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BUENOS AIRES TO WELLINGTON |
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26th December, 2000, day 17
The very best includes some wonderful warm, weather sailing;
excellent training; the chance to visit different ports of call; making new friendships; too many positive ideas to mention. Taking part in the BT Global Challenge is certainly an experience that I will never forget.
Being on watch, on deck, really is living and often living on the edge. Among the worst, I would have to include the hours on watch in the icy cold, biting winds which seem endless. How we wish for our watch to be over.
Yet all this makes the hours off watch (especially 'the big six'), wonderful as hot food, sleep, warmth and comfort beckon. 'Standing down' at the end of the watch (as a fellow crewman likes to call it) and coming
through the main hatchway with freezing cold hands and ice blocks for feet, it is a marvellous feeling to know that the next six hours are completely one's own.
To paraphrase the words of a
famous poet 'What bliss it is in this dawn to be alive and the 'big six' is very heaven!' Right now, this is the worst part of the event. The sailing is really incredible but the cold is an experience that I could do
without. Yet the number of days at sea is finite. And when it is over, we will all miss it. We will miss the yacht, our team-mates and new friendships forged with crews from other yachts. We will miss the camaderie, the
team spirit and the feeling of belonging that such an event inspires. For the moment, it's a question of enduring the Southern Ocean - only another few weeks of this to go, I keep telling myself! * * * * * |
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Christmas at sea - yes, we had Christmas too! Santa came down the mast but no-one saw the reindeer. Gifts were
exchanged between crew members and a sumptuous lunch and dinner were provided by an unusual apparition in the galley - the Skipper! Christmas carols were played on deck as we continued to 'trim, trim, trim,' My crew
gladly ate the wonderful home-made Christmas cake posted to Buenos Aires by my mother. Thanks, Mum! It has to be said, however, that there is nothing like Christmas in a warm, comfortable home with family. I, for one,
missed them all on that special day and drank my own quiet hot chocolate toast to 'absent friends'. Sailing is wonderful and racing creates especial interest in life at sea. Nevertheless, if there is something that has worried me and continues to concern me, it is the fear of being injured whilst racing. Working where I do, on the foredeck, the chances of this happening are greater than in any other place. Then it happened. In pretty hairy conditions during a sailchange, with torrents of icy-cold water everywhere and a steep angle of heel, a large wave hit us full on, sweeping Ash onto Gav and Gav on to me. I became their fender and was subsequently crushed onto the inner forestay. Experiencing a huge amount of pain, I felt a very hot rush up my arm. Then I felt nothing except nausea and a bit winded too. I somehow indicated to the rest of the team that I would be literally crawling back to the cockpit feeling that, with a broken arm (yes, it felt that bad!) my contribution to this leg would be over. Amazingly, after being checked out by Peter, our onboard Doc, and a few watches spent down below resting, I managed to make myself useful on deck again. Now, ten days later, the marks of a badly-bruised elbow are fading, as is the memory of the instant agony I encountered before. The trouble is, that at home, it would be hard enough not to keep aggravating the condition, but at sea, it is downright impossible to avoid using or accidentally knocking injured limbs. Keep your fingers crossed for me that this kind of episode will not be repeated!
Final word - drysuits are not totally 'dry' suits, no
matter what anyone tells me. They may well have been pressure tested in the very best of laboratory conditions but the real test is out here in the freezing cold ocean. Let the testers ask me! Let them inspect the damp
state of my mid-layer! My feet too were beaten into submission by the six hour 'on watch' when each foot turned into a seperate ice block. The cold is energy-sapping and is making all of us pretty exhausted. Happily,
the temperatures we have experienced this far south have eased a little as we press on to Waypoint Charlie, which happens to be back where I started today's missive. Read more at Leg 3 Missives (d) |
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Guestbook updated? Yes / Legs 1-2 updated? Yes / Legs 3-4 updated? Yes / Legs 5-7 updated? Yes |
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