A major step in making this adventure feel a bit more real was completing a week at sea school. We went down to SeaSports Southwest in Teignmouth to get our qualifications in various aspects of ocean safety. Here’s how it went…
Day 1: VHF Marine Radio
Before we got stuck into the learning, we wandered down to the seafront for a breakfast bap and discovered the cutest café called the Teign Bean. Our matching coats (thank you Gill Marine!) attracted some interest; we were stopped several times by people curious to know what we were doing. What a lovely welcome to the town!
We had an equally lovely welcome from Tim and Sue at SeaSports, complete with fresh bakes which turned up every day! The first course of the week was the RYA Short Range Certificate: essential for anyone with a licensed marine radio. It was a full-on day in the classroom, covering the basics of radio operation, the phonetic alphabet, the numerous different channels and their uses, how to make ship to shore telephone calls, emergency and medical assistance procedures, Digital Selective Calling and the Global Maritime Distress Safety System. There was a written exam at the end, as well as an hour-long practical exam. Passed both with confidence, yippee!
Days 2-4: Navigation and Seamanship Course
Started Saturday with a gorgeous run along the coast path. Running along the sea wall at sunrise with the waves crashing into the shore made me feel so alive. Much-needed fresh air before a day in the classroom!
The RYA Essentials in Navigation and Seamanship course was three days long and probably my favourite course of the five in the week. I really love learning and as designated chief navigator of our team I was especially keen to understand everything! First key lesson was to never call a chart a map! The other stuff we learnt was about buoyage, tides, electronic navigation tech, pilotage, rules of the road, anchoring, weather forecasts and passage planning. Buoys are more complex than I’d anticipated, and the “rules of the road” on the sea are extremely complicated! There’s a whole hierarchy of who gives way to who which I definitely haven’t yet memorised. Luckily we can stick a diagram of it on our boat! Learning and practicing bearings was fun. There was a lot to take in and my brain was actually quite fried by the end of the third day of it. I must admit I had sort of overlooked the importance of knowing all of this until we got there, because I had been focused on the Atlantic crossing itself and not thinking about all the rowing we’ll be doing around the UK coast, which is actually some pretty dangerous water. No exam for this one, but we did a coursework book that felt very much like the GCSE days!
Day 5: Sea Survival
The scariest day of the week for sure. I had anticipated that this would be the worst course because it would highlight my fear of the ocean. I wasn’t wrong! The course consisted of learning about all the safety kit and emergency beacons, which was actually quite reassuring, but there was a lot of watching scary scenarios that were somewhat off-putting. After a few hours in the classroom, we went to Dawlish pool for a bit of practical training. First task was jumping in fully kitted out. It was a roulette of life jackets and I had one that for demonstration purposes didn’t have a CO2 canister so I had to manually inflate it. I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy it was to inflate. Next thing was hopping in the life raft and paddling it across the pool. We were only in there for 5 minutes but that was long enough for it to feel uncomfortable; it was warm, claustrophobic and I sensed I would definitely be seasick in that, and this was the flattest water imaginable! We practiced climbing up the wobbly ladder from the water, and then hauling people in. Then there was the righting a capsized life raft drill: you have to hold your fist up to reduce the impact of it hitting the water and then swim out from underneath it – a disorientating feeling that I can’t say I liked. We also learnt about forming a snake whereby you hold someone’s shoulders between your knees while lying on your back to keep everyone attached and safe. There was some racing of dragging a partner across the 25m length – somewhat exhausting. Tim and Charlie had a lot of fun throwing buckets of water on us as we snaked back to the other end, demonstrating the effectiveness of the spray hoods. Back to the classroom for some post-practical reflections. Solid day of learning, but things I seriously hope to never experience again!
Day 6: First Aid
Having done a first aid course with the Army less than a month ago, most of this felt like revision, although taught from a boating perspective so there were some interesting differences. We attempted to put Ana in the recovery position in a confined space between the chairs and desks as mimicking the situation on a narrow ocean rowing boat, and concluded that it’s almost impossible; the key thing is to find a stable position where the airways are open. We did CPR on some fancy annies that tell you your compression rate and lung inflation score, but Tim pointed out that if you are doing CPR out on the Atlantic, the only person you’re doing it for is yourself, because that person has no chance of a defibrillator turning up. Also learnt about the drowning protocol, cold shock and hypothermia, seasickness and dehydration, medical assistance or advice by VHF and finally helicopter rescue. Definitely do not want to be rescued by helicopter.
Day 7: Ocean Rowing
Final day in Teignmouth was the ocean rowing course run by Ian, Head Safety Officer for Atlantic Campaigns. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but it was actually extremely useful. I made about 12 pages of notes, soaking up all the info like a sponge. We also got to spend some time with the lovely Gemma Best who has now rowed the Atlantic twice – what a legend! The ocean rowing community is a very small one but everyone we’ve spoken to has been so generous with their time and advice. Each person has a different angle to share; some things work for some while others do that thing differently. I’m taking snippets from them all with an open mind!
Finished the week feeling utterly exhausted; what I had thought would be a nice reset week transpired to be a very intense week with all the evening exams, meetings and calls, team bonding and what little training we could fit in!
Three weeks until we get our boat and we can put all this into practice... stay tuned!
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