course and a broad enough range that we really couldn't see ourselves ever getting bored or tired of any of our dishes. Unfortunately, however, at some point during our endless packing and repacking of food and ballast and equipment we managed to loose all semblance of randomisation in our food and were left with great swathes of spag bol, or chicken tikka, or chilli con carne layered one atop one another. Now this wouldn't have been such a problem if it wasn't the dreaded Expedition Foods' Beef and Potato Hotpot and Mountain House's Rice & Chicken. I don't mean to run our suppliers down here, the rest of their menus are really rather good, in fact if one were to liken our three main suppliers of dried food: Expedition Foods, Mountain House, and Back Country to supermarkets, BC would be the M&S or Waitrose of the bunch, EF would undoubtedly fall more akin to a Tescos or a Sainsburys, and MH, well lets just say there's a reason i don't do my shopping at Asda or Lidl. I don't know what it is about these two meals in particular but whenever  I seem to  draw one out the lucky dip my heart just sinks and I end up spiralling into a horribly dark and sulky mood. Maybe it's just a little too close to old school dinners, i don't know.
5) Loosing both my MP3 players in the first week. Having spent literally days creating playlists for every mood  and occasion, and preparing enough audio books for a round trip to the moon, only getting 4 days worth of play time seems a little bit like a kick in the misters if you ask me.

The Best:
1) Getting this far so far. I know we're only halfway across but in reality for Olli and me the crossing is the end of what will have been a 3 year odyssey to Antigua. We've come up against some truly mammoth obstacles at times and questioned on many an occasion whether we'd ever even make the start line, let alone the finish, so to still be rowing, and still be rowing well, at this stage is a fantastic feeling.
2) Rowing at night with a 15 knot tail wind and 3 meter surf. I don't care how big an adrenalin junkie you are you can't fail to get a kick out of surfing mid ocean waves in the pitch black straining your eyes and ears trying to get a fix on where the next broadside soaker is coming from. Truly epic fun.
3) "Fixing" the compass light. Neither Olli nor I are in the least bit technically minded, and we'd be the first to admit this, so actually coming up with a plan to allow us to see our compass at night again, implementing said plan, and, what's more, finding out that it actually worked was a feeling of achievement unlike anything i've felt in quite some time. Olli struck upon the idea whilst rowing one night and the basic premises was simplicity itself: remove the LED light from the bow cabin, as we only use it for storage, and mount it on deck somewhere close enough to the compass to allow for it to be illuminated. The reality, however, was somewhat more complicated, not only was the LED hard wired into the main electrical system, it was also gummed into place with enough Sikaflex to reseal an ocean liner. After a good half an hour of hacking, slashing, chipping and tearing at the bondings I finally managed to pry the LED loose only to discover it was not in the least bit waterproof and wouldn't last 5 minutes on deck. By some tremendous stroke of luck, however, i discovered that it was just small enough however to be fed through the bottom of the compass and passed up inside it's very workings. This solution was perfect. The compass would be illuminated from the inside out, thus removing any potential glare, and would be totally waterproof. The only problem that remained was getting power to the little blighter, but after a series of strip, twist, and tape wiring extensions we managed to extend the cable long enough to get it out on deck and back into its original position. Olli flicked the switched and I nearly felt out of boat in shock as the compass lit itself up like a Christmas tree and, for the first time since the very first night, allowed us to steer a night time course with at least some degree of confidence and certainty. (i'm not a gambling man, ok that's a lie, i am, but if it were to place a wager i'd suggest a good deal of reasoning behind us posting up 60+ DMG days of late has been to do with our newly botched luminous direction pointer).
4) Beef Stroganoff with Noodles / Chicken Tikka with Rice. OK so I may have run down Mountain House above by suggesting they were the Lidl of our dried food suppliers but every dog has his day and MH certainly have with its Beef Strog; it's rich, it's creamy, it's a delight for the taste buds, I only wish we had more of them. The Chicken Tikka, on the other hand, comes to us courtesy of EF and is easily the best thing on the menu, which is good considering we've got over 100 of them, in fact it's so good i might even be so bold as to suggest it would win in a blind tasting with any number of London's more wallet friendly takeaways. But then again i have been at sea for a month now and could just be chatting balls.
5) Realising how much we love and miss our families. I know it should seem self evident that everyone should, and would, miss their loved ones whilst on an adventure like this, but I really can't impress on you just how much it brings it home. For a while I was struggling with the idea of whether or not this should be in the worst list and not the best, as the feelings of loneliness and longing that accompany love without contact could easily lead one to label it as such, but at the end of the day when either one of us has been at the very bottom of our resolve all we have had to do to pick ourselves back up again is to simply imagine what it will be like to see our nearest and dearest again in Antigua and our strength returns anew. If the feeblest imaginations of two tired rowers are enough to buoy our spirits then the reality of such a reunion cannot fail to be beyond comparison or comprehension, and a feeling that powerful can surely only be labelled as one of the better we've experienced to date.

