FatChanceRow Update July 2

Today marks the start of our third week out here. Three weeks! I can't believe it's been so long, and yet we still have so far to go. I only have 14 days left until my birthday now. Fantasies have shifted from air-delivered Teddy to a more elaborate one in which the entire Tahoe birthday crew is transported by Matt's friend Vito and they pull up along side us in his boat, all in swimsuits enjoying the sun and drinking wine and beer. There is a basket of fresh, crisp, cold apples on the deck waiting for us. Keryun and Lisa are jumping off the back. In one version, Matt swims up to our boat. I think he may have swum (is that a word?) from San Francisco.

I'm having a little break while Sami rows. We are really sore, and aren't able to sleep through the night with all the aches and pains. I'm waiting for the painkillers to work, so I'll entertain you with our current lifestyle.

Funny things seen from the window:

The window is really a funny place to be, through it you see all sorts of irony. For example, the other night Sami had just scrubbed himself clean and rinsed off- no easy feat given that our boat is more like a Bucking Bronco than a rocking horse. You have to use all your muscles to balance, while grabbing with all your might onto the side rail and focusing diligently on detecting waves that may break on deck. Not one minute after he finished, he had let his guard down and was toweling of relaxed when a giant wave crashed over him and soaked him completely. Needless to say I was rolling around in the cabin laughing.

A couple of mornings ago we woke around 5, as usual. I had to go use the open-air bathroom, also, as usual. What was unusual was that Sami too had to use the bathroom. He was panicked enough about it that I agreed he should go first. We aren't supposed to peek at each other, in order to save the romance, but I really had to go and I had to see how much longer it would be. Sami was trying to balance, bent prostrate grasping the side rail, he looked like he might fall over at any moment. "How much longer!?" I yelled "I really have to go, it's an emergency!". "I'm going as fast as I can" he yells back over the wind. I couldn't wait a minute longer, I climbed up on deck and grabbed the just washed bucket from his hand. "Go, hurry, no peeking!" I yelled, but I couldn't wait. I was laughing really hard, it was so ridiculous! Every morning since, I get on deck as soon as possible and laugh a little remembering that morning.

The last item I'll share (and these are the most publicly consumable moments, believe it or not) was when Sami was showering another night and I looked up to see something on his bum. "What is that?", I thought. I was about to shout "you missed a spot!" When I recognized the mystery item as an almond. Really, I guess we are not in the most sanitary conditions! Lol. We shower, row, eat, drink and poop in the same 1 square yard, day in day out. I got a good laugh about that one!

Some of you have asked if you can share our blog, yes, please do. We can't email directly from here, so we can't answer directly. We love the emails and jokes that are coming in and rely on them for our daily sisu!

FatChanceRow Update June 29

What a day! Today we went 45 minutes west, and we're now less than 15 from breaking 125! Soon we celebrate this small victory! Unfortunately we likely have one more week of headwinds, but the seas have been calm enough that we can grind through while chatting about childhood memories, our grandparents and what kind of people we hope to be. I drift into memories of my grandmother and the times we shared, ironically enough, many memorable moments with her involve baking deserts and eating ice cream :). All of you who knew or met her know we have a love for enjoying these treats in common. Besides that, I think about how much I hope to be like her, and how much of her I can pass on to others. We woke up fresh this morning with a night of decent sleep. I can't believe that I can sleep at all in this cabin given that 1) Sami is crammed in next to me and snores 2) the boat is ridiculously noisy, with waves slamming into the side every 15 or 20 seconds, and3) we are tipping this way and that way, pretty seriously, all night long. Any ways, we had fun this morning cheering on the Mai Tai waves and demanding "bring me to Hawaii!!!". As the day progresses and the fatigue sets in, we are not so jubilant. Towards the end of a rowing session or the end of the day, every minute is sheer torture. I squirm on my seat with discomfort and wiggle my toes to make my legs stop cramping. When it's break time I lean back onto arms that are shaky and feel like they might collapse under my weight. I look forward to see Sami leaning this way and that on his double-decker cushion, and I know he's suffering as much as me. The seas also seem to tant us as the day progresses. More often than not, 3pm sees growing waves and by 5 or 6 they are Taylan d breaking over us. We yell back, "You can't stop us, you big dummy! We are going to Hawaii!" Nights bring so much relief, both mentally and physically. Waking up in the cabin we always celebrate the 'free miles' we've drifted over night. Last night was a big one, 15 minutes west! While we slept!! How lucky are we? During the night I wake up from time to time from different maladies, making their presence known. Billy, my big blister on the knuckle of my toe, is now infected and puffy. Anytime something touches him I wake up. My hips too are telling me I'm too old for this, I can't straighten them out any more and we have at least a month left. My hands are knobby and stiff I'm the morning, and the skin is coming off from between my fingers. Sami has less pain now, but he'll catch up soon. Despite these aches and pains, I feel incredibly lucky to be out here and have support from so many. The repetition of the rowing is meditative and I think less about the outside world with each stroke I take, but when it gets to be too much, I find myself looking to reading your comments. PS My fried Dollar has been my undercover agent at home and I'm grateful for her favors and humor. The other letters of encouragement stay with me through the day. How could we not persevere with all of you behind us? Thank you for that.

