Friday 28th August

After a mammoth task of cleaning the boat, and a brunch of sausage butties, Duke of Edinburgh is over for us!!! The trip has indeed, Teammate Laura, ‘been a whirlwind of emotions’. 310 Nautical Miles, motoring for only 46 hours, sailing under extremely wild conditions ie wind speed 40kn – the highest the boat has ever been sailed in, reaching the most northerly and westerly points that Tenacity has ever reached and the first crew to do a 24 hour sail on Tenacity. We definitely beat last weeks ‘disabled group’ (their words not ours!) – so here are some of the things that we have learnt:

· Ropes are affected by gravity
· We can do an amazing basking shark impression
· Loud singing of school hymns is the best cure for sea sickness
· Locks are fun until the 10th one in a row
· Night sailing is an amazing experience
· Fenders make excellent space hoppers
· You can’t OD on travel sickness bands – but you can on Kwells
· Cleaning the cooker should be avoided at all costs (this is happening at this very moment)
· Tenacity was an amazing experience which we will never forget!
We would like to thank Teammate George for her wicked sense of humour and helping keep the team in high spirits at all times, Teammate Phil for his incredible cooking (less so for his jokes…) and the legend that is Captain Col for keeping us safe and not-so-dry for nine days! They have been amazing and have really made our trip!

Thanks for reading our Blog teammates, Teammate Beth, Teammate Amy, Teammate Jenny, Teammate Cat, Teammate Lou, Teammate Lizzie, Teammate Laura, Teammate Kate
xoxo

Thursday 27th August

WHAT A DAY!!! It was 5.15 on Wednesday morning, and hurricane Bill had arrived! The gale force winds were howling and rain was pounding as the boat rocked in supposedly bomb-proof Loch Ryan. Captain Col posted a blog, which you all read before we did…soooo, you all knew what was going on before we even got up…ie, instead of leaving at 6am, we postponed our departure until Bill had died. A lie-in was greatly appreciated, and brunch was served at around 11.30. Deciding that we would need perking up during the next few days, we went to Tesco to buy some ingredients for 2 cakes! 8 girls in multicoloured wellies, trying to buy a packet of marshmallows, some milk and some chocolate digestives through the self-service check out, paying in 20ps, got some strange looks. The cakes were a great success, although teammate Lizzie insisted her cake wasn’t burning until teammate Kate, in disbelief, found the cake was burnt to a cinder in the oven…luckily, expert buttercream-maker Kate made some to cover up the burnt bits. By 4 o’clock BILL WAS DEAD, so we set sail for our 24 hour epic adventure (define adventure, said Captain Col). Port watch started on their 4 hour watch, whilst Starboard attempted to fall asleep in the very large swell that Bill had left behind. At around 7.30, the chilli expertly made by teammate Lizzie the day before was warmed up and the whole crew gathered for their evening meal on deck. This was a slightly tricky experience, and included teammate Laura throwing orange juice all over teammate George’s trousers, and the basking sharks being provided with a tasty supper. At 8pm, Port watch journeyed downstairs. They were told by Captain Col that they should remove their waterproofs and get into bed quickly to prevent sea sickness. This lead to the quickest removal of waterproofs ever seen on Tenacity, which was made especially difficult by teammate Kate’s 18 layers of clothes! The team also had to put up strange fabric shields on their beds to prevent rolling onto the floor in the middle of the night. Meanwhile up on deck, Starboard watch watched the sunset, and had a first experience of a night sail. Teammate George spotted some amazing phosphorescent plankton in the wake of the boat, which was absolutely mesmorising. At one point teammate Cat journeyed down to the toilet, only to fall asleep whilst putting her lifejacket back on, due to the excessive amounts of kwells she had consumed…then SOME IDIOT put her in charge of steering! Teammate George questioned, “why are we suddenly veering off to the right??!!” . At midnight, Starboard crew headed down for a well earned rest (for some people anyway!), whilst Port headed back up to deck for the accurately named “graveyard watch”…12am-4am. The first 2 hours were great, having also discovered the plankton, and seeing the perfect night sky with a full view of the milky way. They entertained themselves by playing Charades, which was difficult due to the lack of light, and teammate Phil’s attempts at “Encyclopedia Britannica”..which teammate Beth still claims she got half of. The second 2 hours were spent freezing (even by teammate Kate, who experienced being “dead and morbidly obese at the same time” thanks to her 18 layers) and much more quietly, as the crew ended up like Sardines on deck. At 4, Starboard crew got back up to see glorious shooting stars, and take the boat through the sunrise to 8 o’clock. Teammate Cat was as good company as last time!!! Teammates Amy, Lizzie and Laura spent time impersonating the Scottish coastguard, and various other accents including a scouser in McDonalds (Laura, Laura, do chicken mcnuggets and a mcflurry in your accent!) and our fave welsh physicist (eg, I’ve got an ideeea…it’s called SHUTUP)! The team tried to snooze a bit, but were relieved at 8am when they could go downstairs for a sleep. Port watch headed back up, and were thrilled to see a pod of dolphins (Starboard watch were very jealous). Everyone was relieved to reach Peel Island 2 hours before schedule, allowing a yummy breakfast of frosties and eggy bread. At 11.45, we left to reach Glasson. We spotted seals and Blackpool tower in the distance. The excitement of sailing petered out, as we travelled just 1.4 nautical miles in an hour in an attempt to get into Glasson at the correct time. A quick game of family fortunes proved hilarious, and we arrived, relieved and exicted at 5.45. (however, teammate Laura was distressed that the lock keeper had been preoccupied with attending to the giant green Irish cargo boat rather than preparing our lock). After a mammoth sail of 120 miles in 25 hours, we arrived!!!! We are now off for a well earned pub tea! 1 more blog tomorrow See you then teammates! xoxo