Much love everyone, we're coming down the hill.

P.S. Thanks again to everyone for your kind messages of support but we feel we should put a warning flag up now, so as not to cause disappointment later on. With regards to us catching up with Pygram, whilst we'll undoubtedly keep up the pressure and row our little socks off, we've heard from our spies that they're still rowing 2 up and there's just no way we're going to put ourselves through that kind of punishment. I mean hell we've met Pete Van Ketts and we're just not prepared to do that to our bodies. Not a lot of people know this but Pete's only 27 and now look at him for Christ's sake, that's what 2s up rowing and no rest does to you (no offense PVK). I'm afraid we just value our sleep too much. So whilst we'll keep on pushing just as hard from now until the finish if the French can keep up that kind of effort we'll be the first to congratulate them and buy them a truly well deserved and hard earned beer in Antigua. One hell of an effort chaps.

I'm very happy to say neither Olli nor I have ever spent any time at Her Majesty's pleasure but I can't help feeling that I've now got a pretty good idea of what it would be like. We've just spent the a working week on para anchor, just under 5 days to be precise, or if you prefer, 118 hours 42 minutes and 28 seconds of mind numbing boredom, frustration and uncertainty. Since the weather turned against us early last week we've had little choice but to simply ride it out from  inside the cabin and wait for weather to break.

Now you'd be forgiven for thinking that such conditions would be a welcome break from rowing but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. When we're rowing we're making ground, no matter how slow, at least we're still chipping away at the target to Antigua. Being stuck on para anchor means that, at the very best, we're holding ground, or possibly heading south, but more likely than not were drifting slowly back towards Africa and adding on additional miles with every passing hour. Every minute on anchor is a minute wasted and another minute extra we'll have to row before the end. What's more the very fact that we being forcibly held by giant underwater parachute means that we can't roll with the sea like we usually would and, as a consequence, are forced to endure a far more uncomfortable ride than usual. Even the most routine tasks become infinitely more difficult;  from firing up the JetBoil to cook a ration pack, to washing, to using the "bucket." Even sleeping has become horribly uncomfortable as our cabin really is a bit of squeeze with both of us in here for any protracted period of time.

Thankfully though we're now finally under way again and focused more than ever on making landfall as quickly as possible. The whole fleet was affected in the end so our overall race position hasn't really been troubled that badly and we're still looking competitive (fingers crossed) for a decent finishing position. Once the weather fills back in properly from east we'll be hoping to make some really good headway and will hopefully find the 2nd half of the crossing considerably faster than the first. This is, of course, all dependent on the weather. Up until 5 days ago we thought we were already far enough south and west not to be affected by any more storms, how wrong we were!

Anyway, we've got the halfway marker in our sights now and will being pulling extra hard to get there by the end of this week. We've got a special update coming once we make it so I hope you enjoy it.

Much love everyone.

Hello everyone - illy here. I've just spoken to James who has asked me to write a quick update. Unfortunately they haven't been able to avoid the storm that has been building ahead of them and he thinks it will probably cost them around 5 days. But he also wanted everyone to know that in spite of everything they are still doing ok. So please don't worry! It is however very frustrating because they've already had more than their share of bad luck.

Lets hope the storm passes quickly. I will keep you posted.