FatChanceRow Update June 28

In the picture, the homeless, religiously conservative lady is my lovely wife and rowing partner. I love Meredith's frugality but this foul weather gear has now broken into number of pieces that no amount of duct tape will save. There's a reason why offshore sailor's spend $2000 on their kit while Meredith's came together under $49.95. This am she carefully crafted a new pair of "dry shoes" made out of a trashbag and more duct tape. Crafty lady!

Our quest to pass 125 degrees west (at which point we believe we won't be pushed back to east anymore) continues and we are just about to cross 124 west, so abt 50 nmiles to go and hopefully done by Monday night. Yesterday the winds were calmish but turned more against us; just a short break from oars and I saw GPS coordinates start ticking back towards east. Stressful. But we both put in abt 16hrs of rowing. Waves are now picking up again but wind direction should remain only partially headwind for another 48hrs which is our "now or never" moment to escape the mainland for Hawaii! We've already seen a few random north-east waves traveling to Hi direction and we've named them Maitai's. Each Maitai gets a huge cheer from one of us. We pray that Maitai's become very frequent in the next two weeks.

Suffering was interrupted by a couple of nature wonders: as I was rowing and blasting our deck hifi system (one of two speakers still working!) and as soon as Lenny Kravitz changed to Classical, a whale elegantly glided to the surface. If I was religious I'd say it was a Sign, but now I just think whales don't dig Lenny, more Beethoven. Another one was my first experience w phosphorescence at night. 3AM and everyt time I dipped the oars into the Pacific, I saw bright stardust circles form in the water. It was a magical moment, like a scene from a Disney movie.

Waves are now small enough that all fear and anxiety about building size MR. Flusher waves is gone (for now). Instead, I have a new reason to stress about. Our radar detector seems to go off typically at dark. And we've burnt our two navigation lights, our identification system (AIS) also stopped working, as well as our chart plotter and boat GPS and autopilot (I have a lot of fancy monitors and gadgets, none of which talk to each other anymore, making them useless. I will try to fix later after we cross 125w). So we are left with binoculars, VHF radio and radar detector to avoid collisions. When the radar detector beeps more frequently, a ship is approaching. There's nothing more nerve cracking than a beep that gets more and more frequent and it's pitch dark (apart from our head lamp "navigation light"). For some reason boats won't respond to our radio calls either. I'm guessing "row boat Roosevelt" sounds like a practical joke out in the pacific. We might start calling us "US customs and border protection Roosevelt" to get better response rate to our calls. Or just "the naked row boat Roosevelt" and have Meredith make all the calls.

This is our 11th day at sea. I can't believe it. We are both starting to get used to living in the floating, wet dog house. Surprisingly our bodies are holding on well the 12-16hr of daily rowing. People tell me the drug of choice for ocean rowers is pain killers, but I haven't even taken an ibuprofen yet. Our no sugar and very limited carbs diet seems to be working well too. We only eat 2-3 times per 24hrs, aren't really hungry, don't crave gels/bars/sugar and feel solid strong all day. We typically have our gourmet lunch at 1pm which for me is dehydrated beef (50% fat, 50% protein), some dehydrated broccoli, olives, 2yr aged Parmesan cheese cubes and water (no boil). Variety? I mix them in different order each day... My favorite (and only) snack is salted macadamia nuts vacuum packed with pure apple chips (apple chips by Bare - thx Brad!). They accidentally formed a crispy bar like form in our packing, which is fantastic! I'm guessing I eat about 5000kcal day and probably burning 7000-8000kcal now. Might need to eat more once the unnecessary fat starts to run out.

