Leg 2 - Rio to Cape Town

Leg 2: Rio to Cape Town, October 7th - October 23rd, 2015

Well we are a week into Leg 2 already and this is the first time I have managed to write a blog.  Our watch system is a bit different in this leg causing us to be more "on watch" when we are on deck and we have little down time when we are off.  Or at least all I want to do is sleep during my off watch.  I have finally found some time to jot some things down...not sure what the heck is going on upstairs though...the boat is jostling all over the place!  Maybe we have finally crossed paths with this hurricane that was threatening to hit us up...

Visit Seattle in the lead!

Race start off from Rio was awesome!  We ended up in second place after take off!  Heading upwind, boat fully heeled over and getting doused in waves splashing over the bow, with all the boats behind us!  It was spectacular!  Too bad I was in crew kit instead of my racing gear because I was drenched by the end of it and my black cotton shorts are still drying a week later.  It was a rough couple of days at first with everyone getting sick right off the bat in the beating upwind conditions.  I was on mother duty already for the first day and we were having issues with our grey tank pump.  The grey tank is where all the water from the galley sink goes down.  Occasionally, or all the time rather, small bits of food slip through the drain and the grey water ends up smelling horribly.  So the result of a broken grey tank pump means the entire galley smells like death!  Add in this stench along with the upwind sailing and almost everyone was vomiting within minutes of coming down below deck.  I still have managed to keep a strong stomach during everything but that smell almost had me going.  Karri jumped in to help me in the galley since my mother parter was in bad shape and we very slowly made it through the day getting dinner ready for the boat.  Karri served up a delicious beef stew which no one ate since everyone was sick.  From now on, it will just be pasta and sauce in a jar for the first couple days of each leg, lesson learned.

After the start, we were quickly overtaken by the rest of the fleet and settled into the middle of the pack where we like it best.  We were happily sailing along for a few days when the tack line of Alexander (Code 2) got wrapped around the bow sprit, again!  All we could think is we can't break the bow sprit again!  We were going to drop the kite, but thought we might be able to jimmy the tack line off if we eased up some.  It luckily worked and we were back in action!  However, a few hours later, the halyard, holding up the head of the kite, blew and the kite went flying into the water!  This was in the middle of the night and it was pitch black with no moon or starts for light.  The only light we had was from the steaming light on the boat to make sure the spinnaker was flying okay.  We immediately centered the main but were not quick enough to heave the boat to, which resulted in the ultimate destruction to Alexander.  The boat sailed right over the kite and we were dragging it in the water as it was being pulled against the barnacled underside of the boat and the rudders.  It was all hands on deck trying to rescue the kite out of the water.  Once we finally managed to pull him on board, we saw that the entire kite had been ripped from head to clew, making the kite useless to us.  Not only was the kite ripped, but it was a jagged tear and extremely frayed.  There is no hope to repair this damage onboard so we will have to go on sailing without a code 2 and assess the damage once we get to Cape Town and can lay Alexander out to see the full extent.  The sail loft may be the only hope in saving Alexander at this point, which means serious deduction points for our team.

Poor Alexander :(

After that we flew the yankee for a bit but then switched over to Joan, Code 3.  It wasn't long before we trashed her as well.  The foot line, which creates tension in the foot of the sail, ripped out of the clew and up about halfway down the the foot of the sail.  We took her down to quickly start the repair on board.  During the stopover in Rio, I was added to the sail repair team, so Jesse, myself and a few others worked nonstop, two at a time during each watch, to repair the tear in the foot to prevent any future damage.  Jesse wanted the sail up by 0700, but the wind shifted and we have still yet to use her.  Let's hope our repair holds up though!

Jesse and I repairing the sail

The waves and wind have increased and we are getting a lot more fruity waters.  We haven't seen the sun more than five minutes a day, if that, since we left Rio and last night was the first night I have seen stars on this leg which only lasted a couple of hours.  This leg is a lot more gloomier, cloudy, and mostly wet!  It mists a lot throughout the day and various waves are constantly crashing over, meaning we are wet all the time on deck.  The wetness surprisingly isn't that bad since it isn't completely freezing yet.  The worst is at night, when it gets chillier and my hands are wet the entire time.  I have realized how much I hate having wet hands!  Last night was the first night I wore the fisherman's gloves that were recommended to buy and they sure worked well but I felt like the Michelin man with my mid layers under my jacket and puffy gloves or Randy from The Christmas Story for those familiar with the classic movie, "Ralphy, Ralphy! I can't get up!"  Good thing I have helpful crew mates who can help zipper me up!

