The last two weeks have been spent in Cowes at the United Kingdom Sailing Academy to acquire our Ocean Yacht-master Theory certificates, the first of which being a pre-requisite for Ocean theory. Going into the course pretty much blind, we were advised to take our Nav 1 (Offshore Yacht-master Theory) first to give us a grounding of the Ocean Theory. It has been a hard slog and we managed to pass both thanks to the great tutors at the UKSA. Are thanks especially goes out to John Walsh who was extremely helpful, relating a lot of the theory to our Indian Ocean Challenge and advised on routing for the passage we will be taking.

One last thanks goes to Kirsty, Gemma, Jodie, Tim & Ben for arranging our stay and putting up with us around the house for 10 days. Ben is planning to sail single handed around Britain before entering the Mini Transat in 2011, please take a look at his website, www.benrogersonracing.com.

We’ve settled back into the UKSA in Cowes this week and got our Short Range Radio license out of the way yesterday. We had our first day in our ‘Nav 1′ Class today in order to break us in before starting our Ocean yacht-master Theory this coming Monday. The days are going to be long, a bit of a lie-in before breakfast at 0830 with lectures starting at 0900 and running through until 1700, we’re then doing an hour and a half on the ergo, with two brand new Concept 2 rowing machine which seems like have been solely purchased for us! Then its dinner and then back to the class room for revision & homework! Then it all starts over again…. so on that note its goodnight from me.

Thank you to everyone who came last Saturday to wish us a fond farewell. Although we are not officially off until March it was great to see all our friends and family showing their support for our row.  The total money raised on the evening was £6,000, which will go a long way to achieving our final target.

We will be in Cowes as of Monday for two weeks at the UKSA while we complete our Ocean Yachtmaster Course before spending two weeks back at HQ prior to departing for Australia.