Race 13 - Day 1
Crew Diary - Derry-Londonderry to Liverpool
22 July

Leg 8, Race 13, Day 1 – Gerardo “Jerry” Injoque

Good bye Derry Londonderry Doire!!! Thanks for a warm welcome and a great farewell. What a great stopover, we had plenty of time to clean the boat, do maintenance jobs, recharge batteries and chill out. (In fact we spent almost the same amount of time in Derry as it took us to cross the Atlantic from New York...). The highlight however was hanging out with Mia, Michael F. and our fun officer Mick! Thanks a lot for coming guys! I really hope to see most of our crew in Liverpool.

Today we slipped lines... for the last time. After motoring through the river we found ourselves back in the ocean for race start. A short race for Clipper standards... we will go south to round Ireland and are expected in Liverpool next Saturday morning. And one last race in the Mersey river in front of our supporters seems the perfect way to finish our circumnavigation!

This week our round the worlders will write the blog answering what this race meant for them. Being soooo close to the finish line is impossible not to get philosophical. So, here I go: This has been the hardest challenge of my life and - as I suspected - I'm coming back to normal life as a different person... a better person. As all my crew mates know, this experience puts you out of your comfort zone in sooooo many ways... and that's very good because being out of your comfort zone is the only way to grow. I feel quite privileged to have been able to do this now... old enough to appreciate the lessons but young enough to have time to put them into action. The biggest takeaways for me (but not the only ones) are: (1) the certainty that I can live a very simple life and it's perfect, (2) the realization that my limits were further away than I thought... and in fact I still don't know where they are! And the most important one (3) the people I met who will be true friends for ever! Plus, (4) Bill's hair always looks pretty, especially when she is proofreading my blog.

I'm very happy I decided to do the race, happy that I didn't quit when I was tired and happy that I'll be home soon!

See you all in Liverpool! Hasta la vista, baby!

Sail hard and stay stormy.

Jerry