Halfway through our third week and the milestones are coming thick and fast now. As promised we ticked off what we hope will turn out to be 1/3 of the race a couple of nights back, and yesterday, just before midnight, we watched the odometer tick past 1,000 nautical miles covered since the race start. At the point of writing we're currently bearing down on the hallowed 20th degree latitude line that historically marks the start of the trade winds and the at which point we can really begin to put the hammer down and make some serious distance westwards.

Unfortunately, however, before we can start ordering our Pina Coladas and picking a spot on the beach there's the little issue of a rather large storm that appears to be building ahead of us. Our spies back home (and for the purposes of any Woodvale aficionados out there by "spies" we simply mean our friends and family back home kind enough to take the time to do research for us) tell us that if we can get far enough south in the next 4 days we might just escape beneath the worst of it so that's our primary goal right now; sacrificing DMG (that's distance made good for any non-nautical types out there) for safety and overall position. So the theory goes: anything we loose now by heading south we can make up when any boats still north of us are caught in the storm.

Aside for passage planning and course adjustments i'm very pleased to report there haven't been any more dramas on board of late. The only thing remotely out of the ordinary has been our propensity to hallucinate at night, although i guess this is only to be expected if you're only getting a maximum of 4 hours a sleep a night, and never more than an hour and a half at a time. It's always fun to swap stories coming on and off watch and for your reading pleasure here's a list of some of the more memorable we've experienced so far:

1) A man size Cheshire Cat sitting 3 feet in front of my face, grinning constantly, and refusing to  get out of the way of the GPS repeater.
2) Two Victorian school girls giggling and playing jump rope about 50 yards of our starboard beam. This one really scared the b'Jesus out of me and gave me constant chills up and down my spine for the remainder of my shift.
3) The parents of /other /rowers shouting at us that we're one or two degrees of course.
4) My personal favourite, a waiter swimming up to the boat with a cheeseboard and offering Olli a fine after dinner selection.

Better go now, i've still got to scoff my Veggie Tikka before going back on the oars and it's starting to congeal most unappealing next to me. Oh the joys, I'll save the horrors of our menu for another blog.

Thanks again for all your support everyone, at the end of the day don't feel too sorry for us. It's 25 degrees plus down here and i'm currently sporting a truly top notch all over tan. Enjoy the winter back in Blighty.

OK so the last blog was a little melodramatic, sorry about that, but it's amazing how the smallest things can affect your mood out here. Pulling an unpopular flavoured meal bag out of the lucky dip can ruin you whole day for example, whilst at the same time sighting a shark or a pod of dolphin can pick you up and leave you on a high for the rest of the day. Suffice to day, this entry's a lot more perky i promise.

For the last couple of days now we've had some really pretty decent weather conditions and have started to make some really decent headway. In fact, we're now well over 25% of the way to Antigua and will hopefully knock of the first third in the next 36 hours. Yes big seas do make for a more uncomfortable crossing but it's a small price to pay when you can visibly watch the miles ticking off the clock.

It's funny, when you're out on the oars you can spend hours planning exactly what you want to say but once you open up the laptop and you put your self at the mercy of our dwindling batteries the necessity to just get something down  overtakes everything else and you instantly forget  what you wanted to say.

Since the last entry there have been no big dramas, save hitting our milestones, and it looks like the fleet as a whole is starting to split into packs. At the time of writing i believe we're at the front of the chasing pack trying to reel in the French leaders. It has to be said though, as time goes on, that we're finding our race position of less and less a concern and are more interested in just getting to Antigua as quickly as possible. Obviously there two are somewhat interlinked but our true focus now is no longer race glory but just seeing our loved ones again safe and sound in the Caribbean.

Before i sign off, and on a much lighter note, we've developed a new sport of freestyle ocean surfing. It basically involves attempting to pull off the most ridiculous moves whilst surfing down the front of the monstrous waves we're getting out here. Points are awarded based on the longevity of the trick; the fluidity of any action back into the rowing stroke; and the perceived difficulty. My personal favourite at the moment is The Rodeo, which basically involves taking one hand off the oars, removing your hat, twirling it round your head, whilst screaming Yee-Haa, placing it back in place, and continuing with the next stroke without missing a beat. We're trying to get other boats involved too. The concept is that you have 5 minutes to complete as many tricks as possible, all on camera obviously, and the winner will be adjudged on Youtube back in the UK.

