Atlantic Rowing Race: Blog 6

Fancy dress antics and boat launch

It's not been all just hard work for us here in La Gomera, on Sunday WoodVale organised a fancy dress party for all of us rowers to let our hair down - and Team Explore did that in style!  We went as exploding handheld flares, which involved Christmas decorations on our heads and shower curtains.  All the teams made a great effort with their outfits and I must admit there was an unusally high number of men dressed as women - not quite sure what that says about ocean rowers!

But on Monday it was back to work as our boat was due to be re-scrutineered on Tuesday and there was still a fair amount to do.  Despite the sore heads we got it all done and passed on Tuesday and at long last we were allowed to launch Explore.  Getting her off the double trailer was no mean feat, there were a few dodgy moments, and then Annie and I were allowed on when she was actually lifted into the water.  However even this had a few problems, half way through the lift one of the other crews said there were no mooring spaces in the marina and we shouldn't launch.  So Annie and I were stuck on the boat mid lift while everyone frantically ran around to find us a space - that was an excellent definition of being left in limbo!  A space was eventually found and the lift continued, just before we hit the water Rachel Smith (who did the last race as a female pair so was very fitting) christened the boat with a bottle of cava.  By the time we'd found our mooring space and got her secured it was dark, so we obviously drank the rest of the cava and went out to celebrate!

If you would like to find out the full story behind Annie & Mel’s epic rowing adventure across the Atlantic, and why we are involved with them, you can find out more at www.explore.co.uk/atlanticrowers. You will also find details about how you can get involved and help them achieve thair other goal of raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

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