As you may remember, two of the four Ocean Angels came to Waddesdon to give an assembly in February, when they outlined their plans to compete in the first Indian Ocean rowing race from Australia to Mauritius raising money for the charity Breast Cancer Care as they did so.

They left Australia on the 19th of April after a hard winter’s training and boat preparation and have now finished second in the race and are the only female team to have ever rowed the Indian Ocean. Of the teams that set out only 5 are likely to finish 6 having dropped out due to gear failure, fatigue or illness. It is a truly inspirational effort by the Angels.

The Angels have had to be totally self sufficient, dealing with numerous breakages, power problems, flooding, and steering issues. They have also been pushed backwards at times due to extreme weather conditions. In their 9.5m boat, they have endured gale force storms, rip currents, whirlpools, waves of up to 10m high as well as some peaceful seas, beautiful skies and brilliant sunshine. Each day they have covered up to 68 miles through shear determination and muscle power. They have eaten meals from bags, made fresh water on board the boat using a desalinator and have slept/ rowed in 2 hour shifts throughout the entire journey. As for washing, the less said the better!

You can find more about their epic voyage and the fundraising they are doing by following the links at this site: http://www.oceanangels.co.uk/ The school intranet also has links to information about their voyage. We hope they will be able to come back to school in the autumn term to tell us about their voyage.

Sue Johnson