DAY 47 – MARK JENKINS FINAL BLOG

Hard as it is to believe, this is my final blog! It has been a moment to reflect on an extraordinary 7 weeks at sea and an even more extraordinary group of people. By that I mean not just the guys in the boat, but the many wounded persons that they represent. I have been thinking a lot about what this team has achieved and what we hope others can achieve. This project has been about setting a huge challenge, committing wholeheartedly to it and then facing every challenge head on in pursuit of our goal. There have been no excuses only a choice to live this experience to its fullest and to take a positive attitude to all things. I hope that we have demonstrated that it is not what people see in you but what you go on to do that counts. I want to thank to all those who have personally supported me – you know who you are. There were a few people who said it could not be done. Oh dear… you will have to kiss my nappy-rash!

Thoughts on the journey

For me our endurance is about getting something from the journey not just from getting to the destination. What I have got from this has been personal challenge and reward, but it has also been about the team. Most of all it has been about the realisation that you can cope with almost anything when you focus on being successful. If you can get through this then you can definitely get through a crap day at work! For James and I we go back to our life as it always was. But Scott and Cayle don’t get legs or fingers back and their challenges will continue.

Find out what is important in life

There is plenty of time to think out here and while I haven’t found God or anything like that I have certainly got some clarity on important things in my life. It has underlined how important my family are to me. It has reminded me how important it is to make the right choices rather than the easy ones. If you want to do something then you have to take the chance. We took a chance on a huge adventure and it exceeded all our expectations!

Think of the great orators of our time; Churchill, Lincoln, Blaney! They were able to say things in a way that encapsulated a feeling better than you or I could express ourselves. And in the case of Row2Recovery I choose another great speaker to finish this story… Over to Ferris Bueller:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”.

Latest Blog Posts

DAY 49 - CAYLE ROYCE'S FINISH LINE BLOG

After a frustrating last 24 hours or so we began today with slow conditions and not much visibility. It was quite squally, with little rain showers coming and going, but things cleared quite abruptly around 8am and suddenly we could see land. After being hidden in the mist it appeared out of nowhere and it seemed really close! This last stretch was totally different to the first half of the race. For so much of this crossing the weather has been horrific, I have never experienced anything like this. Yesterday morning at 8 am marked the first time in the entire race that we had a full 24 hours out of full foul weather gear and today is also the first day that an equipment failure would not be a cause for emotional devastation. I always thought that we would make it, but equipment failures could have slowed us down a lot. The thought of breakages always kept us on edge. But now we can finally enjoy the realisation that WE HAVE DONE IT!!!!!!!!

DAY 48 – SCOTT BLANEY'S FINAL BLOG

It feels great to count down the hours and the miles. It is a big morale boost to know that we are almost there. For most of the crossing I had felt confident that we would make it but we did have a few scares. When the auto-helm broke I did worry that we would be down to one rower for the whole crossing. One rowing and one hand-steering would have been a horrible routine. Luckily we managed to fix it. But the most important bit of equipment is my leg - it has never let me down.