Well it has been awhile since I’ve written a blog and now going
back on my notes to write and finish out the Leg 8 blogs. We will see how well I remember everything
from my notes! (I hope they are detailed!)
…
The first race of leg 8 (three total for this one) has us
beginning our journey on June 20, 2016.
On this race we would be crossing the Atlantic Ocean for the third time
from New York over to Northern Ireland where we end in Derry Londonderry. For all my US friends and family who have no
idea how the UK works, Northern Ireland is actually part of the UK, not
Ireland. I couldn’t go into specifics
especially when you throw in Scotland and Whales because I am still confused! So although I thought I’d get to check
another country off the list, this wasn’t actually the case… :( (Don’t worry, I got
to check Ireland off post-race!)
Anyhow, back to the race.
As with all race starts, we started with the Parade of Sails down the
Hudson River. The actual start of the
race wasn’t scheduled until 7 PM, so we had time to do a fun photo shoot with
our fancy Seattle kite. After our little
sidetrack, it was back to motoring and catch up with the other boats while
doing the refresher sails for the newbies and the MOB drill.
The race start ended up being delayed thanks to us taking so long
to get there. We had a horrible start,
last out of the fleet, but we quickly caught up with everyone. We were even in a pack with GB, Garmin, and
DaNang, going back and forth but have since fallen behind as the front came in
and now we are trying to stay as quick as possible and not lose too much
distance in between.
At some point, we were trying to take the Yankee 1 down during
heavy winds downwind, but we didn't have enough people at the bow...took us
over an hour to get the yankee down, every time we brought some in, the wind
would sweep it away again, this happened over and over again until I could no
longer use the muscles in my forearms and someone from the cockpit finally came
up to help out after numerous shouts for them to send more people up to the bow. I may have shouted some profanities to the
pit during all of this…
We’ve also been in the midst of a few lightning storms. When I
woke up this morning, I heard a huge “CRACK!” I thought someone was being shot
but was later explained that it was lightening striking something nearby. Thank goodness it wasn’t our boat!
Friday, 6/24
While Mia and Leo were on mother duty yesterday, someone must
have not put the netting back on the cereal locker causing muesli to fly out of
the cave locker, hitting Mia in the chest and splattering EVERYWHERE including
the kite that was in mid-wool. Let me
tell you, muesli + wet kite = really nas-tay!
As for the sailing, we’ve been getting really good speeds again,
averaging 14 knots, hitting good waves, almost like being back in the Pacific
but not quite. I’ve also been getting
completely soaked through to the bottom layer during torrential rain storms
lasting our complete 6 hour watch, including lightning and thunder all
around. On top of this, it is insanely
hot below still. We are wondering if
this is worse than the last leg or not, since we now have to put on layers to
go on deck instead of just going up in minimal clothing.
We managed to put together a birthday email for Hollywood
yesterday although we found out Ichorcoal had to retire from the race due to
someone being ill on the boat and needing to be brought back to land…Canada…so
he may not be having the best of birthdays :/…
Not sure where these bergs or growlers would be found, but the
water is still quite warm when we get submerged at the bow or with big waves in
the cockpit. Note, we are supposed to be
mindful of the no go zone during this race so we don’t hit any large ice
masses!
Sunday, 6/26
Today we saw a whale…well just the water spouting…that kind of
counts still, right? And even more
eventful, the UK voted out of the EU, so there is a lot of political talk on
the boat going on…I’m learning so much!
And of course, once we started catching up with the other boats,
we found our favorite, a wind hole, and then watched all the boats sail right
past us.
Wednesday, 6/29
So many sightings! ….
1) We saw lots of whales today! They were circling the boat and I was waiting
for them to swim in front of the sunrise to get the best photo. Of course, this never happened.
2) Saw a ghost 40 foot sailboat come out of the fog
behind us and then disappear again, super creepy.
3) Saw a big gas can floating in the water with
what we presume was a shark swimming around it...good thing we didn't hit it or
else we would have been blown up and swimming with the Sharks! (I mean that is
definitely what would have happened in that scenario)
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| Whales! |
The wind finally picked up after we went through a cloud and then never stopped so we finally switched from code 1 to code 2. And the best news of all, today we found out the race was
extended by 500 miles since we were sailing like bad asses and Derry decided to
not get a permit in time to house us all…”Drive it like you stole it!”
Thursday, 6/30
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| Double decker tacos!! |
#56 strikes again! Mother
duty with Karri today. Karri’s famous lasagna for lunch and double decker
tacos...oh yes, I made sure we got special ingredients for this dish, for
dinner; and a combined effort making Karri's celebration cake from home for
dessert. I’m getting really good with my
wrist action, Karri, on the other hand, is trying to channel Posh by recreating
her burns all over her body...tea burn on leg and oven burn on forearm.