Wednesday 26th August

Quick update. We decided not to set off this morning at the planned 06.00 start. When we awoke the forecasts and the weather here in Stranraer, had worsened and the wind diretion had backed to a rather inconvienient SE direction. Wind speed and direction is forecasted to ease and veer to a more useful direction later but for now it is back to bed before planning where we might be able to head for when the weather sorts itself out.

Tuesday 25th August

After the huge day yesterday, we were all relieved to get a lie-in until around 9.30 or 10. After waking up so late, we were slightly disappointed to realise that the weather wouldn’t allow us to do any sailing today, due to Hurricane Bill approaching nearby. The morning brought disappointment for teammate Phil, as he realised that the mackerel he caught yesterday had been stolen by a hungry seagull overnight. Despite his distress, he managed to rustle up a delicious brunch which included eggy bread (Capt Col was disgusted that most of the team wanted icing sugar on top) and bacon. Some of the team were relieved to get a relaxing day (teammates Catherine and Amy) but we soon realised that it wouldn’t be a day of playing Articulate, Perudo and baking cakes. Instead, we had to clean the boat from heads (!!!) to toe. Teammate Kate was a very able toilet-cleaner, although she got a little stressed about removing hair from the drains. The decks were sparkling clean, after a thorough scrub. A trip to Tesco restocked eggs and chocolate, and gave us some fresh magazine material including our favourite article, read enthusiastically by Amy, “25 year old mum:-My hubby pensioner gets more gorgeous with age!” and gave us a break from the cleaning. The team decided not to buy any more fresh milk due to the fact that the UHT milk from Tesco actually tasted like normal milk!! When we arrived back from the shopping trip, we looked down the hatch to see Colin stuck in an uncompromising position below the floor in the saloon (weird name for a lounge/bedroom/kitchen, we know), so we helped him by taking many pictures! A tea of fish and chips (although proving a bit temperamental to cook) was very well received, as was Phil’s interesting word derivation stories, which had teammates Beth and Catherine in stitches. Unfortunately we may not be able to complete a blog tomorrow, because we are hoping to sail for twenty four hours, which although a scary thought, will hopefully get us safely back into Glasson on Thursday afternoon, keep your eye on the tracker maps! See you then teammates!! xoxo

Monday 24th August

Today was extremely tiring but very satisfying to complete! We completed a total of around 85 miles, most of which we actually sailed! This morning began very early at 5:30 on deck for starboard watch, port were lucky and had a little lie in to 6 but made scrambled eggs for those on watch, however these were in fact mostly eaten by those who had cooked them! By the time port watch were above deck we were feeling quite chilly and decided to keep warm by numerous aerobics actions, including star jumps and the now famous ‘tree’ yoga position, surprisingly difficult on a rocking boat! Hide and seek was also entertaining if easy… We began sailing when the conditions were favourable, but were tacking for most of day due to the wind direction. One annoying, yet amusing, experience was the seeming continual reappearance of one particular large rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea, Ailsa Craig. We seemed to be travelling around this rock all day and for all we know could’ve sailed around it numerous times! One particular highlight was the appearance of a basking shark, which we sailed towards and were lucky enough for it to pass right by the boat, literally metres from us! It was huge and the outline of its mouth in the water prompted ‘ommmmm’ impressions for the rest of the day. After this brief break from our journey we continued South. It was at this point that morale began to drop due to the cold weather, spray from the waves and most probably lack of food. A hot chocolate provided by teammate George helped the situation with marshmallows it was very nice. Gradually teammates disappeared below deck to make dinner, an excellent curry, or simply due to the cold. Only teammates Louise, Laura and Jenny remained to help moor, in the dark, which completed our set off in the dark this morning! Well done team, in total 16 hours of sailing completed!!!! See you tomorrow xoxo

