Leg 1: London to Rio - Week 4 On

Leg 1: Week 4, September 21st - 27th, 2015

Day 22: Monday, September 21, 2015

Mother watch again today for me.  At least this should be my last one before we get to Rio...hurray!  This is by far the hardest job on the boat.  I'm hoping during the other legs it won't be as miserable with cooler temperatures down below.  But it is really unbearable cooking in front of a hot stove in foulies and then juggling it all at 30-45 degree angle!

Day 23: Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Tack, tack, tack! Upwind we make our way to Rio trying to find the best wind angle.

We are slowly approaching the equator!  I knew there was a ceremony involved but what I didn't know is that everyone is put on trial in front of Neptune and tried for their crimes.  The accused is always found guilty and punished for their crimes in the form of food or fish guts thrown all over them and occasionally tributes are made in the form hair cutting, etc.  Another token you get for crossing the equator in a boat is that you join the exclusive club of being a shellback.  And therefore, you are eligible to get a turtle tattoo!  At the moment, I am still gunho about this, but when push comes to shove, not sure I'll actually go through with it.  I've decided I should pick out the turtle I want now and that way if we happen to go through with it after a late night of drinking, at least I will have had a say in which one I got...seems practical, right?

I am very excited to find out what crime I've committed and everyone else on board.  We were hoping to get there this afternoon but it is looking like it will be later in the wee hours of the morning, so hopefully tomorrow I will have something to report back on!

Day 24: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - EQUATOR CROSSING!!!!

Today we made it past the equator!  It was technically around 10:49 pm the previous night.  It was during my watch and we had a countdown going, the anticipation was high!  We woke up the other watch a few minutes before so they could come up and celebrate with us.  I set up shop next to the compass and had Leo snap a shot of me almost right on the zero mark, ended up being at .001, so pretty good.  Although he was more focused on the compass and I was chopped out slightly.  After the celebration, I drew turtles on everyone with permanent markers signifying we were now part of the Shellback exclusive club!

Since we passed in the evening, we decided to save the real celebrations until the next day when it was light out.  During our watch changeover, we had a visit from Neptune himself!  Skipper appropriately donned the Neptune costume wearing a white garb with a long beard, a crown and carrying his boat hook.  He called us each forward to try us for our crimes.  I was charged with being too gullible and believing in the 3-legged haggis and for being overly concerned about being in constant collision courses with volcanos and boats!  We were each doused in a mixture of baked beans, gherkin juice, coffee grounds, TVP minced vegetable sloth, quinoa, and salt water as punishment for our crimes.

Hearing my crimes...

And taking the punishment!

The punishment left quite a mess up on deck, so it was all hands in cleaning the deck again.  The only way to get this gooey mixture completely gone was to get out the fire hose.  After finally getting it unravelled (this thing would not be handy in a real emergency situation!), we sprayed down the deck and then sprayed down all the crew members.  All and all was a great experience and that Shellback tattoo is looking more and more appealing...especially since my sharpie tattoo only lasted two days.  I think salt water is the magical solution to getting permanent marker off the skin.

Day 25: Thursday, September 24, 2015

We are officially taking part in the ocean sprint as of last night.  Weather was forecasted to give us good winds and although it takes us slightly off course from Rio, we thought it would be worth a shot!  So far, we've had strong winds and are making excellent time!  Our real worry is Telemed behind us which could use a spinnaker to beat our time.  We will just have to keep smashing it and hope that our time is good enough!

Today we discovered we had cheerios in our cereal selection!  And not just the original but honey nut flavored ones!  I never eat cheerios, but what a pleasant surprise they were.  We chowed down 2-3 bowls each for our afternoon snack.  Never had cheerios tasted so good!

Speaking of never eating certain foods, I have now become a chocolate addict!  Our watch leader, John, spoils us and brings us a bar of Cadburys chocolate for every night watch.  I anxiously await the chocolate and now I want chocolate after every meal.  Hopefully these cravings go away when I am back on dry land eating my usual food...we shall see!

Day 26: Friday, September 25, 2015

We smashed it in the ocean race!  Beating the contender by around 55 minutes or so we have estimated.  The results will not come out until later so we can only go off the schedule reports we receive.  We are in high spirits now but Telemed can still knock our time out of the water since they are right on our heels and sailing with the same wind we had.  We can only hope the wind dies shortly after it passes us!

We now only have about 4-5 days to Rio!  I can't believe this leg is almost over.  It has gone by so quickly and I'm sure the next couple of days will pass even quicker.  We have a countdown until the days we can have a nice cold beer again!  I am not much of a drinker but a nice cold beer just sounds absolutely amazing!

We will have to be on our A game the next couple of days so that Telemed doesn't slip pass us.  We still have a broken bow sprit and it is now barely hanging on after all the upwind sailing.  So we'll have to make up as much time while we can sail upwind because the other boats will pounce all over us once we start going downwind into Rio.  Hopefully, we have gained enough mileage between the other boats these past couple of days to secure our 7th place position!

Day 27: Saturday, September 26, 2015

The crew has now learned the effects espresso has on me.  Our boat is amazingly stocked with a nepresso maker so when the generator is on, we can actually have some decent coffee!  I happened to have an espresso this morning before my shift.  It was a good one...I was in crazy caffeinated spirits in no time!  Once on the helm, I was told I could put my music on and that was the downfall of any good helming I was capable of.  I was dancing and enjoying myself and the boat was steering 30-40 degrees off course?  I was quickly reminded to focus and keep my course.  I am no longer allowed to have espresso and music on while I helm...hehe

