Four men on a raft: more speed, less order in the galley
At the age of 84, Anthony Smith is crossing the Atlantic on a raft. This week, the crew's daily routines are made harder by the trade winds.
Smiling through: (L-R) David Hildred, John Russell, Anthony Smith and Andrew Bainbridge have now been at sea for 22 days
12:59PM GMT 21 Feb 2011
The good ship An-Tiki is now within the trade winds heading for the west. This means a rougher passage. It means more speed, with our instruments sometimes touching six knots. And it certainly suggests greater hazard in getting food to pan, pan to cooker, and eventually food to mouth.
So how are we four (with a combined age of 260) faring? Not a single sharp comment has yet been uttered, despite occasional encouragement. And the three wives back home are being outstandingly loyal to their opposites, a fact we all know as emails, phone calls and texts become common property.
In fact, everything becomes common property or knowledge, such as our habits. Who folds their sleeping bag away and who just stuffs it in the bag? Who gets wettest when waves come on board, who is most diligent in washing up, maintaining tidiness, knowing where things are, keeping the log, or spotting birds?
We are entering our fourth week on board and we are still consuming perishables. The potato sack still lives. The suspended banana 'stick', however black its current offerings, is still well worth a visit. And a colossal pumpkin is still good for chefs prepared to gouge. But hard tack now confronts us, tins galore, rice aplenty, sauces of every hue, pasta of each shape, cereals of every kind. The gaunt spectre of hunger and sunken eyes is plainly not quite around the corner.
So what is? For starters, more than a couple of thousand miles. And the passing of countless waves every six seconds or so, each faster than we are, lifting first our stern, then midships, and finally our front before they go cavorting onwards, frothily happy at the chaos they have caused to the man ladelling the soup.
Who first called this Atlantic the 'pond'? Certainly not the various forms of pioneer, whether airshipmen, Lindberghs, single-handed yachtsmen or women, or courageous rowers who have understood only too well how massive is this stretch of water. And now here come a bunch of oldies wishing to prove – what? That there is good life to be had until it finishes, that rafts are a neglected and amazing form of transport, that novel experience is still exciting, and voyaging by sea has a great deal to be said for it, particularly when a trade wind is pushing them along, tossing them, and generally cavorting with them precisely in the direction they wish to go. "Go west, old men. Go as you have never gone before."
