Here I am sitting in bed in St Ives drinking my first tea of the day and writing my first blog post of the trip.

I'm clean, the bumps and bruises are all tended to and I feel calm. Well, not calm exactly but less apprehensive.

The last two weeks has been everything I had expected plus so much more. The toughest bit has been acclimatising to everyday life on board our beautiful 8m Lionheart. Moving around is awkward and often treacherous. The simplest task takes forever. I was sea-sick for the first week and with it came the realisation that I couldn't just jump ashore and hop into bed. Not pleasant; but you have to get on with it.

There have been brilliant times too. My favourite moment so far was my two-hour shift along the final part of the south coast to Land's End...

We had decided to anchor overnight in the tiny cove of Lamorna before taking on the mighty Land's End, and we had to get to Lamorna fast to beat the tide. I rowed my shift as hard as I could. The sunset was breathtaking, the sea (amazingly) was glassy calm, the stars were coming out and there was not a soul in sight... just a few sparkling dots on the shoreline. And to top it all, we had our on-deck speaker playing classical music - Land of Hope and Glory, The Ride of the Valkeries - two hours of the most inspirational music it is possible to listen to. It was a very emotional session. Later, we crept carefully into tiny Lamorna and inched our way towards a mooring spot with only the starlight to help us. It was uncharted territory; we felt as though we were part of Swallows and Amazons. Magic!

However, back to the job in hand: second cup of tea, shower then wade to the boat for 9.30am departure. Dublin here we come!