Posts filed under 'Emotions'
It’s approaching midnight. I should be in bed. Asleep. But I’m not. I’ve spent much of the evening trying desperately to catch up on a mountain of work, not helped by having my entire IT system die today with a literal fizzle and smell of smoke.
And after I’d had enough of trying to summon my working brain back from the brink of beyond, it was time to catch up on some X-factor viewing (it’s my one vice. Ok, that and wine). Having finally switched off the TV, I should get into bed and snuggle my husband who’s been asleep for a long time (another person I need to give some time to). But instead I log onto www.clipperroundtheworld.com to see what’s happening with the boats.
Qingdao is slowly climbing up the fleet and is currently in 6th place. I look at the wind predictions and plot their course and imagine exactly what’s happening on board.
I picture the watch about to go on duty, being woken with a gentle shake of the shoulder. I imagine them fumbling into their oilies, grabbing head torches, having a pee in a loo which they have to pump 30 times before stumbling sleepily up the companionway onto the deck, mumbling a ‘Morning’ to the on watch.
They’ll then wake themselves fast with the wind in their face, while they try to take in the facts being given to them. Our COG is 95. We’ve got to keep at least 10 knots of boat speed. We’ve got Agatha up but we’re ready to go to Judith should the wind pick up. Watch the preventer. It’s chafing. The spinnaker halyard is on the starboard winch and it needs exercising within the next 30 minutes.
Having handed over, the old watch will bumble off below, eager to crawl into their beds, knowing that only a few hours sleep and a bowlful of porridge with honey separates them from their next watch. Meanwhile the new watch quietly go about doing a deck check, settling into the rythym of helming and making a much needed cup of salty tea.
This is life on board a racing boat. I miss it with every fibre of my being. Life at home is situation normal. And while flushing loos and hot showers and an infinite supply of clean knickers is a lovely thing, waking up to see the milky way has a wonder of its own. I am deeply jealous of those on board.
Is it wrong of me to want to go back?
November 2nd, 2009
It’s official. I’m back. Actually I got back on Monday but have been dealing with groundrush ever since. Stepping off a plane and into the arms of one long suffering husband and two small boys very happy to have their mummy back, I can honestly say that it was lovely to get home (the welcome home poster complete with pictures of flying fish was the icing on the cake). Since then it’s been straight back to situation normal. Day 1 at home saw me:
- cook three meals
- do four loads of laundry
- pack the dishwasher twice
- pick up three bags full of fallen walnuts
- winterise the swimming pool
- fix a broken toilet (with the help of a DIY guide on the internet)
- play about 15 games of snakes and ladders
- play a hotly contested game of football
- go to the park and push swings for ages
- play hide and seek
- delete over 1000 emails
- sift through mail to find most pressing bills
- handle a new business request
- book in some builders
- and chat to some family and friends
But despite really needing a week off to sort out my life AND a week just being with the boys, I feel as though I’ve got plenty of energy to tackle it all. The household chores that used to depress me (and no doubt will again soon) for now feel like a breeze in contrast to scrubbing out bilges and being on watch every night.
The boys have managed without me better than I could have expected and my husband hasn’t turned into a raging alcoholic. So all is well. When I asked my children what they liked best about me being home, they said: “Getting real kisses and cuddles” (rather than the kisses I blew them from the sea). The perfect homecoming present.
And when I asked them if I should ever go sailing again - expecting a loud NO from them - I got instead the considered response of: “Yes, as long as you take us. Maybe we could all sail around the world together!” I’m very pleased that the spirit of adventure has been well and truly seeded in their young minds.
So where to start on the mad sailing adventure? Firstly, thanks to everyone who commented on my blog while I was away. I sent short snippets home via email to my husband who passed them onto Rachel, the lovely lady helping me with admin in my absence and she posted them. But I had no way of checking comments.
I don’t have time now to write a full account of everything that went on - and I’m on a time ration as the boys are currently glued to the telly that will be going off shortly. But I will write follow up posts about how it all went.
Suffice to say that it was brilliant. Not the scary, challenging sailing as advertised on the brochure, but that was largely due to us having incredibly fair weather all the way. It was extraordinarily hot and all the little things that we take for granted in life were a lot more difficult. Like going to the loo, having a shower, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking, climbing into bed, getting changed, standing upright…I could go on. But all that work and the extreme heat (i.e. excessive sweating) has seen me lose a stone in weight. Hooray! And it has made the household chores seem truly easy peasy.
There were many moments during the trip where I wondered why I was doing it, but there were even more moments where I was in tears at the sheer magnificence of it all. I cannot (in my current sleep deprived state) hope to describe the wonder of the night sky, the sheer awesomeness of an orange setting sun melting into the sea or the grace of enormous whales as they crash out of the ocean and back into it.
