Race 6 - Day 18
Crew Diary - Cravings…
09 February
With less than 600 miles to go everyone on board is starting to think what is the thing that they miss the most and want to do once they get off the boat. Let me share some of the things the crew is craving for. Sleep in a proper bed, have a good shower followed (or not) by a long bath, beers, cocktails, cheese sandwich with “cheap” bread, panini, fresh vegetables, Filipino mangoes, seafood, yummy Philippino food, watch a good action movie, catch up on the news, and of course to get to talk with their loved ones. Personally, other than the cheap bread I crave for all of them.
In the sailing front, although we have had very different weather conditions, for more than 10 days we have been on the same starboard tack, I feel sorry for the folks that have their bunk beds on the starboard side, because it makes sleeping very challenging. A few hours ago, we ended the Ocean Sprint (OS), and don’t know the results yet. We believe we did well, although we had the Code 3 up for most of the OS, unfortunately the wind during the OS was not as strong as it was the two days before.
The previous two days we had very strong winds, up to 30 knots and given the wind direction, we could not use any of the spinnakers and had to get a Reef 2 on the mainsail and spend most of the time at a 30-45 degrees angle. It was very, very uncomfortable to everyone on board and every simple step was a risk to slide and get injured. The good news is that despite a few crew members slides no one got injured. Personally, surprisingly enough, during those two days the place where I found it to be easier to be was at the helm, I really enjoy it, it was a blast!
As you can imagine, at such an angle everything on deck or below the deck becomes very difficult and something as simple as going to the heads or brushing your teeth is mission impossible. Of course, all different jobs on board, became very challenging, especially being a “mother” and having to prepare food for the entire crew during the entire day was an ordeal. Yesterday I was lucky, my day job was the “glorious” cleaning and heads job but a fellow crew member from my watch stepped on deck without clipping in, and as a punishment he was given the cleaning and heads job for the rest of the day, therefore I was relieved of my duties.
The last 3 days also brought colder weather and lots of water on deck, which lead to all crew to start wearing their foul weather gear. Clipper supplied Musto yellow salopettes and a mix of yellow tops and grey team jackets. Some of the crew also decided to start wearing their sailing boots and sleeping on their sleeping bags. As I previously mentioned the last day brought us lighter winds than before but with the new wind angle, we were able to hoist again a spinnaker (code 3) and brought us back the ARGs crew… Always Ready to Grind! Since we have just started stealth mode, I can’t tell you more about what we are doing in terms of sailing.
I’ve just finished my watch on the “last night shift of the day”, the 03:00-07:00 and it was great to see the SuperMoon. Although it was a night watch, the light provided by the moon was amazing. A fellow crew member, just told me that the moon always looks the same no matter where you are in the world, therefore if you have a chance, look for it tonight because it seems that tonight was the last day of a full moon.
The current ETA for arrival in Subic Bay (Philippines) is Friday/Saturday. Not only because Friday is Valentines Day everyone on board is crossing their fingers that the wind helps, and we can arrive by Friday. Today is the 23rd day on board, and with a Friday arrival that would mean a 26-day race, as you can imagine no matter how much you love sailing, everyone is looking forward to getting out of the boat and satisfying their cravings…
Cheers,