Race 4 - Day 23
Crew Diary - Race 4, Day 23
10 December
It is 10:16 local time (03:16 UK time) here as we approach Western Australia with our first sight of land for over three weeks just having been made. Fremantle and the end of our 5,150 nautical mile passage from Cape Town being just a few hours away. It has been a relatively good journey, given the notoriety of Leg 3, with a mixture of multi-day storms adding spice to a fair amount of champagne sailing under blue skies and in increasingly hot conditions as we near the fourth continent we will visit on our race around the world. The weekend’s 36 hour wind hole delay to our reaching our destination now being behind us and becoming a distant memory, as we picked up strong breezy conditions yesterday evening allowing us to maintain a constant 10 nautical miles per hour throughout the night and which we hope will last until journey’s end.
We are all looking forward to what will now be a 12 night break in Fremantle before we set off on the 22nd of December for Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays Islands, a passage which should take us just over three weeks and see us spending the Christmas and New Year festive periods at sea and away from our friends and loved ones. This will be hard for many of us who are committed to the full eleven months, 8 legs, adventure, especially as we will be seeing so many of our crew mates and friends from other boats setting off for home and Christmas with their respective families on crew changeover day: 17th December.
The round the world crew members (or ‘lifers’ as my wife Julie likes to call us) are especially tired and ready for our Fremantle stopover, the loss of three days potential additional rest in Cape Town having been lost given our delayed arrival there. The drama and trauma of Leg 2 having thankfully not been repeated during the Southern Ocean Sleigh Ride. We all hope that our three injured crew mates are now well on their way to recovery from their respective injuries.
Well time to sign off for now and prepare for our arrival in Fremantle and a welcome cold beer, followed in quick order, we hope, by a hot shower. Hard to believe that we have sailed to the other side of the world in the three months since Race Start in London on the 1st of September. But, as I have learnt on this epic journey, reality is a strange thing.
Love to Julie, my family and friends, I increasingly miss and value you all.
Trevor (or ‘Treasure’ – as I have become known on board. My Mum will especially like that).