Race 4 - Day 19
Crew Diary - Race 4, Day 19
06 December

Jonathan Broome
Jonathan Broome
Team Ha Long Bay, Viet nam
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Farewell

Ok well here goes how to review a voyage from London to Australia and to condense it into a one page blog, not easy but let me try, but feel free to press the delete button at anytime:

So helming as we passed under Tower Bridge on the Thames was an incredible highlight for me. I have never been a part of such a sporting event where people have actually come to watch and support. This was a first for me, and I would have been happy to end my Clipper Race adventure on such a high just there and then.

If someone had asked me to be part of a social experiment of sharing a 20 foot living space with 20 other people, with just two toilets and sharing your bunk in the ghetto and every other part of daily life, to be pushed and pulled then a polite but very assured NO would have been the only word in my vocabulary as a response. Press the fast forward button and here I am nearly four months later and having crossed four continents 15,000 nautical miles and about to arrive into Australia having just lived and survived, and perhaps even flourished, in such an environment.

It has been many different things, challenging, tough, demanding, we have all been battered and bruised, fatigued, cold, wet and near drained, but never once did we give up. Never once did we argue and never once did we stop pushing to the maximum. So this has been many more things than just a sailing adventure. Certainly, there have been many highlights and lows, but what can you expect under such conditions both below and on deck.

For me, this has been my Everest and I am now at the summit and can now stop and take in the view, and it is a great view from where I am standing. That I have shared with some great people and feel privileged to have been a part and (hopefully) played my part. Would I like to continue, well no would be the answer, no more emptying the bilges or the lazarette, this is it for me I will be leaving Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam and the crew behind, and I will be very happy to do so. I look forward to seeing my family and to just going home, but I will not forget this and I hope I will be a better person for it. Would I do it again, well probably not, but it has opened me up to the idea of new adventures in the coming years.

So we are now just 48 hours from the finishing line, or is it really the start line for something new we shall see in time. So farewell to Josh and Hugo, the past and present crew, and good luck to the future crew. It has been hard all the way, a challenging and rewarding voyage in so many different ways, but next time I think I will fly.

Bonne continuation, bonne voyage et bientôt

JB (no. 2)