Most ocean rowers in pairs follow a 2on 2off schedule 24x7 so that someone is always rowing and each gets 12h/day of oar time. We had a more complicated sleep & row schedule planned, but have come to realize that A) every switch has a huge transaction cost in time, cleaning, clothes, messing up cabin, etc. especially I'm bad weather B) we are fit enough to operate up to 10hrs at a steady work rate without major breaks C) sleep and hormonal recovery works much better with a "long" sleep period, vs 6 short sleeps per day D) we would miss a major life experience if we rowed and slept solo for two months while both on the same (divorce)boat We think the fastest, healthiest and most fun plan for us is to row 12-16hrs per day non-stop (lunch in between) together from 5am-9pm and then sleep (and anchor/row/drift w drogue) a minimum of 5hr sleep each night ... weather and cargo ships permitting. This seems to work well, we feel great, make strong progress and enjoy the experience.

Divorce-o-meter is still low, but maybe up to 1 now. We are occasionally getting a bit edgy as the body shows it's first signs of fatigue and aches start to appear...

PS we are so grateful for all the comments and mental support. It is really inspiring for us and gives us lots to think about each day. And if we can inspire someone else in the process, that's a bonus!

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FatChanceRow Update June 27

Winds haven't been favorable, but we are still trying to push west. Yesterday we rowed together for 16 hours straight and made only small progress. Both are tired and sore, but we are on the oars again making our way to 125- wish us luck!

FatChanceRowUpdate June 26

Today marked some sort of a turning point for us, it's been the first day without crazy scary waves and we are actually rowing west! We have a three day window in which we need to get 100 miles further west, in order to break free of the westerly wind. This goal had brought the life back into Sami in particular, who was lethargic and snugly without a goal to focus in on. We have started two fantasies that we ask each other to play out, several times per day. One is About my birthday, it goes something like this: Me: how many more days till my birthday? Sami: let's see, today is the 26th, so that makes 20. What do you think is going to happen on your birthday?? Me: A helicopter is going to come and Teddy is going to be swinging below it in a harness! He's going to come on board and lick and wiggle! Sami: he might even pee he's so excited! Me: yeah!

The other fantasy continues to be about the cleansing we will have when we land. Bathtub full of bubbles and flowers. Shaving. Hair washing. Manicures!

Sami gave me a jar of Nutzo today as a treat, it's really crunchy nut butter. I at half the jar in about 5 minutes :(. He only has 12 more for the whole trip so I'm starting to think of things I can trade him.

Divorcometer at 0. Sami has been showering faithfully (a good thing) but right in front of the window (a very, very bad thing).

Thanks for all the messages! We love to read them and look forward to them all day!

FatChanceRow Update June 25b

Thank you, thank you! We got a bundle of "fan post" via email and reading your blog/etc comments brought us so much more strength and a few tears. It means a lot to us here in the middle of....well, water.

Fighting the (headwind) weather continues, but we are enjoying the rowing. Hands and bums may not look ready for prime time anymore, but are working fine. We are still laughing, having fun and hold the divorce-o-meter steadily at zero.

I (Sami) re-earned my nickname "mr duck tape" after fixing a few more things with it: our navigation light system and wind vane that was about to get cut off in the wind(!!!). We are learning that everything breaks (most of ours electronics have already taken count down) and are in the constant state of fixing stuff. Unfortunately Meredith's rain pants had to retire. No amount of duck tape could save them. But most importantly, boats not leaking and all of our oars are intact = all systems go!

Sally Sneakers, our home made drogue, continues to be our most reliable piece of equipment. It slows us down the big waves and keeps the boat aligned to avoid capsize with the huge waves. We enjoy watching her jump off the waves like a salmon headed to mating. Based on he teethmarks, I'm guessing a fish has tasted her already.

Without going into graphical details, While Meredith visited the open air bathroom early am, a decent wave crashed over the "deck". Her last dry pair of rowing shorts was done. The paparazzi (which we are sure is many, although we haven't seen any sign of human life in last 36hrs) must have had a field day, as she decided to row in full rain and foul weather gear sans any bottoms. She said it was a breezy day.

I continue to hold on to my pants, but given he constant state of wetness (on deck, in cabin, in my pants) I'm looking forward to some calm, sunny days, to be able to follow Meredith's lead and live free for a few days.

We also built a deck shower (already moldy mattress sheet to protect from crashing waves + soft water canister for squirting water). It's quite a rodeo to kneel and wash without flying off, but we both did it, while harnessed to our safety lines. The only square foot of deck where we can perform these type of activities is also our bathroom. And all this just in front of the only cabin window. "A room with a VIEW" would be quite appropriate. But our house rule, however, is "no looking to save the romance".

Needless to say, I'm in awe of Meredith's positivity and ability to stay calm and make decisions under stressful conditions. I would probably be already rowing towards LAX (or Baja Mexico at this point) if it was for her! This is all fun, but not easy.

