Race 7 - Day 4
Crew Diary - Race 7 Day 4
27 February
Clara Carrington and Susan Waters
Clara
Here I am, sitting in the saloon, starboard, we are quite heeled over, and as Sue and I are reading the Skipper blogs from two days ago, a sudden wave has hit us, and the waterfall that has entered the galley through the hatch has reached both Sue and I sitting on the low side. Normal things that happen onboard, especially when the hatch isn’t properly closed. Sue has now gone to change and probably get some rest, since she is off watch now, and I am on watch.
My thoughts today were to write about time, and the concept of time when you are on board. Race start day, and everything is about timing. Evolutions on board are all about timing. Keeping on time for your watch is all about time. When you are mother and you are preparing all the meals, time is crucial. When you are off watch, and have time to rest, time is also very valued.
However, that said, life does become “timeless” on board. Sometimes, when on watch, four or six hour watches can feel as if they have flown by, and other times, they seem endless and relentless. There are times, when on deck, that I can spend hours just looking at the horizon, observing life, or searching for life, looking at the stars, discovering colours in the sky specially with sunsets and sunrises, or just in my own thoughts, meditating.
Time also vanishes when it comes to the day of the month or the day of the week we are today. In my case, when on board, days are related to the daily job I am assigned to that specific day. Today, Sue and I are on blog and happy hour.
Just called on deck to put in reef 2, which in the end we didn’t, came back down to the nav station and turned on the stern cam (by request of the crew on deck), then took some pistachios up to the crew on deck, and now back on the laptop to finish my blog, I have lost my inspiration. Will leave it here for today. I am going to put on my foulies to go back up on deck, since it’s a bit splashy.
All my love to those at home
Susan Here.
Loving this race. Intense, competitive, tactical, and best of all, we have had wind most of the time.
We have decided to go flat out and commit to the Ocean Sprint (north one) and this affects the course we take. It might mean we sacrifice for a while the best route to the first mark. So, we will have to keep on the ball and try to catch up any places we drop once the sprint is over.
I was born a competitor and waited for this race.
To battle. Yee-ha! To race.
But.
Yes but.
I have laid in my bunk and tried to think how to convey the natural world around us as we race - to you. The most precious experience of this journey. How will I explain when I see you all again? Words do not work. It is feeling and emotion. It calls out.
Humans give names to parts of the ocean, for convenience. The Atlantic, Pacific, China Sea, Mediterranean. But it is one massive ocean. Not divided in any way. The only word I have come up with that starts to convey its power and magnificence is ‘colossus’. This colossus.
A confident, majestic colossus. This ocean. Myths and legends arise from it. No wonder.
It’s never cocky, never shows off. Has no malice. But moves and lives and breathes and aches and IS.
This colossus has a partner - the wind. I have always loved the wind. Clean truthful winds on the mountains of Wales. Last night the ocean wind, in the shrouds, was whistling its songs to the world as we skimmed along the surface of this colossus. The same wind whistled as I reached the summit of the mountain I lived on as a child. Calling.
There is a special Welsh word to treasure. Hiraith. A longing. A yearning. An ache.
The moon rising and setting, the stars, the universe, the wind. This confident colossus. Our world. My world. Your world. Us. We are all together.
Hiraith.
I didn’t come for the race after all.
Hiraith.
Love Susan Alice xx
ps To my family, home friends, work friends - I long for you all too.
Hiraith.