Race 2 - Day 27
Crew Diary - Race 2, Day 27
12 October

Counting Down

Well, we are all counting down the hours until our arrival at the end of Leg 1. A couple of days ago Wangy got us all to put down our guess of day and time of arrival. The closest to the winning time gets to helm across the line. The conversation revolves around what we will eat/do first. There is the usual talk of beer and showers, clean clothes and green salad. As the fever builds the talk is now of massages, barbers and tattoos. There is interest in getting the Shellback and the first (of many, for some) swallow. We'll see who actually goes through with this.

Today has been quite remarkable. We woke at 9-ish pm last night to a 'ba, bump, bump, and we stalled briefly on it. It felt like we hit something. It wasn't hard like a container or whale, more like one of the enormous jelly fish Hugo suggested or my guess was perhaps a whale carcass. All the checks were done, no damage, rudders ok. It got us all up and talking well before our watch was due on deck.

We had some great sailing through the night under an almost full moon. We have the wonderful Southern cross in our sky, at last, a piece of home for us Aussies. Many of us, not just the Aussies, are feeling a little homesick. It has been quite a long leg and we are all eager to hear the voices of our loved ones.

We were making a great time, between 10 and 13 knots, some nice gusts came through and we had a couple of good broaches. Very exciting. Through this mornings' watch the wind gradually eased and speed dropped accordingly to 9-10 knots, the sea colour changed from the lovely ocean blue to the slightly brownish blue of coastal waters, a land bird flew by, a moth arrived on deck (WHAT?) and then, on the horizon, an interesting cloud formation appeared.

It looked like an enormous roll of cotton wool stretching right across the sky, approaching fast. It seemed to me like a back to front southerly buster, such as we see on the central east coast of Australia. Josh was summoned on deck, quickly followed by the off-watch crew to help get the spinnaker down fast. I was at the helm. The spinnaker drop was not quite quick enough and suddenly we were in the middle of an amazing down draught. The line squall was quickly followed by two more line squalls. It is very hard to describe the event, like going across three tunnels of weather with a brief respite between each. No pictures could do it justice. I'm sorry but you just had to be there. The spinnaker was secured, the staysail raised and order was restored to the deck. Unfortunately, the wind went off with the squalls and we can no longer maintain our preferred course and speed. Ugh! And we were going so well. Please let us hold our third place, we've worked so hard for it.

Something else happened before we lost the wind, as we were still driving along with the last of the squall we were joined by a jolly pod of dolphins who wanted to play, they called some mates who called more mates and soon we were surrounded by probably more than 50 of these happy mammals leaping and spinning around us. There were young ones too, leaping close to the undersides of their mothers. It was a very special interlude.

And then … (this is an insert, I had to remove this PC from the oven where we keep it for safekeeping during electrical storms)

Another nightwatch. Lightning and thunder, thunder and lightning. All around us all night. Sitting in the middle of the storms with a great metal stick pointing to the sky.

Reef in, reef out, headsails up, headsails down. Heavy downpouring of rain. Madly healing over suddenly as the next squall hits. Commands being shouted over the noise relayed up and down the boat, the job is done successfully. Calm again, shake out another reef and receive a waterfall of collected rain into the cockpit and all over us. Tidy up the snake pit then another evolution and everything is a mess once more.

When we came on night watch tonight we thought it would be the last one for the leg, but after the wild night and not much forward progress perhaps we will be on again tonight also. Time will tell. This should be the last blog of this leg, all going well. Soon we will be talking to home, our Leg 1 crew will leave us in person, but we will always be connected by our shared experiences. Lifelong friendships made. We look forward to a break and a recharge of our collective batteries and then welcoming the Leg 2 crew.

Onwards, forwards to more adventures and amazing experiences.

Jacqui

RTW Aussie