Zulu warriors at Isandlwana

or M3 do bumps...

From the man in the 'copter, Dave C, a bumps write up for the week, day by day...

Day 1. (Bump Down)

The months of prep, the icy winter outings, the endless hours of erging, the strict protein diets… it all comes down to this moment.

Following a variable row down & some interesting practice starts we coast down to the motorway bridge, narrowly avoid an embarrassing capsize in the spin then sit & watch W2 savagely mown down in front of our eyes before taking up our station.

By now we’ve come to terms with the fact that the ‘sandwich boat’ isn’t in fact an early doors retirement to the hospitality tent & that the months of prep, the icy winter outings, the endless hours of erging & the strict protein diets would probably have been handy as we’re rowing twice nightly!

Chris’ theme of the day is the Zulu warriors at Isandlwana… A long rapid march to the field of battle (a row over) followed by a swift dispatch of the enemy (the subsequent bump). So with Cetshwayo perched in the cox seat in captured colonial head dress we experienced that rising angst at the sound of the distant cannon…

…fair to say (& totally out of character), the Zulus panicked.

Chris will I’m sure forever dine out on the fact we reversed our blades & on the gun, backed ourselves rapidly through the boat behind before crashing the lock. A slanderous exaggeration but not entirely absent of truth. A reversed blade corrected, 3 air shots, a gentle crab, a huge lurch to starboard & we were off! Crabs?… the river’s been mined with lobster pots & despite weaving like the Bismarck we’re busy collecting them all!

Needless to say the half-length or more we conceded before we even remotely got our act together was entirely unaffordable. This was Rorke’s Drift... X-Press 6 were the 24th Foot, their blades crisp like coordinated volleys of rifle fire, Michael Caine in the cox seat.

The Zulus were mown down in short order & in harried disarray… & ironically, in front of the aforementioned hospitality tents.

In the later words from the trenches of the immortal Captain Blackadder…Made an entry in my diary today… simply says “Bugger”!