Telemed is quickly gaining on us and there is nothing we can do with only our white sails.  We have finally decided we've had enough of this and are going to attempt to rig an alternate tack line off the mooring cleat on the bow to try and hoist Helena (code 1 spinnaker).  After much careful thought and discussion, Huw has managed to put something together and we gave it a go.  It worked!  Helena was successfully hoisted!  However, with all the strain on the mooring cleat, we cannot use Helena as she is intended to be used with trimming.  We can only go off the helm and keep her afloat.  We are hoping to gain at least a knot with this, but it is hard to tell if this is helping at all.  It does lift the spirits of the crew that we are trying to go faster and who else can say they hoisted a spinnaker with a broken bow sprit!  Oh yeah...rockstars!  #nobowsprit

Day 28: Sunday, September 27, 2015

Flying fish are curious things.  They look quite nifty in the water flying vast distances with their little fish bodies and wings.  Usually they are in large swarms flying in and out of the water.  However, at night, it is a different story...they become rapturous flying objects, taking out any unsuspecting victim in their way!  On numerous accounts, people have been caught off guard and smacked by these vile creatures.  Once on deck, they flip flop all over the place and reek of fishy smelling ickiness!  They have become less prevalent now but in the first and second weeks, we would find little fish bodies all over once daylight broke.  After the fish came the flying squid!  These bad boys don't actually fly, they just land up on deck with the waves that crash over and then ink all over our deck!  Amancio was considering making some squid ink pasta with these, but don't think these are the same kind they use in restaurants...

We've now managed to keep Helena up for over 24 hours, which we didn't expect.  The plan was to keep this up until the wind direction shifted; however, the wind picked up in the middle of the night and after a minor broach (the boom slightly tipping into the water), it was time to take Helena down.  During the process, the tack line went flying, slipping through the hands our of crew.  Karri was the last one holding on.  The force of the pull, ripped through her hands and tossed her backward, knocking her head on the sail in the process.  She went downstairs quickly but she still continued to try and help get the kite down.   I insisted she sit down.  She was very persistent at first but when she realized the pain she was in, she finally went to get our medic on board.  She ended up with numerous blisters on her hands and will probably get a good bruise on her head.  We are hoping her hand will heal quickly and the pain subsides.

Day 29: Monday, September 28, 2015

I've been on the lookout for whales now for weeks.  All the sea creatures have vanished minus the flying fish.  We haven't even seen dolphins recently!  Everyday while I'm on watch, I patiently look out at the horizon in search of whales and find nothing.  However, today as I was at the helm, some appeared directly in front of us!  Directly, as in I was about to crash into the whales, in front of us!  I immediately yelled for Tino to take over the helm so I could gaze at the whales.  Thank goodness he took over because I surely would have steered us directly into the whales had I still been behind the wheel!  The whales were at our bow and then passed us on our port side.  There were three of them, two with a little baby one!  They were so close we could have touched them with our boat hook had we tried!  Although this was very exciting, I'm still waiting to get a glimpse of a whale jumping out of the water or a tail splashing about!  Within minutes of the whale sighting, dolphins came up!  And there were little baby ones too!  Either that or the dolphins in the Southern Hemisphere are much smaller.  The lesson I learned from this experience is that I should clearly helm more as the wildlife flock to me when I'm on the helm!

Day 30: Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The days continue to tick by and we are very, very slowly itching our way to Rio.  Every day during our story time happy hour (when the watch switches at dinner time), we are told another day is added until we make it to Rio.  Will we ever make it at this point!  We are nearing a shutdown as we come inshore meaning there will be no wind.  This could stop us from progressing for 1-2 days!  We are so close to the finish line, we can smell the land and we are stuck out at sea with no wind!  The taste of sweet beer is palpable and yet so far away...

Day 31: Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Another day passes and we are still out at sea.  There are a lot more boats and birds now, so that must be a good sign that we are closer!  Only problem is there is no wind!  I've just been informed we have about 75 miles to go, so we are estimating we will make it to the finish line between midnight and midday tomorrow!  Woowho!  Unfortunately, since it has taken us so long, it will be straight into full days of maintenance and preparations for Leg 2 before we get any downtime and relaxation.  Hopefully we will get at least a half day to see the sights in Rio???  I'm also on mother duty again tomorrow, so really hoping we make it to Rio sooner rather than later!  On the plis side, we saw a shit ton of whales today and a sea turtle!!! 

Day 32: Thursday, October 1, 2015

Well since we got stuck in the shutdown for so darn long, they decided to call the race and we were allowed to start motoring at midnight.  I have mixed feelings about this.  On the upside, we are finally making it to Rio!  However, on the downside we were so close to finishing so not as fun motoring across instead of sailing.  The crew was very excited to have a set date of getting in instead of getting more days tacked on.  

We finally made it into Rio this morning around 8 am with an applause from the other boats and a cooler of beer waiting for us!  It was great to finally be on dry land and see the outline of Rio waiting to be explored!  I can't wait to see the sites in Rio but I know we have a lot of work ahead of us and not much time left so we will have to make the most of it!  

Leg 2, Rio to Cape Town departs next Wednesday, October 7th!

more pics...

Our crew calendar countdown.  You'll notice tax day is approriately marked.

This is how we live below deck during upwind sailing...here Huw is mastering the art of pouring cereal.

Karri and Jesse after the first sail repair.

Another sunset or sunrise?

Leg 1: London to Rio - Week 3

Leg 1, Week 3: September 14th - September 21st

Well I can't seem to find my gopro (for those that know me well, it is currently lost, but I'm sure it is hiding on the boat somewhere) so missing most of my photos.  Will have to add more in later.  Posting everything else for now while I still have wifi! Enjoy...