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We just completed the ocean sprint and so much has happened!  After my last post, we wrapped Joan (Code 3) around the inner forestay...that was all the ruckus I was hearing above when I was writing before.  The kite continued to be wrapped for over a day as we made numerous attempts to send people up the mast to untangle the massive twists.  Jesse came up with multiple ideas and each failed.  He finally concocted a wrap net out of sail ties to contain the balloon in the middle of the twists.  That seemed to help a bit and then they were able to untwist the kite from the bottom or so I think...the kite was magically unwrapped when I was on another mother duty.  I thought they were joking with me, but indeed they finally succeeded in getting the kite down!  There was talk of just tightly wrapping the rest of the kite around the forestay and sailing all the way to Cape Town like that.  We thought it would have made great pictures as we came up into view!  But we will probably make it much faster and safer now that it is down.

Beginning of the wrap...

We only lost 5 positions and are now in last place because of it (said in a sarcastic tone)....urgh!  Right before the wrap, we were neck and neck with Unicef, who we could actually see out on the water as we sped pass them.  Then the kite got wrapped and they came back into view and surged pass us.  Their kite actually collapsed as it passed us and I thought the both of us might be stranded for a bit with twisted kites.  It is crazy that you actually run into the other boats in the middle of the ocean during these races!

If you look closely, you can see Unicef on the horizon.

As for the ocean sprint, we were making good head way but because of our kite wrap, we were not in an ideal position to start the sprint since it left us with much more distance to cover.  We ended up sailing into a wind hole to help get the kite down.  As such, we had to average around 12.5 knots an hour to take the lead.  We were getting great results but the wind died down overnight so we decided to bail out and head in the best direction to get to Cape Town faster.  At this point, I'm just hoping LMAX, who started 5 days after everyone due to the beaching, doesn't overtake us...sidenote, did you see that our top performing boat was beached in Rio?  Like proper beached! Classic!

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Only a few days left until we make it to Cape Town now!  The first boats are due to arrive sometime today and we are hoping to arrive on Friday.  So not our best race considering we are still currently in last place but we are slowly catching up to Unicef at a snail's pace.  We have bets going on when we will cross the finish line, winner gets a free drink from everyone...aka, winner will be smashed once we make it to the first bar in Cape Town after twenty free drinks of the buyer's choice...so I'm actually hoping not to win this one.  I'm going for a 10:23 finish time.

For the past two days we assessed and repaired the Code 3 that was wrapped around the forestay for over a day.  She surprisingly held up well with only a few minor weak spots which we were able to repair on the boat.  Karri even brought out the sewing machine for the first time to sew down the patches!  That thing is a beast!  As for the Code 2, which we ran over in the water, there isn't much we can do there in the boat, so looks like I'll be spending a lot of days in Cape Town doing sail repair if we are able to do any of the repairs ourselves...wah, wah, wah.

Today was the first day I was able to grab the Spanish flashcards Pablo made us.  In case I didn't mention this in the Leg 1 blogs, we had two Spanish gentlemen onboard who were casually teaching us some Spanish.  However, Pablo didn't think we were getting adequate lessons or phrases that would actually be useful to us, so he so kindly spent hours in Rio and made us some Spanish flashcards of useful words and phrases out of postcards!  Now I will be able to expand on the main two phrases I have learned from Amancio, "Estoy muy loca!" y "Que me mato con mi moto!"  Special thanks to Pablo for the cards!  That was so very, very thoughtful of you!  The goal by the end of the race is to be fluent in Spanish and, of course, my British accent!

So quick Leg 2 recap...

 - smashed it at race start coming in second over the start line!

 - lots of people sea sick and then other germs spreading like wildfire (I missed out, thank goodness!)

 - Code 2 head donut blows, run over kite and smash it, literally

 - Wrap code 3 for 32 hours, sail into wind hole to get her down and lose 150 miles

 - enjoy some time of non heeled boat living

 - drive through a storm with up to 69 knots of wind consistently in the 50s and get dumped on by floods of waves overboard

 - sail up to Cape Town with the most amazing sailing weather and gorgeous day!

