Race 11 - Day 27
Crew Diary - My sea life so far
27 May
After reading Trevor's blog ‘Where I belong’ (try to find that in the website if you haven't read it yet), it brought me to think about what I did in the past and how the future is going. Obviously we’ve got a lot of free time to think about anything we want to, as we have finished this race officially and are now motoring to Panama. I am glad that I have just lived for 29 years at this moment, so it wasn't going to take a long time to review my past. I’ll just share some highlights in my mind and how they affected my decision to be here.
In my first decade I was born in Macau. Same as other kids, I played a lot and cried when I got hurt or did something stupid. The first time I stepped on a boat was also in this period of time. My parents took me on a ferry from Macau to Hong Kong. The ferry can carry about 150 passengers and takes an hour to cross the approx 60nm route. Actually this ferry goes really fast but you feel more stable than on a Clipper 70 because it has a jet foil under the boat, so it lifts up over the water at a certain speed. I felt I was on a similar boat as the America’s Cup yachts, just powered by a Boeing engine instead of the wind and sails. That's how I started my boating life haha.
I really enjoyed riding on this jetfoil many times until it was phased out and replaced by another type of boat which was a nightmare for me. The new ferry is not a foiling boat so it can easily get rolled and tossed by the waves. It got worse when a typhoon came. I got my first seasickness on this boat but on the other hand it ‘trained’ me to suffer from seasickness and to get used to it, as I rarely get seasick nowadays.
In 2019, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge was inaugurated and there are new (avoiding seasickness) options for travellers to take the bus or drive to Hong Kong from Macau and Zhuhai.
Seasickness was out of my way (most of the time) in the second decade I lived and I kicked off my sailing experience learning dinghy sailing. I hadn't thought that I would keep sailing 'til now when I started. From just a summer class to racing, capsizing hundreds of times and still carrying on, sailing has given me a lot of fun and memories. It also brings me a bonus - seamanship. This technique can work lifelong, whether on a small boat like a dinghy or on a 70 ft Clipper Race yacht, it still works the same.
My interest in sailing began during this period and became one of the reasons for me to join the Clipper Race. Thank you for your guidance to all the coaches, instructors and skippers who fuelled my sailing interest. I think my sailing path is not short (already across the North Pacific once) but not long enough yet. I am sure I will cross more seas and oceans in the future, and this brings me to my future life.
While I am still living in my third decade, sailing got both further away and closer. I sailed less after I jumped from school life to a busy working life, time is limited and there is more and more to handle. Then the turning point came and that is the Clipper Race. I joined the Clipper Race 19-20 through the ambassador programme. It gave me a break from work and a chance to experience sailing again.
Completing the training in Gosport, I met a few sailors from China which led me to experience keelboat racing, as well as learning much more offshore sailing knowledge from skippers in the Clipper Race. My 27th and 29th birthdays were also celebrated in Subic Bay during the Clipper Race. All this has enriched my sailing life and made it unforgettable. As I said in my previous blog: "Finish is another start!" There will be fourth, fifth trips coming, so don't be surprised how sailing makes your life different.
Soon we will be in Panama and I will be in contact with you through the air. Thanks for reading!