Day 15: Monday, September 14, 2015

Now that we are only sailing with the yankee up instead of the spinnaker, there isn't as much to do up on deck.  With the spinnaker, one person has to helm, one person trimming, and one to two people on the grinder.  With the yankee, you basically just need the helm and check the trimming of the sails.  The days are starting to get hotter and more humid.  So it is hard to stay up on deck not doing much and trying to find little bits of shade provided by the mast or the helm.  Below deck is even worse.  The heat cannot escape and trying to sleep at any point of the day is a struggle since it is so hot.  The bunk I was assigned is an inside coffin bunk.  Basically, it is blocked from getting any fresh air from the small hatches we have in the bunk corridor and it gets warmed by the heat produced by the generator.  My new way of sleeping involves lifting my mattress up against the wall so I am just laying on the canvas thin layer, and I am half in my bunk and half laying out of it to try and get any fresh air passing through the area.  I still end up in a pool of sweat with my feeble attempts to stay cool.  During the day, I just nap up on deck once the sun sets enough for the sails to start providing some shade or read a book up on deck.  Currently reading "Unbroken" compliments of David Wang.  So far a great read! 

When we go up for our night watch we are damp with sweat and then stay clammy in the moist, humid air up on deck.  It is still warm, but the temperature cools off significantly.  I tend to get cold up on deck still when the breeze hits my clothes that have yet to dry completely.  Although the day and night conditions are not ideal, I think these conditions will still be a hundred percent better than when I am freezing my ass off on the other legs!

Day 16: Tuesday, September 15, 2015 - Happy tax filing day!

The other boats are slowly starting to catch up with us.  We luckily started with a good 200 mile lead and are hoping to stay in front of the end lot long enough for the wind to shift to where our current sail plan will be the favorable one going upwind.  We'll see how long we can hold out and if the next set of islands shakes up the fleet again.

Another day of not doing much during the watch today and no one really gets my excitement of it being 9/15 today!  We've been practicing our knots onboard and I decided to make myself a bracelet with the new knot knowledge I learned!  Exciting stuff!  Ahhh!  Just as I was writing this, another set of whales passed by!  These two were literally right next to our boat!  We got a few quick glimpses of their backs before they were gone from view.  Still quite fun!  Ana also saw a sea turtle yesterday but I missed that one...bummer!

Day 17 - 20: Wednesday - Saturday, Sept. 16 - 19, 2015

I've missed a few days since too hot to function recently, so just going to combine what I remember from the last few days.  We finally reached the doldrums corridor so that means we are now motoring for 60 hours.  As such, not much sailing to do and just need one person on the helm making sure we are headed in the right direction still.

Classic starfish sleeping position #toohottosleepinbunk

Let's see, what has happened the last couple of days...crazy squalls, ocean swimming, and cleaning!  The doldrums are known for being very windless and warm with sudden squalls or heavy winds with rain on occasion.  As we reached the doldrums, we hit our first squall.  This was before we started motoring, so you have to be on your A game and be ready to drop the yankee and reef the main at a moments notice as the heavy wind can tear through the sails.  The first squall we hit, didn't have much wind but had lots of fresh rain!  As one would expect, it was all crew on deck bathing in the glorious fresh water!  I was on watch during the sudden squall, so I just managed to get soaked from head to toe in my clothes.  I had to go down below eventually to change since I was shivering and our doctor on board says getting a cold from being in cold weather is not a myth...who knew!  After playing in the rain for about 10 minutes, it gets chilly and old quickly, so everyone was below shortly after getting our floorboards all nice and wet!

After that we had some more proper squalls where we did drop the yankee to be safe.  But nothing too crazy has happened yet during a squall.  I heard one of the other boats were knocked over during a squall as they were going through.  These boats always right themselves, so no harm done, probably just a lot of people and things flying about below deck.

Yesterday, as we were cruising around all huddled under the boom for shade, the only shade left now that the sails are down, I asked Huw when we get to go swimming.  He replied, well we can just turn the engine off and go now.  I thought he was joking with me since we were in a race and we can't just stop the boat!  However, since we are on motor there is actually time to stop and take a break and then catch up again...sweet!  So five minutes later, we had the very lavish scramble net rigged to the back of the boat ready for us to jump in and climb back on board!  This was a much needed break from the hot sun and everyone enjoyed swimming laps around the boat or just floating next to the fender that was tossed out.  The boat is quite luminous as you go around it, so have to give it a wide berth so it doesn't drift over you as you swim around.  And we had some adventurous folks doing crazy jumps off the bow, even Chris was reliving his heyday showing off the youngsters with his perfect dives!  

After our swim, we attempted to wash up some.  One unexpectant crew mate learned she had formed a dreadlock!  I suppose that would be the result after not brushing out your braid and then going swimming in salt water.  Karri spent over an hour trying to detangle the mess but there was really no hope so she eventually had to chop bits out of it.  We are saving the chunk for Neptune so Emily can pay tribute with the hair she has already lost out at sea.  This is precisely the reason I hacked my hair off before this trip.  I was convinced I was going to get dreadlocks!

The infamous dreadlock that Karri is removing with her sailing knife!

And especially for July...I am actually getting a tan!  I probably haven't been this dark since college when I had time to lay out everyday in sun.  It is however only from my mid-thigh to my knees and only the front of my legs and then we all have crazy life jacket tans.  Lots of people with the life jacket burnt on to their back when they fall asleep in the sun and forget to put sunscreen on.  Otherwise, Lucy keeps us in check and makes sure we are all lathered up and drinking plenty of liquids!

Since the first day in the doldrums, we took it easy being lethargic and swimming, today was spent being more productive and doing a semi deep clean of the boat while we still had smooth waters.  Once we exit the doldrums, it will be upwind sailing to Rio, which means lots of beating against the waves, instead of smoother downwind sailing and also means lots of people will be getting sick again...oh joy!  After I got an extended sleep since only had to be on watch for two hours last night (amazeballs!), I was up and helping the other watch deep clean the bilges.  During the deep clean, we remove all the floor boards of the boat and send them up on deck to get a proper scrub down, then we sponge clean the bilges until they are glistening!  We had a quick lunch break then I was up on deck scrubbing the floor boards from the other half of the boat with my watch.  We also hung all the foulies out to destank and dry.  Now our boat is so fresh and so clean, clean! 

