The crew passed the half way mark today! And after yesterday’s interview Aodhán sent an email and rang today. He feels much better and things are going well luckily. There is a good atmosphere on board and conditions have improved. This is what he wrote:
Just got myself on the computer for the first time in a few days. The messages of support have been amazing – its probably the only time on the trip that I feel emotional – the rest of the time its all business. Was cool to chat on radio and was worried as only 90 mins before I was suffering from massive sleep deprivation delirium and could barely say my own name. Cool about Chris – those poor kids in Canada are in for a tough time (I wouldn’t do it:-)…..
Just at the moment we got off the phone the sun came up on the horizon and a pod of about 6 or 8 dolphins gave us a dawn escort for about half an hour – was amazing. Starting to feel the calorie deficit now and am constantly hungry – a bit of weight is really disappearing now – so in 2 weeks I will prob be a lightweight ( a trim 90 kgs maybe) haha. The crew here call me Hagrid as my nickname – the giant from Harry Potter – funny!
We are neck and neck with the World Record at the moment – will need to put in a really hard week to try and get ourselves ahead of it. The 30 days plan won’t happen – we needed good weather for the whole trip to pull it off but we just didn’t get it – think its a massive testament to the crew that we have gone so fast without much weather assistance – need some luck for the last two weeks now!
The moon’s phase means that we have no light at night time at the moment – which makes it difficult when the waves are big but on moments like last night with calm seas you can see the whole milky way – its spectacular!
This boat is made of tough stuff – we had what they call a knock down 2days ago in the morning during my shift – thats when the boat is knocked to 90 degrees or more into the water (a capsize would be 180 degrees so upside down) – we were all fine – some of the lads asleep found themselves on the ceiling for a moment – we lost one of our water jerry cans which is a pain as I now have to refil the one we have left over and over again.
- Click HERE for this mornings’ Heart FM radio broadcast in which Matt discussed an airline flying over very low up to three times, which got him petrified that the emergency beacon had gone off;
- 21st pod cast, on chicken jalfrezi, 90 minute naps and passing time zones: http://embed.ipadio.com/embed/v1/embed-352×200.swf?callInView=97958&channelInView=&phlogId=41329&phonecastId=122641.
- 22nd pod cast, on reaching the half way point, fantastic weather, great mental state of the crew and chasing down the World Record and great weather forecast: http://embed.ipadio.com/embed/v1/embed-352×200.swf?callInView=98026&channelInView=&phlogId=41329&phonecastId=122711.
Atlantic 2012 
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