Race 3 - Day 21
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 21: Cape Town to Fremantle
21 November

With our approach to Fremantle just over the horizon, talk of the end has already started onboard - this is not always a good thing. Much like the last hour of the watch seems to drag on endlessly as soon as talk of finishing and arriving in the next port starts, it seems that progress gets slower and slower. Leg 1 was particularly bad when our arrival time was delayed due to weather and in the last day or two, each watch that I was woken for there was always someone to tell me excitedly that we were nearly there and each time I would check the Nav station to find disappointingly that we would still be hours away. I fear that this leg will be the same. At least I can count on Australia to not rain on us, right?

We've all worked hard through the conditions especially with 10 days or so of relentless upwind sailing so naturally we are all excited to reach land and enjoy the sunshine that Australia has to offer. Stopovers are akin to Fresher's Week - those of us that have been through a stopover know the process and are like old hats. It may be a new place but we always manage to quickly navigate to the nearest bar/pub. This time I believe we shall be taking up residency in Little Creatures; I hear that they do exceptionally good beer and pizza – what more could we ask for?

In our final few days, we have a mini challenge that we must try and complete; Australia has very strict rules on what can and can not enter the country. This means that any fresh food, opened spices/herbs, flour based products and any bee products (honey) must all be eaten or they will be disposed of on arrival by customs. Currently we have 9 cake mixes, approx 130 eggs, rather a lot of potatoes, many packets of bread mixes and various large opened containers of flour, herbs and spices. Of course the challenge of eating all of this in the next 4 days is going to be tough. I am on Mother Duty with Shona on Wednesday and we've already planned to treat the crew to pancakes for breakfast, egg mayo and ham sarnies for lunch, dinner is chilli and rice but if there is time we might swap the rice for potato wedges and then serve cake and custard for pudding. Already I'm thinking there may not be enough hours in the day and I know that we shall lose one at lunchtime as we move our clocks forward! On top of cooking for the day the Mothers must also bake 2 loaves of bread for breakfast the next day so it sounds like the oven will be on constantly and I won't be getting a cheeky lie down during the day but if it means that less food gets wasted then it's worth it.

Currently, I have Mike in front of me with freshly baked cake to help our night watch go faster so that's 2 mixes down already. Now that we are sailing downwind it means that we are all more willing to spend time in the galley concocting sweet treats.

That's all for now, all my love to family and friends back home.

Brought to you by Charlie