I also finally received the latest news that my new niece was born at a healthy 7 pounds, 7 ounces on Friday I presume!  Another girl to round out the first boy and other two girls my sister already has, this being her fourth.  She was named Evelyn Theresa.  I presume Theresa is after my grandma but not sure where Evelyn comes from.  I'm guessing we will call her Eve, very cute!  Now there is Emily, Ellie, and Eve...they will never know who's name is whose since we will undoubtedly never get it right, the same way Brett and Ben are interchangeable :)  Poor Ben though, I'm guessing he may have cried when he found out he had another sister and not a little brother!  Can't wait to meet her, so sad I have to wait until April!

Tomorrow will be sails up again and the beating begins at 9:30 AM!

Day 21: Sunday, September 20, 2015

Rain, rain, go away!  It has been raining all day today.  Guess I can't complain since it hasn't rained much since the first couple of days.  But sitting up on deck during constant rain is oh so fun!  Today was the first day we had sails up since motoring through the doldrums.  We started smashing it with 10 knots, then the wind died after 5 minutes and it was tack, tack, tack, to try and get a better position to the wind.  All in all, we didn't smash it so much after the motor turned off.  We're estimating about another 10 days until we make it to Rio...

Some random photos:

Leg 1: London to Rio - Week 2

Leg 1, Week 2: September 7th - September 13th

Day 8: Monday, September 7, 2015

Yesterday was a quiet day, another windless day for our watch.  So there was more time for questions and boat repair.  We made some sail ties, repaired our preventers and basked in the warm sun.  Huw was also on deck for a bit, so I got a chance to start my 40 questions with him.  It is amazing how much you learn about people with only a few questions...okay perhaps I dive into the more personal ones to soon, but still fun.  I let him pass on a couple.  I'll revisit those ones in later legs.

Today, our Victualer was on mother watch for the day.  What a treat we were in store for!  Pretty sure we have the most amazing victualer and food on our boat.  We would definitely win first prize for that if it was a category.  For dinner, Amancio made us a four course meal!  Who knew that was possible on a 70' boat with a tiny galley.  Our first course was leak and potato soup, then paella with shrimp (Amancio is from Spain :D), then a wonderful beef stew, and he rounded up the meal with banana pudding amazingness!  I was so thankful to be off watch after this meal so I could just roll into my bunk afterwards!  Jesse was maybe not as please with the amount of dishes he had to clean up after since he was on mother watch with Amancio.

Paella, stew, and banana yumminess!

Day 9: Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Today was "Just because day" on our boat so we celebrated just because.  We had delicious banana bread with some amazing sugary frosting compliments of Ana after our lunch meal and another delicious marble chocolate/white cake for midnight snacks...I'm starting to get a ridiculous sweet tooth!  These British folks are all about the sweets and chocolate!  I normally decline, but it gets really hard when everyone is eating yummy biscuits and chocolate around you!

It was another warm, easy going day on deck.  So when I announced that I was bored and wanted to play a game, I was tasked with washing down the deck!  Although I found it quite enjoyable as I am a bit of a clean freak, after doing the starboard side, I was a bit tired and hot so the port wash wasn't as good, but decks looked awesome once I was done with them!  They were dirty about 10 minutes later after someone's drink spilled...at least I tried.

Day 10: Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Coming off the watch this morning, we got the code 2, now appropriately named, Alexander the Great (Code 1 is Helena after Helen of Troy and Code 3 is Joan of Arc), wrapped around the front forestay, this took about an hour for the crew to unwrap, leaving us at least 10 miles in the dust.  Although, John was supposed to be asleep after coming off mother duty, he was happy to finally be able to go up the rig.  As I was going down after 3 off-watches of no sleep, I was out for the count and missed the whole thing, but I'm sure it is on film somewhere.  I was glad to learn when I woke up that Alexander had been untwisted and was undamaged.

Part of our daily watch duties includes cleaning the heads and emptying the bilges (cleaning bathrooms and sponging water out of the bottom of the boat to keep from weighing us down).  In the heads, we have biodegradable bin bags to put the toilet paper in, which we then toss over into the sea once full.  This keeps the trash in the lazarette low and also keeps the smell in the laz abated somewhat.  It was Pablo's turn on the heads today and he passed up the bins to be tossed over to John.  John tossed the bin over, however, he did it on the windward side rather than the leeward side.  In other words, he tossed the bin into the wind and dirty, used toilet paper was thrown all over the boat deck!  Lovely...good lesson learned, always toss out the bins on the leeward side!

Day 11: Thursday, September 10, 2015

Everything that could have wrong today has happened.  Not necessarily in a death defying way, but just with our sails and we managed to go through three spinnakers back to back to back.  First we messed up a peel with the spinnaker sheets, so had to take that one down.  Then with our second kite, the halyard donut blew, so we lost the kite in the water.  All hands on deck lifting it out of the water.  Luckily we had control of the tack and clew so didn't completely lose it.  I have to say it looked pretty cool floating under the blue water though!  I'll have to try and find a picture of this.  Since it was the halyard that snapped, we had to send our rig monkey, John, up the mast to retrieve the end of the line.  Then with the third kite we hoisted, we managed to mess up the gybe when the spinnaker sheets got tangled with the tripping line.  So our crew below deck had to wool three kites in a row!  Imagine being in a sauna with sheets piled up all around you, trying to twist the edges into a straight line as they come together...not the best place to be!

However, that was not the end of the fun!  We were in for a fun night with heavy winds and choppy water going through the channel of the Canary Islands.  Huw was on deck most of the night helping with helming since it required a bit of skill to handle, which our amateur crew is still new to.  I noticed when I was up on deck during the night watch that the lazy spinnaker sheet was unusually floppy, but didn't think much of it.  Turns out once the sun came up, our lazy spinnaker sheet had wrapped around the active sheet and created a huge knot!  Again, John had to suit up, and crawl down the boom to fix the knot instead of getting to go to bed after his night watch.