The crew on board were fantastic. Many a night was spent solving the world’s problems, discussing deep and personal things that seldom get an airing, laughing hard and being silly.
I kept waiting for the bolt of insight lightening that was going to give me the direction or profound understanding that I thought I might have, being so far removed from my normal life. But it never arrived. As we approached Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio, I realised that the lesson learned from the whole experience was simple: that life is there to be lived. I know that life with all it’s day to day humdrum and work craziness will go on. But I have resolved to quite simply have more fun. And if that’s as basic as cranking the radio up louder while folding the laundry, so be it.
I’ll be back with more details of the trip once the dust has settled.
Tags: home, life, rio
October 28th, 2009
Yesterday the boats set sail from their home port of Gosport headed for Hull where the race will start from in less than two weeks. I took my boys down for the day so that they could get used to the idea of seeing the boats sail off. I hadn’t realised just what a big send off they were going to have.
There were crowds of people, bands, stalls, a scrumptious brunch laid on for all crew and the boats bedecked in all their finery. The dignitaries including Sir Robin Knox-Johnston said some motivational speeches before each skipper was presented with their flag as they marched their crews down to the boats. It felt strange not to join them, but sadly I couldn’t fit in doing the delivery of the boats too.
As each boat cast off from the pontoon, their boat song was played, blasting out of speakers. Our boat - Qingdao - went off first to the strains of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida. Each boat had a great song, very inspirational but mostly just plain FUN! I thought the Edinburgh boat had the best piece of music - wish I knew what it was - just a fab bit of Scottish reel type music that you couldn’t help to move to. By the time all 10 boats had set off, everyone on the shore was dancing along while the crews waved back.
We then got onto a ferry and followed the boats out of Portsmouth harbour as they sailed in formation. It was a glorious sunny day with loads of boats - including media boats - buzzing around snapping off shots. The crews waved and performed crazy dances on board - and once again, Edinburgh outdid everyone by pulling out a set of bag pipes and playing them. How anyone fitted those into their 20kgs of luggage, I have no idea. (Team Qingdao - we have got to work on our onboard moves to outdo them.)
It was awesome. The kids loved it and waved like lunatics at everyone. And I couldn’t get the grin off my face. In jut 12 days time I won’t be a spectator. I’ll be one of the crew waving madly as the Red Arrows fly overhead. It’s official. I have ants in my pants and an army of butterflies in my tummy. It’s not normal to be a grown up and be this excited about anything.
And that’s what I love most about this. I’m getting to feel a whole range of emotions that I don’t normally feel on a day to day basis. It’s like I’ve tapped into a whole reservoir of emotions that have been lying unexercised for some time. I feel like a kid!
Unfortunately I won’t be able to post about our actual departure and race start as I’ll be at sea with limited access to email, a lot of north sea shipping traffic to deal with and will probably be hanging onto the contents of my stomache. But hopefully this post will explain just a smidge of how awesome it’s going to be come the 13th!
Tags: departure, Emotions, gosport, hull
September 1st, 2009
Yesterday, with much excitement, I drove to Portsmouth’s historic dockyard for the long awaited Crew Allocation Day - the day we find out which boat we’re on.
The vast majority of the people taking part in the race came along (those who live in Australia probably didn’t make it as it’s a bit of a commute for a day). And it was fab to see all the people that we’d gotten to know during part A and part B training.
It started out with individual crew pictures being taken, before being issued with our branded jackets (now I look a real pro) and then milling about in nervous anticipation while we waited for the presentations to start.
We had a number of the sponsors, organisers and partners talking to us, with the highlight being a talk by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. He reinforced why doing this race is such an incredible thing to do. (Do you know that more people have climbed Everest than have circumnavigated the globe?). He ended it by saying that there were two things he wanted to hear from us when we completed our trip: 1) “That was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life” and 2) “So far…”. I’m certain that I will be saying those things.
We then got to see all the places that the boats are going - including confirmation that we’ll be stopping in Rio, right at the heart of it and it looks amazing. Yay! Looking at all of the places the boats visit and the incredible welcomes you get at all the stopovers made me long to do the whole thing.
It was all just so inspiring and the combination of nerves and excitement just about had me peeing in my pants (partly due to having had too much coffee and no toilet break).
They finally got to the part we were all waiting for - crew allocation. Each of the skippers read out the names of their crew members. I had asked to be with Chris Stanmore-Major as he’d been my skipper on Part A & B. Mine was the last name he called out. I had almost passed out in anticipation by then. So it’s official - I’ll be sailing on the Qingdao boat. Hip hip hooray! You can see our official Qingdao website here. Click on the crew profiles and you’ll see my name listed. Soon it will also have our photographs and info about us. On the subject of websites, they confirmed that when the race is on, there will be live updates where you can track the boats and where they are. So if you’re interested, you can see how I’m doing. According to my 5 year old we have to win. So hopefully we’ll be the boat in the front.
