WHAT'S EATING LANCE?

After further mechanical problems, the Earthrace boat seems to be on its way from San Diego, striking out across the Pacific. The next destination for the bio-diesel powered boat is Hawaii. The skilled camera man, Lance Wordsworth, who is providing land-based photography for a Discovery documentary on the race, tells me the crew have crammed the boat full of barrels of fuel to make sure they've enough diesel to make Hawaii. Lance shot a documentary with me in London last year, which will hopefully see the light of day soon.

It seems he's picked up some sort of parasitic infestation on his trip through Central America. This from the Earthrace captain's blog:


"Hey look what I've caught", says Lance proudly, proffering his upturned hand towards us with a single square of toilet paper on it. We all look in wonder at the tiny centipede like thing crawling around angrily on the paper."

And where exactly did you find this", says GC5 suspiciously?


Lance goes on to explain he's been seeing them in his turds for the last few weeks, and now he's finally captured one of them. He has the look of a fisherman who's finally caught a 20-pound snapper. GC5 gets out his microscope and we photo / film the amazing looking beast.


It's an aggressive little sucker, busy trying to find his way back up Lance's bottom no doubt.


Poor Lance! Now the Earthrace team have posted pictures of the wriggling critter found in Lance's poo in the hope that someone can identify what it is. I know if I found something like that coming out of me, I'd be a little concerned!

Lance's little travel companion... there's plenty more where this one came from...

Look at the head on that thing!!

I hope the trip to Hawaii is uneventful after the series of mishaps Earthrace has already experienced. The team deserve some smooth sailing. The problem is that there's still a fleeting chance of the boat beating the 60 day, round the world speed boat record. So they have to act as though it's still attainable, but push harder than they would have had to if things had gone smoothly. The conditions aren't ideal and they've a lot of ocean yet to cover. You can keep an eye on their progress at the Earthrace website