Day 12: Friday, September 11, 2015

Today I was on mother duty again.  This time, my partner in crime, Suzie, was in high spirits and was able to help all day!  The job isn't any easier but so much nicer to have someone to chat with throughout the day.  Our meals included cereal and toast for breakfast, nice and easy.  For toast, we have a large saucepan and use that to brown the sides of the bread.  However, we have sadly run out of peanut butter already and no more fresh fruit anymore, did I mention that already?  Such a shame!  Our stove is in need of some love and affection.  The main center burner doesn't stay on, so we have to rig a can and wedge it between the button and the rail to keep the gas on.  We are very MacGyver-ish on this boat!

For lunch, we made patatas bravas with chorizo which is parboiled potatoes, then roasted in the oven with chorizo.  A tomato sauce with chorizo, garlic and onions is made in a pan and dished over the top of the potatoes and chorizo.  Very lovely.  After clean up, it is on to the next meal.  For dinner we started with an appetizer of asparagus soup, then we made one of my favorite British dishes, bangers and mash or smash in our case which is instant mashed potatoes, with sautéed onions and gravy.  Made with the correct portion of milk, butter and seasoning, smash still tastes pretty good.  And to top off the evening, we made some white cake.  However, since the boat tilts, it makes it hard to cook the cake evenly.  As such, the very flat side that cooked up crispier like a cookie, I crushed it up to make as a crunchy topping, tasted like crumbly vanilla wafers!  Then to serve it all up, we had a layer of cake, with a heaping portion of warmed up custard pored on top with a sprinkling of crushed vanilla wafer bits.  Huw and I even made little parfaits, layer of cake, layer of custard, layer of cake, layer of custard and sprinkled bits on top...delish!  The mound of dishes we had after this meal was no small feat to clean up after!

On top of the constant cooking and cleaning in the galley during mother watch, the worst bit is the heat!  It is already very hot below deck with 21 bodies living down here, but add a hot stove and foulies and you are literally roasting!  Wearing the bottom half of he foulies and boots in the galley is required when cooking in case boiling hot water or knives fall on you...just an extra layer of protection when the boat goes a rockin!  However, with the extra layers and heat, I felt like I was in a bikrum yoga class during every meal we prepped with sweat poring out of every pore of my body!  I now understand the reasoning behind getting a "shower" after mother watch.

Day 13: Saturday, September 12, 2015

Last night, we decided to switch up the watch system and times starting today.  Previously, our watches consisted of two six hour shifts during the day and then three four hour ones at night.  So it would be on watch from 7 am to 1 pm, off from 1 pm to 7 pm, on from 7 pm to 11 pm, off from 11 pm to 3 am, then on again from 3 am to 7 am and then you are on and off for the reverse times as the day before the following day.  With the new system with the days becoming very warm, we are switching to have the longer shifts at night.  So the new times will be 7 am to 11 am, 11 am to 3 pm, 3 pm to 7 pm, then 7 pm to 1 am and 1 am to 7 am.  So far the shift during the day is very welcomed especially now that we have our wind vortex set up below deck.  Our handy crew on board have set up a fan in the galley faced back towards the bunks on the starboard side, then another fan in the back of the bunks on the port side faced towards the galley creating a wind vortex throughout the boat below deck!  Not an extremely strong one but definitely way better than just roasting in the heat down below.

In addition to the time changes, we are going to start slowly switching up the watches.  Once you do your mother watch, which consists of a person from each watch, they will switch watches and join the other watch after their full nights rest.  For instance, Andrew and Sean are mothers tomorrow, so Andrew who is on my watch on the starboard side, will join forces with the port watch and then Sean will join our watch the next day.  I can't say that I'm thrilled about shifting the watches around only because everyone in our watch is awesome!  But, on the other hand, this gives me more people to drill for my 40 question interrogations!  Not to mention, I'm sure everyone on port watch is just as awesome as our team, so will be great to get to know them more beyond just hanging out between shifts!

Leo trying to photo bomb my pic but I got him back!

It has recently come to my attention, that I've been hearing some "stories" during my 40 questions sessions!  One of the questions I have asked about is a person's favorite meal.  During my chat with John, he told me about haggis which is a typical Scottish dish.  My next question was obviously, what is haggis?  To which John explained that it is a three legged creature that roams the mountains in Scotland where John is from.  I had no reason not to believe this was true, which it is not.  And everyone else partaking in the discussion didn't bat one eye even though they all knew he was making it up.  Apparently, this is a common thing to make up some version of what haggis is.  In reality, it is just a sausage with random parts of animal mixed into it.  Sounds just like what we call a hot dog in the states, right?  It has randomly come up in discussion since and I slowly caught on that everyone was in on this false definition of haggis!  Don't worry, I'm working on something to get back at John, he'll never see it coming!

Day 14: Sunday, September 13, 2015

Today marks two weeks out on the boat!  And I've only just remembered my poor old coworkers are probably suffering miserably this weekend!  Tax day is Tuesday, so last weekend to get it all completed and I'm sure there is inevitably one federal return which hasn't been finalized yet! haha...sorry guys, can't say I'm missing that while I'm chillin on the boat in sunny, breezy conditions every day :D.  

Today we lost hopes of making a podium position.  While flying Alexander, I believe it was, our tack line must have gotten tangled and released.  We have rigged an extra line to the tack line over the mast to help us when dropping the sails and pulling the tack line in faster.  When the tack line blew, the new line was still attached to the bow sprit of the boat and was the only thing holding the sail from going flying.  We managed to drop the sail successfully; however, as we went to prepare to hoist another sail, we noticed major damage had happened in the process of dropping the sail.  The line had wrapped around the bow sprit, pulling it down towards the water instead of pulling up, which is what the bow sprit is meant to handle.  As a result, the bow sprit essentially snapped and left a huge crack making the bow sprit useless to us.  This means we can no longer fly any of our spinnakers which are the kites that get us the most speed.  We are now forced to sail with our main, staysail, and yankee up.  We are able to keep up to an average of 10 knots if we are lucky; however, the other boats behind us will slowly start catching up to us and we will have no hopes of overtaking any boats in front of us now.  The new game plan is just to sail as fast as we can with this sail plan and stay in sixth place.  Then when we show up in Rio in sixth place, we can say we "smashed it" with no bow sprit!