Thanks again for all your support.

First off let me apologise to anyone back home who may be following us and wondering why in the hell we haven't gone anywhere in the last few days. It's not for lack of effort i can assure you. Basically our initial game to head more westwards than most team from the start line has now started to backfire on us. We've been caught in the bottom end of a depression that's tracking north of our position now, and as a result we're experiencing southerly crosswinds and very short choppy seas, neither condition being particularly conducive to a swift western crossing.

To make matters worse, and i know this is starting to sound like a whining rant but, well., we're out here and there's no one to tell us to shut up so I'm going to vent, conditions on board are rapidly deteriorating also. We've now flooded the cabin a total of three times since we left La Gomera and I can't remember the last time I slept on something dry. My clothes are perpetually damp, both my mp3 players are knackered, and to top it all off a small electrical fire took out our compass light so we can no longer see where we're going at night, especially when the cloud cover prevents us from even using the stars.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Having lost the inaugural round of rock paper scissors to decide which of us should have to get out the boat and clean the marine life off the bottom of the hull, lest we slow down to a dead halt altogether, I got to experience my first deep sea ocean swim. And I have to say, all the clichés are true, the water is so ridiculously clear and blue I could swear I could see all 4000m to the ocean bed. Of course having momentarily looked down into the abyss I immediately suffered panic attack and refused to look down again deciding rather to just got on with the job in hand.

Before I sign off I just want to say thank you to everyone who has sent us emails and texts in support of our crossing. Your support really does mean the world to us and gives us the strength we need in our darkest hours. So thank you so much, and apologies for not saying so sooner.

Good evening everyone, as i write this from the comfort of our cosy little cabin I can just make out the last few shards of light silhouetting Olli as he rows us into yet another fantastic Atlantic sunset and thn end of our first week at sea.

I's been an eventful 7 days and no mistake. Following on from our runs in with JCT and Explore on the start line to our near capsize on the very first night we've gone on to experience more in this first week than we could have possible imagined. We had our first deployment of the para-anchor (and hopefully our last i wasn't nearly as effective as we'd hoped), we've at times both lead our class and the over all fleet, whilst at others found ourselves completely at a loss for which direction to row or where to chase the wind and currents.

All in all I think we're slowly starting to settle into the routine of life at sea. Personally I'm finding the 3rd night shift of every day is an absolute killer. 2 hours on the hours on the oars in the dead of night, often, thanks to the cloud cover of late, without even any starts to light the deck and knowing at the end of it all you're still not even going to get to see the sunrise because that's turning up in watch 4.

Don't get me wrong, there are some aspects to night rowing that are fantastic. When the winds blowing above 15 knots and you hear the waves before you  see them  and they  slam into  the boat from the most unexpected angles it makes for quite a wild ride. I guess there's nothing quite like it really, maybe white water rafting in the dark, but without the rocks just the constant fear that if i do get swept overboard there won't be anybody on the river bank to throw me a line.

Anyway, must go. I've got to get the Jet Boil on and get some nosh inside me before the night watches start. 1 week down, i think we're still on target for a 55 day crossing but there's a hell of a lot of water in between here and then,

We'll write again soon.

So the race has finally started. We've just woken up to our third day at sea and we've already had plenty of adventures. Aside for a little positional jostling at the start line with the JCT 600 boys and the Explore girls the start it self was relativley uneventful. We managed to work our way towards the front without too much difficulty but had prevoiusly agreed only to row 2 up for the first two and a half hours so we soon overtaken by the vets in Reason Why and the French crew in Pygram.

The story changed again come nightfall however as the wind direction changed drastically and the swell height picked up to over 4 metres. To start with everything was fine but we were unlucky enought to be caught by a freak wave around 5.30 in the morning and came close to suffering our first capsize. 10 minutes of frantic bailing and checking of systems later and we were able to cointue wihout any serious damage, save for the loss of 1 shoe and 1 drinks bottle.

