Jim and I followed a week later, hanging on as long as possible in an attempt to secure some kind of sponsorship deal, but to no avail. A few days after arriving in Newfoundland, CBC contacted us for an interview. To our disappointment, the interview that was broadcast reflected the rescue of last year, not on the forthcoming challenge. They wanted to make an issue about who would pay for the recovery if there was another failure.

The Canadian Coastguard was once again very helpful and gave us up-to-date weatherforecasts. Jim and I would visit them twice a day when the reports came in. On the morning of June 22, the forecast was good: gentle westerly winds with calm seas. I decided to leave at 20:00 on the ebb tide. On leaving St. Johns the weather was ideal-flat seas and no wind. My sequence of targets for the challenge was to survive the first 24 hours (because of the events of last year), cross the Newfoundland waters, reach the quarter mark, reach the halfway mark, enter English waters and land in southern Ireland. Two days out, the sea state started to worsen. The rough seas prevented me from cooking, and for the rest of the journey I ate all my meals cold. The Coast Guard informed Jim that I was experiencing October weather in June; it was the worst weather they had on record. In one night, Mother Nature forced me backwards-60 miles to the north. A couple of weeks into the journey, I encountered several problems, starting with a snapped rudder cable, which caused difficulty steering. Because of the size of the boat, a rudder was necessary to control the boat. To repair the cable, I tied paracord from the cable to the steering plate.

Laying out stores of food.

A couple of days later, the steering plate broke. The only way to repair this was to cut a strap from my lifejacket to make a stirrup-like fitting, as I had no means of riveting the plate back together. Shortly after completing the repair, as I was just about to start paddling, I heard a knocking sound. On investigating, I discovered the shackle from the sea anchor had disappeared. In order to repair this problem, I had to brave the elements and swim to the back of the boat. The sea state was about Force five. Not wanting to lose another shackle while undertaking the repair in such rough conditions, I decided to use another length of paracord. On getting back into the kayak I cut my hand and my blood washed off in the sea. Not long after this a shark appeared! After changing my underpants, I decided that if I kept paddling, it might think I was a machine and not an edible delight. To my amazement, this seemed to work and the shark soon swam off.