Our broken bow sprit :(

Leg 1: London to Rio - Week 1

Leg 1: London to Rio

We have a few minutes of reception off the Canary Islands, so trying to get a quick post published!  I'm afraid no photos possible though.

Crew members

Starboard crew - me, Ros, Pablo, Jan, Leo, John, Karri, Andrew, Tino, and Amancio

Port crew - Ana, Lucy, Chris, Sean, Suzie, Lazlo, Patsy, Jesse, Mick, and Emily

and Huw as Skipper!

Top row, Left to Right: Pablo, Lazlo, Jan, Leo, Huw, Chris, Jesse, Patsy, Lucy, Andrew, Amancio, me, John, Mick. Bottom row, L to R: Sean, Roz, Tino, Karri, Emily, Ana, and Suzie.

Days 1 - 7, August 31st - September 6th, 2015

Sunday morning, race start day, was full of excitement!  We had one of many team meetings to get us focused on the tasks ahead...although technically the race started on Sunday but lots of events to get through including going through the teams and then parading the boats under the Tower Bridge!  After the parade we set off to moor for the night in Queensboro.  

I had a friendly face in the crowd! Thanks to Jane, my sister-in-law, for coming out to support!

Boat parade in the Thames River

About to go under the bridge.

On Monday, the race officially started around mid day.  We were still doing last minute repairs to the boat and barely got our yankee up in time for the start of the race!  Our goal was just not to hit any of the other boats and stay somewhere in the middle of the fleet.  We decided to head straight out to have a better position once we had the spinnaker out, so we ended up being the last one with the kite up, but it paid off later on when we overtook several boats and ended up in the middle of the fleet!

Today is day 2?  I've already lost track of the days!  Yesterday, I was on mother watch, which means you make the meals and clean up for the day.  Unfortunately, my mother watch partner was out for the count with seasickness so I had to handle the load for the entire boat.  It is a lot of freakin work!  Not to mention, I was only going on about 3 hours at this point since I got caught staying out late on a watch helping out with a gybe and then got up earlier on another watch to help wool the kite.  Luckily, many crew members offered to pitch in and help at times, but Amancio was star helping out with all my questions!  

Amancio and I.

Towards the end of my mother watch, we had our first bit of a scare.  As I'm below deck, I just hear from above, there is a boat on our port side, we are going to hit them!  Mind you this is in the middle of the night and there isn't much visibility.  I about near had a heart attack, thinking this is day 2 and we are about to sink the ship already!  I frantically called for Huw to get up on deck, but our crew was able to nearly miss the boat or so it seemed from down below deck.  Turns out the boat was on autopilot with no one on deck keeping watch.  So they were in a collision course straight towards us from behind and didn't even know!  Lesson learned, don't ever sail at night with no one on deck! and remember to look backwards for oncoming boats when up on watch.

Today was a great day and helped that I got about 8 hours of sleep as a reward for mother duties!  Not necessarily in terms of sailing though, we may have been drifting backwards at one point since we were against the tide with no wind, but weather-wise it was nice and sunny and only one quick light shower and then....we saw our first whale!!!!  Woowho!  I was currently off watch taking a nap in my bunk.  Jesse had been by about a half hour or an hour before to announce dolphins but that is old news now.  Then I heard the shouts from above that there was a whale! I jumped between the top bunk and my lee cloth and flew to the wet locker, threw on my life jacket and was on deck in probably less then 30 seconds!  It usually takes me 30 minutes to get up on deck, so this was an enormous feat.  And low and behold, there was a whale!  It wasn't very close but close enough we could see the tale, it come out of the water and blow water out.  Still quite cool!  And just as I'm writing this now, another set of dolphins rolled in!  Okay, so they are not old news yet, still exciting every time you see them.  I think I got these ones on video, so hopefully I can figure out a way to post that!

Day 3: Wednesday, September 2, 2015

We had another doozy last night.  MOB! Man overboard.  It was around 10:00 pm and dark outside with just the stars lighting the sky.  The wind was picking up so we needed to change the code 1 spinnaker to code 3.  We got the code 1 dropped nicely and down below deck.  Code 3 was rigged and ready to go.  We did the hoist and it went up perfectly without dropping in the water.  Then we noticed the line was caught inside the runner preventing us from pulling the sheets in.  Amancio and I were closest so we pulled the sheets in to try and retie the sheet outside the runner.  Amancio was working on the knots and I was holding the line with the assistance of Andrew who had just come up to help out.  Suddenly the wind picked up and the spinnaker blew open, snapping the sheets from Andrew and I, slamming my arm into the shrouds.  The kite was flailing everywhere.   We tried to get it under control but there was no chance now with the wind up.  We were ducking to keep the sheets from flogging us. Amancio ran up to the bow to try and control the sheets from there and I followed behind him.  We tried several  times but the wind was too strong and kept pulling the sheets from our hands.  By this  time, the off watch was up and a new crew member came up to the bow to try and help us.  We tried to explain  the wind was too strong but he took a shot anyway.  On about his third try,  the sheets pulled from his hands but he didn't let go and he went flying over the side with the sheets!  I'd never seen a 6'5, strong man flailing in the wind like that before.  It was the scariest thing I'd ever seen.  Do I shout man overboard or not?  He was still attached with his safety strap but he was overboard and his line could snap at any moment.  My efforts to help were fruitless and I shouted back, "He has gone overboard but he is still clipped on!  Get someone up here to help!"  Jan runs to the bow and they somehow successfully pull him back onboard.    