Yesterday was very dull though as the wind complete died away by the afternoon and we were forced to slog it at a snails pace for most of the night. Unfortunately, when the wind did return, it was from the wrong direction and we were forced to deploy the para-anchor for the first time at the cost of 6 miles in the wrong direction. On the plus side the time spent on anchor did allow us to catch up on some much needed sleep and we're back up and pushing hard again this morning. The wind's still in the wrong direct ion mind but with the HCL boys breathing down our neck on the GPS we thougth it best to man up and slog on.

We'll keep you posted of further developments as the happen, Cheers everyone

It's just gone nine o'clock in the evening over here in La Gomera and in a little over 15 hours we will, at long last, head out of the marina for the final time and take our position on the start line of the 2009 (2010?) Woodvale Atlantic Rowing Race. At 13.30 GMT on Monday the 4th of January, almost a full month later than planned, Olli and I will take up our oars and complete what will hopefully be the first of a little over two million strokes.

In spite of the ridiculous delay, and in light of the wholly unprecedented weather the Canaries have been experiencing this year, the only real adjustment we've had to make since we returned to La Gomera on Christmas day has been to change our route planning somewhat and to settle on a more southerly heading down and away from the Canaries. Our thinking behind this was based purely and simply on our desire to get as far away from the worst of the weather as we possibly could before turning west and making for Antigua . The fear of being caught up in the middle of the next weather system, which incidentally has already popped on our weather maps, and stuck on para-anchor going nowhere for 3 or 4 days was motivation enough to add a couple of hundred more miles to our route. I guess I'm a bit like my father in that respect: I'd much rather go the long way round a traffic jam and at least keep the wheels moving rather than sit in gridlock going nowhere.

We haven't really got a great deal more to add right now, the last few days have been mercifully quiet and it's given us a great opportunity to check, double check, and triple check all of our systems and equipment. We're about to crash out for what will be our last sleep in a proper bed for the next 2 months and I'm determined to make the most of it so I'll bid you all good night and look forward to sending you an update of the start once we're safely away.

We've just finished our daily update meeting and it now looks like we're staring down the barrel of a 2010 start. The latest weather forecasts are projecting that we won't be leaving until the 3rd of Jan now. Really sorry to everyone following back home. I promise we will start AND finish one day. Thanks again for all your support.

Sorry for the lack of news of late but with the race start officially delayed until the 29^th of December at the earliest we made the decision to go home for a week, earn a bit more crust, spend Christmas with our loved ones, and head back out in time for the start at a later date. Now any other time of year this would have been a relatively simple process, but thanks to Tenerife's status as an apparent festive Mecca for many thousands of Brits, flights back to the Canaries from the UK on any other day than Christmas day itself were prohibitively expensive.  As a consequence, and with finances most definitely at breaking point, we bit the bullet and decided to forgo Christmas with our families in favour of a budget charter flight at 7am on Christmas morning.

In reality this wasn't as much of a sacrifice as it might otherwise have seemed. Prior to the race delay we had already resigned ourselves to the concept of being at sea over Christmas so travelling back to La Gomera in the relative comfort of a jetliner wasn't really that much of a hardship. What was a bit of a shock, however, was our Christmas lunch.

Having landed without issue back in Tenerife and having taxied down to the ferry port in Los Christianos we were perturbed to learn that the little ferry that we were booked on to take us back to La Gomera had been cancelled, due to the heavy weather, and that we would had to wait another five and a half hours until the big Fred Olsen ro-ro was ready to leave. With this somewhat upsetting news still ringing in our ears we were left with little other option than to find a way to pass the time, and after numerous hands of top trumps, 3 tests of two man beach cricket, 9 holes of beach golf (played with spades, a football, and some hastily dug holes), we decided it was time to settle down to a traditional English (it was Tenerife after all) Christmas lunch.

Unfortunately, as the photo below can testify, we somewhat struggled in our search for truly traditional festive fare, and whilst Olli accompanied his university favourite Snakebite and Black with an artery clogging triple stacked cheese burger, I tucked into that other old classic, a lamb donner kebab washed down with a Cheeky Vimto, and for those that don't know, a Cheeky Vimto is made by mixing a WKD with a glass of port. Now that's fine dining!