Sunday 23rd August

After waking up halfway down the Crinan Canal, we had to manoeuver away from the jetty, which proved difficult, owing to the boat that was moored right next to us! However, we overcame this challenge despite the rain, and continued down the canal. We are now all expert lock-openers-especially teammates Beth, Laura and Lizzie’s hand jiving when opening them, so getting our boat through 5 or 6 locks proved simple, if slightly wet and hard work. The rain provided an opportunity to make full use of Colin’s very cool waterproof camera! Snacks of jelly “children” and choc chip cookies kept up morale. After getting through the canal, we stopped for lunch whilst deciding on our afternoon plan (the night before we had ambitiously planned to do 8 hours of sailing after lunch!!). Soup warmed us all up, thank God we finally listened to teammate Kate, who has been wanting soup for days! We decided to continue, despite the strong gale force (number 8, increasing 9 at times :)) winds and rain-George was very excited!. We all a very positive mental attitude, and refused to let the rough seas get the better of us! To keep spirits up, and to stop the seasickness, we sang very very loudly and poorly! Songs included a full rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, it was almost as if Freddy Mercury was in the boat with us, Mamma Mia (but just the chorus, as pointed out by Captain Col), and a selection of school hymns! Due to the strong waves which kept coming over the front of the boat, some of us got very wet, as we weren’t quick enough to grab a seat right underneath the hood ie teammatesJenny, Kate, Amy and Beth, whilst others, ie Lizzie, stayed bone dry! Teammate Jenny had a minor fruit pastille explosion when opening the bag…they turned very salty quickly so we set them free in the sea. George discovered fenders can be used as space hoppers! Thanks to the rough seas, and the fact that Colin had about a ton of salt in his eyes after trying to steer, we stopped at East Loch Tarbot at about 5. This gave us plenty of time for Laura and Kate to make a delicious pasta bake, aided by Phil (who, we found out today, won Ready Steady Cook many years ago!!) and to have a very welcome shower. Much to our excitement, we played George’s cup game (she learnt this at a Jewish American Summer Camp!) which proved hilarious, if a little tricky! We are about to plan our route for tomorrow, so see you then teammates! xoxo

Saturday 22nd August

To make a change from yesterday’s frantic antics when we woke up, today was much more relaxed, as we were still asleep at nine (when we were supposed to be eating breakfast). It was a lovely breezy and sunny day, quite unusual for Scotland! The Tenacity gently motored down Dorus Mhor whilst teammate Beth steered and teammates Lizzie, Laura and Louise had a Connect Four competition on the deck (winner as yet undecided). Having to keep a careful eye on the depth brought an end to this wonderful competition! We then turned into the loch just before the Crinan Canal, where we saw Dolly the Dolphin, her friend, Harold the Heron and Doug the dragonfly (named imaginatively by teammates Lizzie and Louise). Meanwhile, teammate Phil was cooking leftover chicken thighs which made a surprisingly yummy coronation chicken (not for teammate Kate). Much to the team’s excitement, it was soon time to experience out first lock which was surprisingly easy to negotiate considering the lock keepers did it for us and we didn’t have to do anything. We were unpleasantly surprised to discover how difficult the locks were to operate when we had to do it ourselves (when trying to throw the ropes to the people waiting at the top of the locks, we learnt that ropes are affected by gravity and that wet ropes are just a bit gross). The locks were getting increasingly harder to operate (as teammate Lizzie discovered when she fell over when trying to push one open. Teammate Beth laughed.), and we were starting to get tired. But the sun coming out meant the teammates could, for the first time in the trip, shed their waterproofs (trousers AND jackets!) and sail wearing normal clothing, meaning that we finally didn’t feel hideously overdressed compared to the people in the boat next to us who were in shorts . Teammate George impressed the team with her headstand on a moving boat, possibly inspired by teammate Lizzie’s attempts at gymnastics (which failed miserably by the way). One of the funniest moments of the day came as Tenacity approached a bridge and someone had to sound a horn to let someone know to open the bridge. Teammate Beth sounded a sports horn which was so surprisingly loud that she was nearly knocked over. After several more locks, we finally moored up next to our new friends in the boat which had sailed alongside us all the way. Teammates Beth and Lizzie made a (in the words of team mate Catherine)a scrumptious Shepherds (sorry Cottage) Pie. Shockingly, it didn’t rain all day, apart from a few minutes when were we already moored! Hopefully the team will have time to play Articulate before bed! See you tomorrow shipmates! xoxo