 - drive through another wind hole as we are minutes from Cape Town, start deep clean as we wait, wind shifts...tack, tack, tack...huge mess below deck!

 - celebrations commence in Cape Town!

I'm already in love with this place!

lots of squid on deck this race...Amancio saved simwe for our paella

classic Leo photo bomb

me in my crazy fishermen gloves

living life at an angle...Steve

Jan, Amanda, and I

first glipsme of Cape Town!

this is how I get to bed...

...and then I always hit my head on the ceiling

dancing on the sails

let the celebrations commence!

Rio Baby!

End of Leg 1: Rio de Janeiro

We finally made it into Rio with a warm and welcoming reception!  We made it to the soon to be Olympic Marina de Gloria around 0800 and were welcomed with a cheering applause from friends who made the trip out and the other boats that arrived before us.  Even more spectacular, we were greeted with an ice box of cold beer and champagne from Ana's family for a toast!  We all cheered and then broke out into a sea chante of "Early in the Morning" led by a very excited Susie who was happy to finally be on dry land!  I didn't see any of the boats arriving before us, but pretty sure we were the most enthusiastic boat on arrival!

Arrival into Rio

Once the celebrations were over it was straight to maintenance work on the boat, which took most of the day and then the deep clean began...the dreaded deep clean!  At least the people working in the office didn't think we were the worst smelling boat that docked?  We finished the day around 8 pm.  By then everyone was exhausted and desperately in need of showers and drinks! 

However, what we found out throughout the course of the day is that our accommodations were a complete sham and we were not sure we had anywhere to stay for the night!  One of the oncoming leg 2 crew who had arrived the day before and staying in the apartments we booked was shocked to find the place not up to standards...as in no lock on the door, no running water, layer of filth on the floor and cockroaches!  It was too late to find other accommodations for the night so she had to tough it out, barricaded the door and slept with her diving knife in hand!  So after hearing this dreadful story that poor Amanda had to suffer through, we were all hesitant about the accommodations that were booked.  We sent out a few of the crew to meet up with the agent to check out all the apartments.  Luckily for us but not Amanda, they took her to the wrong place and all the apartments were actually in decent condition!  So finally by the time we were ready to head off the boat, we had a place to get to.

Marina de Gloria is next to a park which you can trek through to get to a main road to get taxis.  The taxi pickup at the Marina is over an hour wait to get a taxi there, so we made the decision as a group to truck it through the park where various muggings occur with all of our heavy ass luggage!  Luckily no one attempted to rob the fifteen of us making our way through the park but I heard one of the skippers had an attempted mugging at some point during the stopover but instead of giving him anything, he just pulled out his diving knife and scared the mugger away!  These diving knives really come in handy, I need to start carrying mine around more often!

So we finally make it back to our apartment, which was massive!  There were five of us staying in the apartment I was in, Leo, John, Lucy, Jan, and I.  It had four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a kitchen area with W/D, and a large living area and dinning room, perfect for all of us to get our separate space in!  I was dying to shower, so I immediately headed for the shower opposite my bedroom to get clean.  I have all my wash kit set up ready to go and as I go to shut the glass sliding door, it shatters everywhere all over me!  I immediately shout for Lucy to come to my rescue who happened to be our medic on the boat (her job is never done).  I also had Jan and Amanda in the apartment at the time who are medics as well on the boat, so I was certainly covered in terms of medical assistance!  Jan was outside my door when I shouted for Lucy so he repeats my cry for help followed with an "I can't go in there, she's naked!"  Although, I had already grabbed a towel that was luckily hanging next to me at this point.  Then Amanda shouts back, "Is she conscious?!"  Which Lucy smartly replies with, "Well she wouldn't be asking for help if she wasn't conscious!"  Lucy makes her way back and finds me in a pile of shattered glass with blood oozing from my thumb and toes.  She lays a towel down for me to walk over and takes me to the next bathroom to assess the situation.  

The damage, bathroom floor already swept up at this point

Luckily I had only minor cuts and nothing serious. After she cleaned and bandaged me up, we were all now down to two showers between the five of us to quickly shower and get ready before we were due to meet up with the rest of the crew for some Brazilian BBQ and drinks!

Our Brazilian spread

Espresso martini...my life will forever be changed!