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| They were supposed to be up on watch, but were so full from the tacos! |
Tino also delighted us today by writing a blog response to Justin
in reference to the race being extended.
I’m sure Clipper won’t post this but I will find a copy somewhere!!
Friday, 7/1
Today we saw a whale at happy hour as Huw was giving us the
latest news and we were all easily distracted as Karri shouted out, “Whale!”
and we all turned to look ignoring whatever it was Huw happened to be telling
us at that moment.
And AGAIN, on my watch, we saw another whale! Tino says it was a Beluga whale. I was on the
grinder and heard the sound of air being blown out by some creature so swiftly
looked over my shoulder to see a whale diving under the water, literally feet
from our boat! I saw the back and then
the tail dive down and as customary with every whale sighting, I screamed the
second I made eye contact. I apologize
for the other watch, but unfortunately this is just my initial reaction every
time I see a whale and I don't know how to stop it. Later we were discussing all the whales we've
seen on this race and Posh called it a 'glut' of whales. So this is now my new word of the day,
'glut', and I use it every chance I get…Love it a glut!
Saturday, 7/2
 |
| Celebrating pirate style! |
Happy birthday to Mia and my dear friend, July, who without her,
I wouldn’t be on this amazing race!!! We
decorated the galley with the standard ribbons and balloons. But this time, we also had stick on tattoos
and pirate patches! (Thanks mama
hobbits) Then we took random action shots of Mia with the patch on to send into
clipper…we love to race ;)
Being in the pirate mood, we had this great idea of tying Huw up
with all the spectra we had, showing us posed to attack (patches on of course) with
the whiteboard in the background stating our demands, capturing this all in a
photo and then sending to the race office. Again in response to the race
extension.
Weather has turned from sunny and nice to grey and drizzly over
the last couple of days. When we aren't
in an eternal moist, damp cloud, then we are in spitting rain. The Brits say this means we are nearing their
homeland as Mother Nature acclimatizes us back to their normal everyday
weather...I am starting to rethink this idea of moving to London...
Starting to get annoyed with Justin over this race
extension. Looks like leading boats will
barely make it in by the 7th (night of 6th is the earliest we can arrive), but
instead of calling the race then, they are going to make us finish the
extension, putting us in around the 10th...WTH!
No good reason for this, we've been at sea for over 42,000 miles now and
we don't need to tack on an extra three days to our journey for the hell of it
especially in the miserable wet and cold North Atlantic Sea!
Monday, July 4th!
First ray of sun in days yesterday morning! But it ended in an unpredicted storm. Rain for hours upon hours followed. When I came up, we dropped Yankee 1 and were
just flying under the full main and staysail.
By the end of the watch, we dropped to reef 1 and then reef 2...I was
hoping this wouldn't be the first 4th of July I ever had with
rain...Luckily we woke up to clear skies as far as rain goes, still cloudy, but
even hints of sun peeking through. It
was Bam Bam's birthday today so we sang her a birthday song for breakfast. Later in the day, we got our faces painted by
Lucy, me with the American flag for the 4th on one cheek and "I
love Emily" around the already existing fairy tattoo I had from Mia's birthday
two days prior on the other…we so clean on the boat! And we had bright pink cake for dessert later.
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| Amancio's forehead reads, "FOCUS"! appropriate and I am demonstrating my fierce "eight" face! |
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| Lucy was having fun the paints! |
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| Sparkler fun! |
Tuesday, 7/5
We are finally making our way around the extended course and just
saw Derry, LMAX and Telemed in the distance, making their way home to Derry. We’re headed towards the rock, them away.
Wednesday, 7/6
We were on our last 20 miles to Rockall (the really cool rock we
get to go around as part of the race extension), when we broached and the
halyard snapped. We had just finished
lunch, me a whole two heaping bowls of noodles full and were shouted for all
hands on deck. When I came up, the kite
was in the water, the crew pulling it in and Ana was in tears heading down the
hatch. We got the kite pulled in pretty
quickly, but unfortunately not in one piece.
The head had been ripped off.
Once we got the Yankee 1 up and things on deck sorted, I went below to
see how Ana was and check in on the kite situation. Turns out Ana had been hit in the head by the
vang and will most likely get a bad concussion and a large bump to go with
it. But she is in good spirits! As for the kite, since we only have two days
left, we won't be able to repair it in time before Derry, so Karri and I
wrestled it in the bag and are going to deal with it in port. Although we were planning on coming home with
it flying...we'll have to make due with code 3, Sweet Cheeks's favorite kite! P.S. Thanks Justin for ruining our kite!
…
That is where my notes end.
We eventually made it into Derry on the 8th with a warm
reception.
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