Just drifting across the ocean? Not exactly!

Katie’s been away for over a week now and has already made great progress towards her destination, Cayenne in French Guiana. “Great progress”, however, is all relative as, despite having rowed nearly 300 miles, there are still around 2,222 miles left; rowing across the Atlantic is certainly not a sprint!

But how is she managing it? Surely someone can’t just row a 19-foot boat across a mammoth ocean without some assistance? Well … Katie can!

Is she really rowing though? It’s no secret that, along with the odd bit of water, you’ll find wind, waves and, to a certain extent, currents in the ocean. And these are all factors that Katie had to take into careful consideration when planning this row. The ocean is a very powerful place, capable of causing problems for even the biggest boats – in fact, the ship carrying “Liv” from USA to Senegal was delayed by nearly a week due to the ocean conditions – so attempting to battle against it in a little rowboat would be futile, at best.

Instead, you have to pick a time of year and route that will lead to as little obstruction from the weather as possible. That’s why Katie left from Dakar, Senegal in January.

The currents in the North Atlantic Ocean are sort of laid out in a clockwise direction, flowing from USA to Europe and then Africa to South America. But it’s not quite that straightforward. On the route from Dakar to Cayenne, Katie has to contend with the North Equatorial Counter Current, an area where, to be honest, the ocean seems to do absolutely whatever it wants! Katie will come across large areas where she is battling the ocean pushing her north, south or east; sometimes she may get lucky and get a bit of help to the west.

But the current isn’t the only factor to worry about. There’s also the not inconsiderable obstacle of a wave or two, sometimes towering over 30-feet high. If going the right direction, these can be pretty helpful as “Liv” surfs down them; that is if they’re not breaking on top of her, soaking Katie to the bone and capsizing the boat over and over again (don’t worry – it’s designed to cope with that). However, while there’s very little that you can rely on when it comes to oceans, one thing is for certain: it won’t do what you want! And so far the Atlantic has been living up to expectations, delivering waves from the north-west ever since Katie set off, attempting to push her back down the African coastline.

Finally, there’s the wind. In theory (sadly, the Atlantic doesn’t appear to read the text-books very regularly), the trade winds should blow across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to South America, ensuring Katie isn’t rowing into a gale. But they also will push her a little south, which is why she started in Dakar, slightly north of French Guiana. While wind is good to a certain extent, we certainly don’t want too much of it, and definitely not a hurricane! Which is why Katie has left in January – the North Atlantic hurricane season starts in June, hopefully several months after Katie and “Liv” are safely back on dry land.

So, with all the weather considerations, isn’t Katie just drifting across the Atlantic? Does the rowing make any difference at all? You’d better believe it!

When Katie sleeps, she drifts – it could be any direction at all and, sometimes, she gets lucky and goes in the right direction. But, even then, it’s very very slow. Based on what’s happened so far, if she just dropped her oars and waited to hit land, we might be lucky to see her sometime in 2012. As for where she’d end up, who knows! A perfect example of this was on Wednesday; while asleep overnight, Katie was drifting very slowly to the south, not making any ground towards Cayenne. But then she woke up, got on the oars, and immediately started making significant progress to the west.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is one glorified holiday. It will be two to three months of hard physical work, with no respite from anything. Katie isn’t just crossing an ocean in a boat.

She’s rowing the Atlantic Ocean.