Race 6 - Day 22
Crew Diary - Race 6 Day 22
13 February

Tammy Hirst
Tammy Hirst
Back to Reports View Team Page

We’re not alone

Over the last few days we’ve seen a gradually growing number of sea-faring vessels; mainly cargo ships but now we’re starting to see smaller fishing craft.

Yesterday we saw a group of about 12 smallish but colourful boats with bamboo out-riggers heading our way. They seemed to be moving towards us with great purpose. Finally one reached us but the crew on board just seemed to want to wave and say hi. Definitely no sign of any skull or crossbones. A while later, another group surrounded us trying to sell us fresh tuna fish. We reluctantly declined on the basis that it might mess up our carefully planned meal timetable.

My watch awoke for our mid-day shift today, to the definite smell of smoke in the air. Upon getting up on deck, we could see land! Our first sighting of land since we left Airlie almost a month ago. The Philippines! It looks quite mountainous from our view point. It made me think about sailors of old who went to sea for an indeterminate time, for reasons of exploration, battle or fishing, and how they must have felt upon seeing land again for the first time in, possibly years.

We also heard the first plane flying overhead today! Couldn’t see it, a huge great big sail in the way!

Rumour has it we had a couple of stingrays under the boast this morning and one dolphin/shark type thing too!

We are back into the sweltering heat again on deck in the midday sun without any shade. Back to consuming litres of water to replace that lost to the air. Just in case we weren’t hot enough, Seumus has ensured we have plenty to do with the sails above and below deck. I’m sure it’s character-building! We still have WTC Logistics in view and Ollie has bins stuck to his face trying to work out their sail plans and whether or not they are playing tricks with ‘fake’ sail changes to throw us off the scent and into the wind hole!

The race is truly on and the target is slowly nearing! We’re pedaling as fast as we can!