After chatting as a group for a few hours, making plans about the months ahead, we got to go down to the pontoon at Gunwharf Quays and officially name our boat which had just been delivered with its gorgeous dragon painted on the side. Naming a Chinese boat involves painting a red dot on the front of the boat to ‘open the dragon’s eye’ which apparently helps the dragon see where it’s going and will get us there safely.
The Chinese dignitaries were there to share champagne with us and they were incredibly friendly and fun - despite the need for translators. They gave a good indication of how brilliant they’d be as hosts in Qingdao itself.
We felt like mini celebs with all the passers-by on the quay watching as we had countless pictures taken, all while drinking too much champagne in the sun.
After a massive group picture of all the crew (300-odd), we headed off to Tiger Tiger for a night of extensive wine drinking in the name of team bonding.
All in all, it was fab. Fab, fab, fab.
BUT… and there had to be a but…I now so desperately want to sail leg 4 - the one that goes from Australia, via Singapore to China - that I can think of little else.
I’m not even sure if there’s still a space left on the leg, but even if there is, I’d need to find another £4600 for the leg plus another £2500 for the nanny and I’d have to pay for two more flights and there’s the small issue of work. It all seems impossible. But then again, this whole race seemed impossible in January.
So why the need to do leg 4? The first part is terrific sailing up to Singapore around places like Bali and the Indonesian islands. How gorgeous would that be? The reception at Singapore is meant to be awesome with spectacular displays. Then it’s some very, very tough sailing up to China in what is described as the bumpiest seas on the race (this bit doesn’t fill me with massive excitement) but then we - the home boat - arrive in Qingdao (where the Beijing olympics sailing events were held).
The reception for all the boats in China is HUGE. But for the Qingdao boat it is even more incredible. They have 100s of thousands of people turning out to see the boats and the skippers and crew are treated like celebrities. The shows they put on look mind boggling and the hospitality second to none. And to sail into the city on a boat bearing that city’s name would I think be one of the most moving experiences of all.
I was so envious of the people doing this leg and in particular, the round the worlders. As a mother, I am used to having my freedom curtailed. I know that you don’t leave the house with just your keys - you’re always carrying several bags containing clothes changes, snacks and toys. You can’t just pop off to the pub when you fancy it or have a lie in on Sundays or enjoy the evening sunset because it clashes with bath and bedtime.
I’m used to all these restrictions on my freedom. But I’ve never felt my lack of freedom quite so acutely as I do now.
There are many people doing the whole race who can do it because they have no husbands, wives or children. They have no mortgage or can rent out their property. They’ve been granted sabbaticals from work, have been made redundant, are quitting or retired. They’ve got the money from friends, family, work, savings or redundancy pay outs. They are entirely free to hop on a boat and just live the experience.
I am trying to do this within the confines of my life. And while I wouldn’t for a moment not want to have my husband and children and life, the other sailors’ freedom to roam makes me want to weep.
I should simply be grateful that I’m getting to do part of it, but if there was a magic wand I could wave to allow me to do leg 4, I’d wave it. I think I might need to see if I can find a local Chinese company who’d like to sponsor me. Perhaps the local Chinese restaurant in Newbury? We buy enough crispy duck pancakes from them to justify it….
Tags: crew allocation, gunwharf quays, historic dockyard, portsmouth, Qingdao
May 31st, 2009
The list of skippers for the race has just been officially announced. You can see the list here not to mention the ultra cool photo of the skippers swaggering along.
I am soooo excited about crew allocation day which is coming up on 30 May. It’s the day we’ll find out which boat we’ve been assigned to. I have asked to be put on the boat skippered by the guy who ran both of my training sessions. If you look at the list, he’s the chap whose going to be sailing the Qingdao boat. He’s also the only one in the photo wearing sunglasses (because sunglasses make you even more cool - unwritten rule of sailing.)
So assuming I get my request, I’ll be on the Chinese boat. But they have so many factors they have to take into account when assigning people that it’s almost impossible to guess. From the feedback I’ve had from others, all the skippers are great though. It’s just so darn exciting!!!!
This morning I also gave a presentation to my son’s school all about the race. Their theme for the week was Around the World, so it tied in nicely. Talking about the race, where it’s going to go, all the fab places the boats will be visiting has made me feel like I’ve got ants in my pants and I just can’t concentrate on anything.
Right, back to work.
Tags: Chinese, Qingdao, sailing, skippers
May 19th, 2009
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