At this point the kite is still going crazy and is wrapped several times around the forestay. Skipper yells at us to drop the kite, we all take our positions to pull the kite in as it comes down.    We get as much in and down the hatch as possible, but now we have to struggle to get the bit that went into the water out.  We  finally get it in with some extra effort.  We've now lost about an hour and need to get something else up quick as we are still in a race, so next we get ready to hoist the yankee 1.  We get that up with no other issues.  We all go back to the cockpit and go through a debrief with Skipper of what happened.  Now there are two kites to wool and we need to check the code 3 for any rips and tears, we are now an hour over our shift and are set to get up in two and half hours later for our next shift.

Day 4: Thursday, September 3, 2015, Happy Birthday to Ana and Karri!!!

Today we celebrated Ana and Karri's birthdays.  Ana is the party planner on the boat so she did all the decorations, hung up signs and balloons so when we got up for our watch the boat was ready to party!  However when it came time for cake decorations, she had a hard time letting go of the reigns and trusting someone else to make a decent cake.  Little did she know she was working with the person in charge of making birthday cakes at her previous job!  Ana sat by anxiously while I frosted the cake, then we sent her and Karri up on deck, not to return so the final decoration would be a surprise.  With very cautious hands on a shaky boat and many prodding fingers trying samples of the frosting, we ended up with a great looking cake representing our Visit Seattle pride!  I had to be a bit creative with the corner since the cake doesn't cook flat on a tilted boat and we ended up with a missing corner!  All and all good fun!

Karri and Ana with their cake!

Sailing wise, there wasn't much wind and just as the wind started to pick up while I was helming, the tack line blew and the spinnaker went flying.  As a team, we are already learning what to do in these situations.  Someone ran to grab Huw, but we were already dropping the sail as he was coming up taking quick action to get it down.  Mission Performance was right on our tails, so we didn't want to lose too much ground with only the main sail up, so we quickly rehoisted the spinnaker from the hatch at the bow and somehow successfully pulled this off in time before Mission Performance was able to overtake us!  Meanwhile I was still at the helm during this trying not to steer us in to too many circles!

Day 5, Friday, September 4, 2015

The wind finally picked up today!  We were hitting up to 22.4 knots of speed!  Definitely some champagne sailing!  I got to do some fun stuff up at the bow too!  I helped prepare one of the tack lines which involves going out to the bow and sitting on the bow sprit which is the little bit that hangs out in front of the boat.  While tethered on, I scoot out on my butt and then wrap my legs around the sprit connecting to the bottom of the boat and then pass the tack line around the front.  It was awesome!  Was like I was flying over the sea!  I'll have to get back up there the next time the dolphins are swimming with us!

The previous night's watch from 11 pm to 3 am was quite fun!  I decided to play 40 questions with everyone on the grinder to find out more about them.  It was great fun and we all got to learn a little more about each other and funny random facts.  The fun continues tonight!

Day 6: Saturday, September 5, 2015

Nothing to report today...absolutely no wind.  Not sure if we even moved a couple of miles.  Complete 180 from yesterday after almost breaking a Clipper record for distance covered in a certain amount of time by these boats.  On the bright side, it was warm outside so we got to shower and shave on the deck!  Such luxuries!  No rain water, but just filled a bucket with salt water, use some salt water shampoo and then a quick rinse with a cup of fresh water and you are like a whole new person!  Might as well shower while the conditions are nice!

Doing laundry...also in salt water buckets.

We are also finding ways of exercising on the boat when we aren't doing anything.  So far we've had some plank competitions, squats, step ups on the deck, sit ups on the bean bag while trimming and of course grinding!  To make it a bit more interesting, I've added the yankee sheet on our shoulders for added weight when doing squats, lounges, step ups, etc. and also used for arm presses.

Day 7: Sunday, September 6, 2015

Last night we found out the devastating news about Andrew from the Icorcoal boat.  I think it happened Friday night when the wind had picked up during the night.  We don't know much but sounds like he was knocked unconscious from getting hit by the boom of the boat and didn't make it.  This is the first time since the Clipper race has started that anyone has died during the race.  We are only a few days into the race and it is a reminder to the rest of us to remain safe and stick to the safety procedures that the training has laid out for us.  My thoughts and prayers go out to Andrew's family and friends and especially the team of Icorcoal who must be deeply affected by this.  We had a moment of silence today on each of the Clipper boats at 1:00 PM UTC in remembrance of Andrew.

Random Photos:

This photo is for Tiffers...porridge!

Roz working her reflexology on my continuously numb hands.

Me trimming the spinnaker.

Me on the helm...I can barely see over!

Don't think you can beat this daily view!

Me trimming with Amancio on the helm.

Andrew in the sunset with me on the grinder.

Tino with his Barbadian sauces!

Jan and Lazlo on mother watch in the galley cooking up some dinner.

Training - Level 2

I'm sitting on my flight to London trying to learn how to use this new mini keyboard...not easy even with my small frame.  I suppose learning to type on a normal keyboard after 11 months will be the next challenge.  Also, forewarning, writing the blog on my iPad isn't the same, so can't adjust the images or add text...so won't be quite as pretty.

I did the level 2 and 3 trainings back to back in May this year.  This first week gave me a taste of what miserableness was yet to come and then the second week reminded me why I signed up for this!

Seasickness.  Level 2 was cold and stormy, nearly everyone on the boat got sick...like REALLY sick! Vomit everywhere!  I learned two things from this experience, 1) I did NOT get seasick easily and 2) I could handle the smell of vomit inside an enclosed small suffocating space!  One of my unlucky crew mates, had her vomit bag thrown all over her during a tack, I can only imagine how horrible this would be...