We finally made our way out looking like new people freshly cleaned and showered and one shade lighter after washing all the built up dirt off of us.  We met at this great champagne bar which soon became our new meet up/hang out destination then made our way next door where we stuffed our faces with an amazing selection of Brazilian meats!  It was a long night and I think we finally made it home around 4 am, had a quick nap and then it was back to the Marina early in the morning to finish our deep clean and maintenance work.  

The rest of the days were a blur with a lot of boat work and some drinks here and there but no crazy long nights.  There was also a crew party thrown in there somewhere with more delicious barbecued meats and food.  I also worked a corporate sail, where we take out local officials for a quick day sail.  I was told the people would just be the owners of the Marina, etc.  However, what I came to find out afterwards, which Huw failed to mention to us as he came back with the crew, was that we were carrying one of the most famous Brazilian Olympic athletes on board with us!  Torbyn XXX, winner of several Olympic medals and past Volvo Ocean race skipper, basically the guy knows all there is to know about sailing.  So as we are sailing, we went to tack and there wasn't enough wind for the yankee to cross over so Torbyn goes to pull it around in front of the winch.  All I can think is safety first and what if the sheet goes flying out of his hands and gives him rope burn.  So I nicely tell him, oh you probably shouldn't touch that rope...having no idea who I am talking to!  He was polite and dropped the sheet.  I was mortified when I found out who he actually was!!!  There was also a Rugby Tournament between the teams scheduled after that but got rained out so we went to a pub instead!

Rando photo of me cleaning my feet in the sink...standard

We had our first official day off on Monday.  We must have gone out the night before because I remember waking up very tired, but I was on a mission to find some kind of salon to get pampered first thing in the morning before everyone woke up so I could meet up with them later.  Ana came with me, then I headed back for what I thought would be a quick snooze since she had another Clipper event to attend.  I quickly passed out and found the apartment empty when I finally woke up around 1.  Jan and Leo were off sight seeing and had left a note for us to meet them in the afternoon in Santa Teresa.  Since John wasn't mentioned, I did a scavenger hunt for him in the apartment and found him still snoozing in his room!  Granted I had just woken up but that was after being out earlier...what a slacker!  So I conjured him up to go with me to meet the other guys.  

Exploring Santa Teresa

Monkeys!

This guy is just walking his cable car, no big deal...

Num, num, num!

We finally made our way over to the famous stairs in Santa Teresa and walked right into Jan and Leo!  We explored the little streets in the area and then stopped for some drinks and food near the tram stop.  We were hoping to jump on the tram and see the sights but it apparently closes at 4 pm, so instead we kept walking down the street in the opposite direction and found where all the remaining pubs were!  We found an awesome little pub up some steps which we parked for a good portion of the night and where I had my first affogato...an espresso with ice cream, the best of so many worlds!  We were having such an enjoyable time that we convinced the rest of the crew to meet up with us in Santa Teresa and hang out there for the night.  We continued our journey on to the next pub where we met up with everyone else, had a blast, and then of course found some random hole in the wall to go dancing at...awesome night!

Afagotto!!!

We are obsessed with dessert :)

Jesse and I practicing our fish faces

We also had Tuesday morning off before our Leg 2 debrief in the afternoon.  I had plans to meet up with two of the new leggers and go hang gliding, but the previous nights activities kept me in bed longer than expected.  Instead, John, Leo and I headed up to visit the Christ Redeemer statute.  We missed the train, so took various shady vans up to the top...not ideal in the state we were in...but we made it none the less!  There were some awesome views up on top and that was another thing checked off my list.  We made it back just in time for the Leg 2 briefing.  After that it was a team debrief, then we all parted ways to repack for the race start on the next day before we met up one last time as a team with leg 1 and 2 crew.  We met at our favorite champagne bar again and had Brazilian BBQ for the last time.  It was a shorter night since we had to be up early and on our A game for race start!

Copa, Copacabanaaa!

Bathtub of champagne, need I say more?

Leg 1 and 2 crew final meal together!

This certainly wasn't the same experience I usually have when I travel, since I was really there working instead of sight seeing, but at least I got to see some of the sights!  We have so many plans for Cape Town including Shark diving, wine tasting, safaris, Table Mountain, the list goes on....so we basically better smash it on leg 2 so we have time for everything!