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The sun beamed down as we set sail from Plymouth on our mission to circumnavigate the UK, measuring for plastics and toxics in the ocean as we went.
The novice crew was excited about the adventure ahead.
But dark clouds and difficult conditions loomed.
Within hours most of us were so ill we could barely function.
I lay next to artist Deborah Maw as we both threw up repeatedly over the side of the boat, crashing through the waves, buffeted by an unrelenting wind.
Below deck it was much worse. I shall spare you the details.
Of course none of this was any surprise to our remarkable professional crew Diane, Holly and Kat, who knew the conditions were going to be bad and cheerily guided us through the worst of it until we recovered our collective dignity.
As it often does, these three days of adversity had a remarkable bonding effect on the diverse group of women.
It's a good job, because our mission was to surprise, delight and challenge us over and over again, sometimes all at the same time.
We've crossed the Irish Sea under moon-lit skies, accompanied by pods of dolphins, shooting stars and a sense of how lucky we are.
We've been really excited about getting to do science - trawling the ocean around us and gathering as much data as we can - and been saddened by the discovery of plastic nurdles and microfibres collected from our UK waters, hundreds of miles from the nearest human.
At times it seemed almost as if plastic was haunting us.
After hours of trying to figure out why our engine wasn't working, the crew discovered - of all things - a piece of plastic film blocking a filter.
Hours later we were equally dumbfounded to discover an eel stuck in a pipe nearby.
The adventure continues.
We've scraped through locks and under bridges with centimetres to spare.
We've cleaned beaches in the pouring rain and created art from other people's trash.
We've sailed in 45 knot gusts of wind and diverted entire portions of the journey to avoid the tail end of a hurricane over the Atlantic.
Nothing about this voyage has been straightforward.
But it has been tremendously rewarding, a lot of fun, and attracted a great deal of attention to this worthy cause.
Now the final leg of our journey beckons.
If the last few weeks are any indication, it is unlikely to go as planned.
But as expedition co-founder Emily Penn put it to me as we sat on a beautiful beach in Arran: rising to big, complex challenges is part of the point here.
The health of the ocean depends on it.
(SKY NEWS)