Watch System.  Level 2 is all about learning the watch system.  Since we are constantly on the go, someone always has to be on deck to make sure we don't hit any whales...or maybe just other boats or land masses.  (Sidenote, whales!!!)  Our training crew was split up into starboard (right side, I remember this because there is an "r" in the word, however port also has an "r"? whatever works I suppose) and port (left side) teams, while one team was on watch the other team was free to do what they wanted, a.k.a. sleep.  After years of limited sleep in busy season, this was easy!  Getting up after barely three and half hours of sleep is never fun though.  For training, we did four hours on and four off during the day.  On the race, it depends on the boat, but generally is six on and six off during the day and then switches to four on, four off at night.  This way one watch isn't missing sunrise or sunset everyday!

Cold nights.  For those of you that know me, I am freezing cold most all the time.  I had two space heaters at work, one for my feet and one to sit on my desk...shhhh.  I am still not entirely sure why I think it is a good idea to place myself in a wet and cold environment for almost a year, but for some reason I am doing it anyway.  My first night watch was the first time I was legit freezing cold and thinking what the hell am I doing!  I just remember sitting in a puddle of water in the snake pit, bundled up in a ball, trying to stay awake, arms wrapped around my legs trying to stop the wind from hitting and thinking, "these foulies are definitely not waterproof!"  After that experience, I was willing to shell out however much money was required to get some decent warm mid-layers!  Luckily, one of my crew mates had ordered two pairs to try on and the ones she was going to send back were just my size, so at least I would be set for level 3 when we went back out!

Mother watch.  Everyone gets a chance to be "mother" for the day.  As a reminder, this means you are on food duty all day long with someone else.  The reward for mother watch, or so I'm told, is you get a "shower" at the end of the day and you get a full night's rest without having to get up for the night watch.  For one of my meals, I was tasked with making a traditional bangers and mash dish (sausage and mashed potatoes).  Easy peasy, right? Nope.  I was equipped with a very small pan to sort this task out.  I had about 20 uncased links of sausage to cook.  My first mistake, not realizing I had to brown the outsides of the sausage first before stirring them around.  However, even if I had tried that, I would have only had room for about five links at a time....people get hangry!  No time for that.  So as you could probably imagine, my sausages slowly turned into cooked ground meat, add gravy and top on my mashed potatoes (REAL, not the boxed kind, that's living fancy on a boat!), looked like I served up the vomit everyone had expelled earlier....good news, still tasted awesome (or so I thought)!

Spinnakers a.k.a. big ass floppy sails.  Spinnaker work is reserved for Level 3, but Skipper Ash was getting excited and thought, "Let's get that bad boy up!"  I don't recall or perhaps was not on deck while the sail went up, but what I do remember was taking it down and wooling it!  In a race this process is supposed to take 20 or definitely under 40 minutes?  I think our time was somewhere north of 2 hours?  As the spinnaker comes down, it has to be fed below deck so it doesn't blow over the boat.  Once down below deck, the sail has to be untwisted and then rolled from the sides in making a bit of an "A" shape, then you tie wool around it all as you go along.  The spinnaker is huge, so basically takes up the length of the entire 70' boat!  Then the final bit is to get the sail back into the little itty bitty bag!  If you thought putting a sleeping bag away was hard, this is a whole other realm!

Emergency Steering.  As mentioned previously, there was a bit of a storm that came through on our level 2 training, I think it got up to a gail, which if I remember is at least a force 8 and above? (don't quote me, I'm still learning)  Our team decided it would be best to sail out further past the storm and wait it out instead of heading back to shore with the other boats.  Some where along the way, either on our way out or in, we had a bit of a scare.  I had just finished up my heroine feet of helming through very choppy, "fruity" waters for about 15 minutes (let's just say, I need some more experience and muscle before I can confidentially helm for longer periods when the waves are throwing the boat in every direction) and Rupert had taken over.  During my few minutes on the helm, I realized it was quite difficult to steer the boat in a straight line and required quite some effort fighting with the wheel.  So it really wasn't surprising when our steering suddenly broke and the boat went wild, left to the whims of where the sea wanted to take us.  I immediately go into panic mode and think I am going to die before I even start the race!  However, our skippers swiftly took action, Skipper Huw who was sleeping below deck, was up in no time, half dressed, to assist Skipper Ash and the two of them had the emergency steering rigged in no time!  This was certainly a lesson learned...1) I am going to freak the F out when something really bad happens, 2) our skippers know what they are doing, and 3) learned how to rig the emergency steering in a real situation!

                                                    Main Sail out of control!

                                  Skipper Huw and Ash on the emergency steering

The highlight of our little excursion was finding a way to make it to shore so we could get to the local pub!  We were held up in a little town either north or south of the training site, where we were, I have absolutely no idea, but it was the cutest, quaintest little area off the water.  There were dibs going on the little remote house on the shore with no access besides taking a boat to get there.  I was not calling dibs, why would I want to be stuck there with no access to anything!  

                                                 Cute house on the top right

Anyhow, we were docked up next to a floating pontoon in the middle of the water with no access to shore ourselves.  The only way to shore was to get a water taxi, but they were not running since the water was too rough.  After a couple hours of theory learning about "fruity" waters and not drowning in 100 foot waves, which slowly turned into playing hangman (where I managed to guess "Seattle" for every word...this was before the port had even been announced or named as our Team sponsor...I clearly have a sixth sense), we finally managed to convince the water taxi to come pick us up over the radio...success!  We had a great meal and some drinks, then it was back to the boat for us.

                               Huw's drawing of the waves not drowning us!

                                                            MOB drills

                                                                  Pub time!

All and all, level 2 was a great experience and a glimpse of the stormy seas to come! Oh and how fun it is to do the deep clean after some rough waters...amazing the places you find dried vomit!  Ick!

Level 2 Crew: (L to R) Marta, Dave, Mia, Tiffers, Stephan, Sean, Lucie, me, Skipper Ash, and Rich

                             This one has Rupert added on the left, right of Dave.

                     And Nikki attending to the trimming who missed out on the group photo