Plz keep writing comments, they're hugely powerful as we struggle forward I our floating dog house with oars.

FatChanceRow Update June 24

We took a real beating last night with many side waves breaking over us. The winds are already up around 20knots (730am) and our weather forecaster just warned us that they will build up more to 25 and 30 knots today. I just can't get up the courage to face the waves this morning, as I know I'll get knocked off deck by them. I get a pit in my stomach just thinking about it. It's hard to get out there knowing what is waiting for me. Our boat design is different than most in that it's carbon with a round bottom.This makes the boat faster, but it's less stable. We also sit just at the waterline, and unlike most ocean rowing boats, we have no side protection, so side waves come in and hit us rather than breaking on the side of the boat. I'm small enough that I don't manage to stay on my seat for most of the side waves, though Sami does. Lots of water came in the cabin through our air vents last night, so we have little puddles in our sleeping bags and mattress. Sally Sneakers are holding up well and providing some stability, she's performing much better than the Salmon. We have agreed to hunker down for an hour or so to see if the waves die down a bit before we get back on the oars. Needless to say, we are a bit demoralized today and are really looking forward to some days without side breaking waves!

FatChanceRow Update June 24

We have taken a real beating in the last couple of nights with many side waves breaking over us. yesterday, the winds were already up around 20knots (730am) and our weather forecaster had just warned us that they will build up more to 25 and 30 knots today. I just couldn't get up the courage to face the waves, as I knew I'll get knocked off deck by them. Our boat design is different than most in that it's carbon with a round bottom.This makes the boat faster, but it's less stable. We also sit just at the waterline, and unlike most ocean rowing boats, we have no side protection, so side waves come in and hit us rather than breaking on the side of the boat. I'm small enough that I don't manage to stay on my seat for most of the side waves, though Sami does. Yesterday we encountered some problems with our electrical instruments as well, now we don't have AIS (which allows us to see other boats, and for them to see us) as well as our GPS, chart plotter and autopilot. The gps comes on sporadically, but 7hours of tinkering with it yielded no solution. We are trying to test to see if our AIS signal is going out, so we have more confidence that boats can see us, but we haven't been able to confirm this yet. Lots of water came in the cabin through our air vents in the last nights,'so we have little puddles in our sleeping bags and mattress. Our cabin is getting really gross, we both think that the cabin conditions are going to be the thing that really bothers us most during this journey. Sally Sneakers are holding up well and providing some stability, she's performing much better than the Salmon. Tomorrow the wind is supposed to be northerly, so we will try to start pushing west, though the weekend forecast doesn't give us much confidence that we will get very far. Divorcometer is 0-1, I'm edgy about the grossness of the cabin.

FatChanceRow Update June 23

Today brought sunny skies and smaller seas, we were able to get a rhythm in our row and didn't have to concentrate so much on looking our for side waves that would hit us. I'm feeling pretty beat up after the last couple of days, unfortunately the weather trend is going to continue like this, so I should probably get used to it. Now we are just focusing on getting south ASAP, unfortunately we are headed a bit east because of the wind. Last night Sally the Salmon ripped off the rope, so we are down one drogue. Luckily Sami had a pair of sneakers on board, so we strung those out. Our brains aren't operating at full capacity so we came up with the unoriginal name of Sally Sneakers for this one. I pity the shark who eats those! The arm of my rain jacket got torn off yesterday when I got knocked into the oars. Now I really look like a bag lady! The sun is so strong that every inch of skin needs to be covered, so I'm wearing a face mask and a big pink hat. I look like a bank robber, I'm sure! I've come up with what I think is a great system to protect my butt- sheepskin inside my shorts, garbage bag with leg holes outside of shorts, and goretex pants on top. I sleep with my furry friend inside the sleeping bag to keep it dry, it's my most treasured item at the moment. This bum needs to stay dry! We continue to have trouble eating. We aren't sea sick, but seem to only manage maybe half of what we were supposed to eat each day. My favorite continues to be mixed veggies and salmon! Sami is eating tuna, beef, broccoli and nuts- his treat is the Nutzo nut butter, which he's mixing all kinds of other stuff into and scooping straight from the jar. We have been fantasizing about what kind of body cleaning we are going to do when we land, consensus is shower and salt scrub, then hours and hours of massaging :). We are still upbeat and jamming to tunes like no one is watching...well, no one is watching. Divorcometer still at zero, likely because Sami started to shower prior to coming in the cabin. Life is good.