Race 7 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 7, Day 11
05 March

Hello all our loyal followers, well day 11 dawn is upon us on our 1600nm, 8-10 day race and we still have 173nm to go to the finish line and surprise, surprise no wind or not much that counts anyway. However the Clipper Race have given us all 2 gates to go through so that they can call the race finish at any time. We still have approximately 60nm to go to get to the first gate!

We have had some amazing sailing in the past couple of days with the highest speed of 24.6 kts being recorded and verified on course (just for you Brian). Then the wind slowly decreased to nothing and left us wallowing around. We noticed a big yellow drum and several floating loose pallets and David noted them on Time Zero. The next time I saw David in the nav station about an hour later (as I was on log duty) I told him that we had just seen another yellow drum only for him to inform me that it was the same one that we had past an hour ago so when I looked on the tracker, yes he was absolutely correct... Oh how demoralising was that!!! At this rate we will be another 4 days before we get to Subic Bay. Well after 6 days of the start and not even being half way through, the mileage was a bit of de-su-vue.

Anyway, mother duty for Mel and myself today with no day bag made up, only our imagination was left for lunch and dinner. Around 10am while sorting something out for lunch our lovely Miss Lyndsay took a very important call, informing us that the Clipper Race was calling the race for the final boats in 2 hours. A big cheer went up from Sounders watch who were on deck, working hard at keeping WTC Logistics at bay who were hot on our heels trying desperately to overtake us. All the more urgency now to keep them at bay and everything was being done to make sure that this happened - sails up sails down. In the end, we managed to hold them out by 2.7nm which trust me is not very much. But it's still a win to us - 10th place and not last. That's twice now that we have had WTC Logistics chasing us down in the final throes of a race - Race 1 to Portimao was the other one.

So, here we are now motoring towards Subic Bay where we await to find out what is going to happen next in this race of our Lives.

So thanks for watching team Seattle, trust me we are trying hard to get a better result, unfortunately things happen at sea i.e Spinnaker issues - Code 1 needs repairing before we go anywhere, Code 3 needs a good checking over since it was wrapped - and what a wrap it was!! A1+ never seen before and never to be seen again. General wear and tear breakages. All good problem solving opportunities to keep us all on our toes.

A big hello to my baby girl Auburn - Grandma and Grandad will be home soon I promise. Also to Paisley who is now running around god help us.

Last but not least - your mind is a magnet... If you think of blessings, you will attract blessings. And if you think of problems, you attract problems... Always cultivate good thoughts, always remain positive and optimistic. We get what we think, so by thinking positive, life will be automatically positive.