Crew Blog

Bread of heaven, Wales, whales and the fuel transfer mission

18 March 2008

We thought we will have few easy going days sailing to Hawaii but we were proven wrong again. The last 2-3 days have been anything but uneventful.
Now that we weren’t racing we decided that fishing sounds like a great idea. Oscar was in charge of it all. We didn’t really think we would catch anything but we thought why not give it a try. We did catch something in the end but it wasn’t a fish. It was a bird. We felt really bad and we sincerely apologize to the entire bird community. As you can imagine we abandoned all fishing attempts after that unfortunate event.

The next surprise, at least for me, was waking up one morning for the 4 am watch with the smell of baked bread. I thought I was dreaming again. Dreams here seem to be quite vivid. It has happened to few of us on board. I often wake up feeling very disoriented, thinking I am on deck I have to shine my torch to find out where I really am. This particular morning though it was no dream. Oscar was actually making bread at 4 in the morning. I wonder if he does that at home?!

I have been very worried that I might cross the Pacific and not see any wildlife apart from flying fish and few birds. So imagine my excitement yesterday when I finally saw what I thought were dolphins. One of the more wildlife-experienced crew is convinced it was actually whales passing sideways. I will have to take his word for it. We also saw a big turtle swimming in the water. Absolutely amazing.

[From the Clipper Web team: It is entirely possible the crew of Qingdao did see a whale. Hawaiian waters are a birthplace for humpback whales and from November to May as many as 10,000 whales, almost two-thirds of the North Pacific population of humpbacks, may migrate to Hawaii to mate, give birth to and nurse their calves.]

Day 22 will also be remembered for the day few of us washed our hair for the first time since the beginning of the race. I know that for a lot of you this is a trivial matter but try not washing for 22 days and you will see how exciting it would all seem. Oh, and by the way, the myth about your hair cleansing itself after 3 weeks without water and shampoo-not true!

We don’t get much information on what’s happening in the real world on board but if there is an important rugby game somehow we always manage to find out the score. Wales won the Six Nations championship after winning the game against France and we celebrated with songs. Anthony, or Ant as we all call him, who is from Wales and was hoping to be in Hawaii to watch the game was over the moon with excitement. Well done Wales!

And finally today, our most recent excitement was meeting up with Durban 2010 and Beyond. We were asked to go back about 40-60 miles and give Durban 2010 and Beyond some fuel. You have probably heard that they lost their mast few days ago. At that point we had made good progress towards Hawaii but could not leave our friends in time of need so without hesitation we abandoned our course and headed back (Durban you owe us a lot of cold beers in Hawaii!). We also don’t have much fuel but at least we have a mast and sails. It was a strange sight to see Durban 2010 and Beyond without a mast. It looked like a weird motor boat but not exactly… it’s hard to explain. You have to see for yourself. The pictures will speak louder than words. We exchanged fuel for some water and powdered milk (I have discovered British people cannot survive without their white tea for very long). We also got a ‘thank you’ note and few sweets from them. Thanks Durban, very sweet of you. After the exchange we were again on our way. About 200 miles left to go. Let’s see if there will be any more excitement along the way. Hopefully next time I am sending a blog it will be from sunny Hawaii.

Teddy