Meet the Devon and Cornish rowers spending Christmas competing in the World's Toughest Row
Groups of rowers from the West Country will be having a different kind of Christmas this year during their 3,000 mile race across the Atlantic Ocean.
Three teams of men and women from Devon and Cornwall are 12 days into the World's Toughest Row race from the Canary Islands to Antigua.
Oars of Thunder from Looe, Team Rollocks from Exmouth and Invictus Atlantic from Mylor are all approximately a third of the way through the race which set off from La Gomera on the 12th December.
Luke Morgan from Invictus Atlantic sent ITV West Country an update to say the competition is living up to its name.
"The first few days of the World's Toughest Row is absolutely mind blowing. Nothing can prepare you for that."
"That was proper hard work, proper tired, proper exhausted."
"It's World Toughest Row, we took it on and we're happy to be here."
Fellow rower David Radford Wilson has described the experience so far as "utterly unbelievable" with dolphins and whales swimming alongside them.
"We saw dolphins at the end of the first week who stayed and played for an hour. Surfing thirty foot waves backwards. Looking at the stars at night - a million stars. And we saw a pod of whales. It's been utterly unbelievable."
Team Rollocks have also been up close with wildlife hearing the whales calling after dark with a night sky "nothing a photograph will do justice".
There are 38 international entrants with a mix of solo, doubles and team rowers.
Organisers say this is one hardest years yet, as fleet has traveled the farthest south for a race start.
It's also the year with the most Calima — dust and sand from Sahara - and that is causing some power issues as panels are not able to fully charge all batteries.
ITV West Country filmed with Oar's of Thunder during their summer training in Looe and six months before the competition rower Nathaniel Rothwell described how the team planned to celebrate Christmas on the water.
"I think we’ve decided we’ll have a little bottle of port for Christmas, as it wouldn’t be Christmas without port."
"We’ll try to get a few treats in our meal packs for the day. Christmas cake and maybe the odd mince pie if we feel like it."
If the weather is good enough the team will be trying to make contact with their families to wish them a Merry Christmas from the middle of the Atlantic.
"If it’s exceptionally good weather we might be able to to do a video call through our BGAN unit and our phones."
"Hopefully we get to say hello to everyone back at home."
Rowers will be consuming about 5000 calories per day and need to drink around 5L of water which they have to hand desalinised from the sea water.
The reason these teams pushing themselves to their limits in order to raise money for causes close to their hearts.
Invictus Atlantic hoping to raise £100,000 for the Invictus Trust to fund a mental health counselling service for 11 – 21 year olds in Cornwall.
Team Rollocks are supporting Rock 2 Recovery, Cockleshell 22-Veterans expeditions and Beat - Eating Disorder.
Oars of Thunder are raising money for the RNLI during their 200th anniversary year.