On Sunday 16th of August I had my boat on display in Basingstoke Festival place. That's the shopping centre in Basingstoke for those that don't know. It's something I've had planned for months, just as a bit of a promotion/fundraising day really. A few days prior to having the boat on display I had been checking the weather forecast daily which wasn't looking good and I didn't really fancy standing in the rain all day. Fortunately is was a lovely day with plenty of sunshine. I set the boat up and a few rowing machines borrowed from the local sports centre at around 9am as everything had to be in place by 10am. To start with town was like a ghost town with no one around. As the hours rolled by it didn't take long for the number of people walking by wondering what this thing was to build up. Before I knew it I had people everywhere standing around the boat asking all sorts of questions.

The general reception from the public I had was great and a lot of positive well wishes were given to me along with the usual "are you nuts!" comments.

I always thought I was probably the first person from Basingstoke to attempt to row an ocean. I was greeted by a rather excited man who said he came into town just to see the boat as he saw me setting it up earlier as he drove past. Would you believe it, turns out he rowed across the Atlantic as a pair in 2005 and is from Basingstoke. I thought to my self what a small world. To my knowledge I don't think anyone from Basingstoke has rowed the Atlantic solo. I could be wrong though although it doesn't really matter. Sometimes you just wonder.

The time flew by and when I looked at my watch it was 5.30 and time to pack up. For those of you that read it do keep an eye out in the Basingstoke Gazette, as a reporter and photographer came down and took some great photos.

The busy schedule continues as last weekend I had the boat in Cornwall for a training weekend, and what a weekend it was!

It started on friday at around 8am as I towed the boat down to Nelywn in Cornwall. The plan was for about 8 boats and their crew to row across to the Isles of Scilly. Only about 30 miles which I thought would be no problem.

Eventually we arrived on friday afternoon at around 2.30 pm. The race organisers turned up at about 5pm. We all went to the pub for some food and a safety briefing. The organisers decided the best time to set off would be around 5am as we needed to catch the right tides and make it to the Isles of Scilly before night fall. We all set off and things were going well. As it turned out not one boat made it to Isles of Scilly as the tides ended up being far to strong and blew all the crews a long way north of the island. Finally after a lot of interesting activity we all got towed into St Mary's Harbour by the support boat at around midnight. It actually turned out to be a rather eventful weekend but certainly a valuable one at the same time. Not long to go now!

Out for now from your Atlantic Adventurer Captain Ketch