Rowing The Atlantic

Day 36 ctd.
It is 8 pm and I’m trying to decide if it was a good day as I got through another knock-down or if it was a bad day as I had another knock-down with ensuing water and mess inside.

Certainly no rowing, it was very, very rough again. But the current responsible for the mess carried me 5 further miles past the 1/4-way mark, 370 left to first WP. After the knock-down at 3 pm I went on SA. The wind had veered from N to E, but we were heading N at a steady 4 knots! That is 4 miles every hour, like a fast running river, a speed I can only do for about 10 strokes of maximum effort. I have not been aware of currents of such speed far from shallows or shore, what do you say, my maritime expert in Barbados, Martin Smyth? (I wrote marine expert by mistake the other day, but he is knowledgable on that, too!)
Too much water came in through the tiny opening before I got the hatch completely shut. In spite of having one hand on one of the two handles. No warning, just bang, gush and on the side in a flash. Not quite 90 degrees this time, but gunnels were under and that traps lots of water. So for nearly 5 hours I have mopped, rinsed, cleaned and dried as much as possible. Only my outside clothes got very wet. They serve to build up where I have my head just inside the hatch at night and are often wet or damp when I come inside, so its a useful position. But the mattress and the separate mattress head part ( use it to sit on during the day) took too much to be usable tonight. I have in fact amputated more parts and also committed the cover to king Neptune.
Now I am very hungry. No proper food since 1 pm. Dug out the bag of red wine for an evening tranquilliser & try to recreate some of last night’s bliss. We did after all pass 1/4 way, I only have a couple of cuts and bruises from today’s trial, there’s a beautiful red sky out there just now, wind is less, fewer breakers, but we are still heading N at a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” type of fact of 4,4 knots as I write!