Anyway, having polished off our fine fodder and having caught the only remaining operating ferry back to La Gom we're now back into the old rhythm of waking up, checking weather reports, rowing around the bay, and simply waiting for the word to go. Unfortunately, however, the latest news is that due to "large swells" we may now have to spend New Year's Eve on the island too. A prospect that none of us are really relishing but one that, once again, we have little choice but to accept.

We'll keep you posted with any further developments. Happy holidays everyone.

Yesterday was a good day. Despite the actual Atlantic race start being delayed three days until Wednesday 9^th December the entire fleet was still given a chance to get out on the water as a whole and take part in a short course race out in the acceleration zone that runs between Tenerife and La Gomera.

The original idea behind the La Gomera Cup was twofold. First and foremost it gave those competitors without much experience of off shore rowing a chance to practice their technique before setting off into the Atlantic for real, but secondly, and just as important in our minds, it  gave all the friends and family that had come out for the weekend hoping to see their loved ones off the chance to still experience the atmosphere of the race day, albeit on a smaller scale.

The course was short enough to be completed in just one afternoon but long enough to give us all a better idea of what conditions will be like in the first few weeks as we head down the Canary Current towards the Cape Verde. It was marked by the two Woodvale support yachts that will shepherd us on our crossing and basically consisted of two circuits of an elongated triangle starting out from the bay outside San Sebastian and running out, into and through the acceleration zone.

The conditions were perfect and everyone was is a very relaxed mood. Skippy and the boys from Vision of Cornwall even dressed up as pirates and started pelting all the other boats with water balloons as we waited at the starting line. Once the claxon sounded, however, it was down to business and everyone surged en masse out into the Atlantic. In fact, despite their games, Skip's crew quickly established an early lead shortly followed by Joe and Chris from Team HCL. Olli and I had decided to adopt a more cautious strategy and hang back from the start, as 30 plus boats crammed onto a start line only 50 feet wide did not exactly fill us with confidence for a collision free getaway, and, sure enough, just in front of us two boats tangled right from the get go. Nevertheless, and in spite of our cautious beginnings, we quickly settled into our rhythm and started to pick our way through the fleet. Now I know how this is going to sound, but it's the God's honest truth I swear: Olli and I genuinely weren't planning on racing. Our plan had been to go out for a paddle and just enjoy the atmosphere but once we started to reel in the leaders our competitive instincts took over and we just couldn't help ourselves.

After about 20 minutes of pushing it just a little harder we had managed take the lead from Vision of Cornwall, about halfway towards the first marker, and just set our sights on matching the pace of the teams behind us. Our luck really kicked in the 2^nd leg of the first lap however as it seemed that the crews behind us were having a lot of trouble navigating into the head wind we were now facing. Thankfully the months we'd spent rowing into the almost constant westerly that blows down the mouth of the Crouch back home had given us plenty of practice at tackling just such a scenario and we managed to stretch our lead to almost 10 minutes by the time we'd finished the first lap.

The second lap was much the same as the first: following winds but tide against on the way out and a head wind and following tide on the way in, and by the time we crossed the line we felt thoroughly pleased with a job well done and the victory, insignificant as it was, was a great boost to our confidence for Wednesday and the real thing. I feel I should make it clear, however, that we're not letting any of this get to our heads. There's a world of difference, quite literally, between an afternoon's racing between two islands and two months across and ocean. We know this, we respect this, and we sure as hell aren't trying to compare the two but yesterday's racing was the first time we'd had to see for real, on the water, just how well our boat pulled compared to our competitors. We've spent the last year training in Burnham with Charlie but his boat is a solo and a completely radical design. Yesterday was the first chance we'd had to pit ourselves against the competition and we now feel a lot more assured about what our little boat is capable of.

Bring on the real deal is all i've got left to say. We've got two and a half days until we're off and our plan for now is to just chill out and relax. The boat is ready, we're ready, there's nothing left to do now but row, and we can't freaking wait.

We're finally here: La Gomera one week before the race and I'm very pleased to say that at long last we're ready to go. I'm especially pleased to say this because up until 2 days ago we certainly weren't.

