Ellen Macarthur Trust

Welcome Radio 2 Listeners

Monday 7th December, 6.00pm

If you are new to the site having heard me tonight on Radio 2, welcome to my website - do please enter your email address in the box on the right hand side of the screen to receive regular updates over the next few weeks.  It promises to be a exciting journey.

 
I'm just grabbing a quick hour to write the blog, I'm conscious many of my regular followers are hungry for updates!!!
 
Time is fast becoming a blurr as one day melds into the next the closer we get to departure day, less than three days to go now...!!
 
Digby our cameraman arrived late last night which means there are now eight of us on-site, including Susana's uncle and aunty from the UK who have flown out to see us off.  Tomorrow, Lucy my PR manager and my wife and son, Elaine & Tim, both arrive bringing us up to the full compliment of farewell spectactors - with the arrival of every guest, the reality of this great adventure gets ever nearer and I'm getting the usual butterflies in the stomach which remind me I'm only human..!!
 
The last 48 hours have seen amazing strides - Impossible Dream is now one of the most advanced yacht in her class in communications terms in the world.  Now the satellite communications dome is fitted, our personal BBC engineer has set up the system and we have already fired back live film footage back the the BBC servers in London, we have set up an ISDN line straight into the BBC radio network, it gives us a private telephone line and broadband internet which, at sea, gives me faster speeds than my internet at home - it's wonderful.
 
If the makers of Daim bars would like to make note, I'm down to my last 15 bars and I've not even started the voyage yet - please send 2 boxes asap...!!!
 
I know lots of you are struggling through a UK winter; everytime I speak with Elaine back home it is either raning torrentially, blowing a gale or the pipes are getting frozen, so I won't bleat on too much about the weather out here - but I should say today was a wonderful day, clear blue skies, 25 degress, NE winds, force 3 to 4.  So it was an almost ideal day to take ID out for our last shake-down sail before our departure on Thursday.  We wanted to just make sure all of the electrical, mechanical and hydraulic devices were running smoothly - thankfully no surprises and we had a  spectacular sail over to Fueteventura and back again.  Midway, we dumped Digby with his camera and Geoff McNicholl in the rubber dinghy whilst we proceeded to sail backwards and forwards doing our film poses.  Diggers seems to be happy with his footage and will be editing it and firing it back to the BBC tomorrow - viewers in the BBC South region should see the results on Thursday's South Today programme.
 
Susana and I were at the butchers by 0900 this morning ordering our meat for the crossing.  We have a fridge but no freezer so, as long as we have vacuum packed meat, it should last a couple of weeks.  Not knowing the Spanish for vacuum packed meat, other supermarked shoppers were intrigued by my charades mime trying to make the butcher understand - sucking on a plythene bag did the trick (well I hope it did) because on Thursday morning we are picking up 12kg of assorted fresh meats - whether it is neatly packed in vacuum bags will have to be seen..!!
 
We are all going out for a much deserved meal this evening - we are all a little wind and sun-burned from our time at sea today but also exhausted from all the fresh air - oh yes, I guess the emotional stress is adding to the fatigue as well.
 
More tomorrow.  Feel free to email questions and I'll do my best to answer if I have the time.