Salisbury woman currently rowing across the Atlantic
The team, Ace of Blades, are rowing to Antigua
A woman from Salisbury is part of an all-female team rowing 3000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
Lizz Watson is one of four women who make up the team 'Ace of Blades', who're taking part in the World's Toughest Row Atlantic 2023.
The team are rowing on behalf of four charities: Prostate Cymru, the Outward Bound Trust, Macmillan and The Charlie Waller Trust.
The team started their journey from the Canary Islands in December, after two years of preparation, and now have less than 250 miles to go.
They've been sharing rowing duties in shifts of 2 hours, working in pairs. During their off time, the team eat, sleep, relax, carry out any boat jobs and make limited amounts of communication home.
Embracing the challenge and learning new skills
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio from the Atlantic Ocean, Lizz told us it's been the most challenging thing she's ever taken on.
"The ocean has been terrifying and also incredible," she said, "We've had a mum and calf whale going under our boat, but we've also faced waves that 30 feet high."
There are many great challenges we can take on across the world, such as climbing Mount Everest or running a marathon, and rowing across the Atlantic is among one of the toughest.
Lizz told us she embraces a challenge.
"I've done marathons and things in the past and I like to have something to work towards, I like to have something on the horizon.
"I think it doesn't need to be quite as big as this was, this was huge!" she said.
Lizz told us that the preparation for their transatlantic voyage had taught her new skills, above and beyond the boat skills required for the trip, saying an enormous amount of work was needed just to get to the start line.
"I've learnt to build website and do some specific coding for it, I've got better at public speaking, I've done some design work for our sponsorship, let alone all of the boat stuff we've had to figure out."
She says taking on the challenge has pushed her to learn new things, which Lizz says, as an adult, can be hard to do at times.
It's not been completely smooth sailing for the group, they've had to battle a few issues aside from huge waves and the odd flying fish.
They've suffered a broken dagger board to their boat, which helps stabilise it, an issue with the direction-setting auto tiller, meaning they've had to steer the boat manually.
But perhaps the most worrying obstacle the team has had to overcome was a problem with their water maker, which experts hadn't encountered before.
'They helped me grow'
While the money being raised by the team is being split between each of the charities, Lizz is rowing on behalf of the Outward Bound Trust.
"I have a particular affinity with the Outward Bound Trust," she said, "We did a lot with them when I was at school and I then went on to do some big adventures with them.
"They really helped me grow as a young person and find some confidence and resilience that I didn't know I had," Lizz told us.
Lizz' parents Jeni and James Watson said: "“We are tremendously proud of the determination and teamwork shown by our daughter Lizz and her 3 teammates in team Ace of Blades who are challenging themselves by rowing 3,000 nm across the Atlantic Ocean and also raising money for 4 charities close to their hearts.”
The team hope to arrive in Antigua later this week and their progress through the final few hundred miles can be tracked online here.
We can support their challenge here.