OK so it's been an age since our last update for which I can only apologise. Not that we're even sure anyone is even reading this little blog. However, on the off chance that peeps out there are interested in how our preparations are coming along allow me to enlighten you. Since you last blog we have achieved the following:

1) First and foremost the boat is now race ready. Mike Wood has been working tirelessly to get her compliant with the race rules and she's now not only looking fantastic (the new paint job and heavily adorned sponsors' logos look mustard), but she's pulling like an absolute dream. We've also had her kitted out with an all new navigational system which has enabled us to row in pitch black conditions and still be confident of where we're heading, which I guess is kind of important when you're racing for 24 hours a day.

2) All our food for the race is now purchased and squirreled away on board. To be honest once we'd unpacked it all we really didn't know where it was all going to go. Over 900 bags of instant food, 300 plus flapjacks, 11kg of chocolate, 22kg of nuts, and enough hot chocolate to bath and elephant, all in a whisker shy of 270kg in food alone. Unbelievably, however, it's all now safely onboard and balanced (we hope) for optimum racing performance.

3) The seemingly never ending list of kit we have had to purchase and stow away is now, mercifully, almost at an end. We still have a one or two outstanding items to be sourced but all the most important and expensive pieces have been ticked off the list (life raft, para anchors, flares, lifejackets, fuel etc etc).

I guess what we're trying to say is that all the hard work over the past few months has now brought us to the very edge of our adventure. We're so nearly there we can almost taste it. But what it also means is that in a desperate attempt to make sure we'd be ready on time we're now in a bit of a financial hole. We 100% committed to this race and nothing's going to stop us getting to the start line now, which is just as well considering it's only 47 days away, but we've also bought a lot of our equipment on credit from two incredibly generous and helpful chandlers: Mailspeed in Burnham-on-Crouch, and Jimmy Green Marine in Beer down in Devon. We can only offer our deepest thanks to these two fantastic companies and our assurance that your bills will be paid. This, however, is where you lovely readers come in.

We've raised enough money now to ensure our participation in the race and will be able to pay all our bills once our boat is sold on the the next generation of ocean rowers. However, the more we can raise now the more we can give to charity once the boat is sold (as we won't have to pay ourselves back first). So please, for one last time, we implore you: dig deep and give whatever you can. Either to us, or to our charities. They really are to fantastically worthwhile causes.

Much love to all and we'll see you in La Gomera for our last update before we head off.

Well, how time flies - just 262 days til the off now and that number seems to be shrinking pretty fast! There's still much we need to do in between now and La Gomera, but we're coming along at a decent rate now.

James traded in his car for a   4x4 last weekend,   so now we have the means to haul ourselves in and out of the water, rather than having to rely on the kindness of Charlie each weekend, so it's brilliant we're now   fully independent.   As you may have seen from the photo gallery we've been training on the Crouch since January, often in the biting cold, quite different to the conditions in race latitudes, to the bemusement of many sailors, joggers, walkers and fishermen alike. From here on in we'll be out pretty much every weekend and are shortly going to start doing overnight trips.   This will help us to get used to the whole routine of rowing for 2 hours, cooking, sleeping and back on for another 2 hours right around the clock, so hopefully we'll be as prepared as we can be for what we have in store for us during the race itself.

When we're not on the water we have the boat in Burnham with Mike Wood who will be doing our electrics and a re-spray.   This way we can make her look her best and start getting the sponsors' logos on in time for our official boat launch (due to be early summer - will keep you posted).

On the media front we've had quite a lot of interest since the last posting. Last Saturday we went out on LBC radio on the news having been interviewed by Michael Traboulsi.   This was a fantastic coup for us as LBC is one of London's major commercial radio stations with hundreds of thousands of listeners. If we manage to get a recording of it going out we'll upload it to the site.

In addition we've been getting exposure through the Insurance Industry press through our links with our Head Sponsor, QBE Insurance, having articles and pictures in both the Post Online and the Insurance Day magazine.

In the regional press, James and I have had articles published in the East Anglian Daily Times, the East Anglian Daily Press, Norwich Evening News, the Lowestoft Journal and the Waveney Advertiser. The fact that James is an Ipswich Town fan and I'm a Norwich supporter seems to have added to the local interest, so we're absolutely delighted with the level of attention we've had of late. I'll shortly be putting these articles into a Press section for the records.

