Day 19 – Dolphins & Progress

19 Mar, 07 – 22.30
19.3858N,27.1516W

24 hr progress: 38.4 Nautical Miles
Stayed up all night on watch and finally established contact with what turned out to be a Polish cargo ship heading towards Ghana. The captain confirmed that he could not see me on his radar, even at 4 miles off starboard, which is quite worrying. Fortunately, we established my position on VHF so that he could alter course. I will consider raising the hight of the radar reflector on the mast. Looks like its not being picked up while the boat is between high waves.
Morning started off as cloudy and raining. Cleared up by afternoon and as I was having lunch on the deck, a pod of Dolphins stopped by. I gave them some of the Lasagne I was eating, but the seem to prefer the pilot fish underneath the boat.
Difficult rowing conditions today with Northerly winds of 30 knots. Have been steering beam on to the waves all day, struggling to maintain a course W. Got a sore back from being thrown off the seat.
A few calculations I made while assessing my progress so far.
Distance from La Restinga to Antigua – 2499 Nautical Miles
Distance from Present position – 1969 Nautical Miles
Total distance rowed to date - 824 Nautical Miles
True Progress – 530 Nautical Miles
The total distance rowed is one measured by the GPS. The true progress is the straight line progress that I have made towards Antigua. The distance rowed is larger that the true progress as I have been tacking to make the most of the wind and the wave direction. Going by the ratio, I am rowing 1.6 nautical miles for every 1 nautical mile towards Antigua. Well, who said progress would be easy?
B.
To send a message on the satellite phone visit http://www.bhavik.com/crossatlantic/messages.asp

Crashing wave

On deck

The bottom of the water mountain