We also have a Facebook group (James and Olli Atlantic Rowing Group) with almost 300 members already and we thank each and every one of our mates as well as friends of friends who have joined and are actively taking an interest in our expedition.

Finally, we are shortly   due to be filmed doing our thing on the water   by a major TV channel, so it seems we've a foot hold in all the main media channels which is very encouraging and makes us even more motivated to succeed.

Luckily many of these   media channels   have expressed a desire to do additional articles as we progress between now and the race itself. Therefore, we're hoping that this will provide extra benefits to any existing and potential sponsors.

As is hardly a surprise, the current economic climate has meant that securing sponsors has been more difficult than ever, but we're both firmly of the attitude that that should not be a reason for us not to pursue our dreams and to that end we are   always on the lookout for new sponsors. If you have any contacts with companies who may be interested into backing our project, please email us at mail@atlanticrow2009.com

Closer to the race, once we have raised the necessary funds to get ourselves to the start line, we will be opening up a Just Giving site. However, for those who wish to become official sponsors of the project, we will shortly be making it possible for you to sponsor us in terms of project support. Note that in the event we hit our funding target via corporate backing we will be passing on this form of sponsorship to our two charities, the MS Society and EACH. This is a completely not-for-profit challenge,   and we are aiming to raise as much money for these charities as we possibly can, so your support will be very much appreciated.

It's been a while since our last post, but that's certainly not through a lack of developments!

Excitingly, we now have the most important piece in place - a boat!

We found the boat, currently named "Atlantic Quest" (soon to be re-named the "QBE Insurance Challenge" after our Head Sponsor QBE - see below and Our Sponsors - QBE) on The Ocean Rowing Society website and fell in love with her after checking her racing pedigree, seeing her in the flesh and having a quick survey to ensure everything was tip top.

We took her out for our first sea trial last month down in Exmouth (see images in Our Gallery), which was a huge amount of fun (good job, really). It was overcast and pretty blustery which made for some tricky navigation for us newbies, but certainly nothing like the conditions we're expecting out in the middle of the ocean.

It was a very important step for us. Not only did the whole thing become suddenly more real, but it made us aware of what a steep learning curve we have in front of us.

After a decent 5 hour session on the sea with Dom Mee (www.dommee.co.uk) keeping a close eye on us and putting us through a few time trials, it was clear that time spent on the water is the way to go in terms of preparation. That's not to say we're giving ourselves a break at the gym, but we decided we had to get the boat up to our part of the country asap. Fortunately, we've made a few mates along the way so far, as the ocean rowing community seems to be a pretty sociable bunch. One of whom is Charlie Pitcher (www.transatlanticsolo.com), a solo rower also entered into the 2009 race who we've been catching up regularly with. We all recently passed our RYA Yachtmaster Ocean Theory Certificate at the East Anglian Sea School down in Levington, and Charlie has managed to find us a place to keep our new boat at Petticrows in Burnham on Crouch, Essex (http://www.petticrows.co.uk/), which will enable us to train within an hour and a half of finishing work in London.

Hello! Welcome to our first blog entry, one of many over the next 17 months recording all of our trials, tribulations and, all things going to plan, triumphs along the way in our quest to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a 25 foot rowing boat completely unaided and wholly self-sufficient from start to finish.

As you can see we have now kicked-off the project by developing the website which will hopefully attract us a good level of support and interest. We are currently in the middle of seeking sponsorship and will gladly publicise as and when we secure any backing!

Our training has been in progress now for some time as we aim to build-up the fitness levels to peak in late 2009 in readiness for the race start and will provide more detail of this in due course.

We hope you enjoy following our progress and that it will provide a useful log of the dos and don'ts for all future ocean rowers!

We would also like to hear any comments you have which you can send in to our guest book. The link is on the menu on the left.

As we mention on our homepage, we need to raise an estimated £64,000 just to get to the start line, but this is only the beginning as we wish to raise a great deal more for our highly worthy chosen charities of the MS Society and EACH.

Therefore please spread the word and encourage friends and family to get behind us in this project. For details of how to sponsor us please refer to the "Our Sponsors" page or send an email request to sponsorship@atlanticrow2009.com .