Archive for October, 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
Almost there!
We have now been travelling down the length of Brazil for what seems like forever. And although the miles to rio are diminishing, it just never seems to get any closer. As I type this, we have 314 miles to go.
If the wind we have at the moment holds, we should get there by Wednesday. Rather depressingly, the first boat has already finished and the next four are very close. We have Hull and Humber hot on our heels and we CANNOT afford to have them pass us. So it’s all systems go on board.
Well except for when I decide that really I have less than two days to go until my sailing adventure ends, so I just crank up the tunes and dance my way across the Atlantic, much as I’ve done for most of it.
Today, one of our watch was being mother so the two blokes - Richard and Chris - and I, were on deck with a good 20 knots of breeze blowing us downwind, spinnaker flying nicely. We had ‘Born to be Wild’ playing full blast, and while Richard helmed, Chris and I played air guitar on the backstays. We decided that we’d start a rock band called ‘Helms Angels’.
It made us go faster we decided.
I’ve also made up a jingle for Family Fun Time, my least favourite time of day, when we all have to do chores but mostly we can’t because they’re too complicated like servicing winches so we all pretend to be busy. We’ve figured that if you walk around with a screwdriver looking determined, the skipper won’t realise that actually you’re just doing laps of the boat. So I’ve taken to singing my jingle at 4.30pm every day. Oh how it is loved. It goes like this:
It’s Family Fun Time
It’s Family Fun Time
With lots of lovely chores to do.
It’s Family Fun Time
It’s Family Fun Time
Let’s all shout Whoop-de-doo
WHOOP-DE-DOO! (this last bit is said with a fair amount of sarcasm)
We saw quite a few whales today (at last) including a mommy whale and her calf pretty close by. We’ve also started seeing fishing vessels which means we must be getting close to land.
We’re all getting pretty excited about getting into Rio. The prospect of proper showers, clean clothes (which I will be buying), a real bed, cold drinks and food that isn’t out of a tin is pretty heady.
But I can’t quite believe that it’s nearly over. After all the months and months of hard work, fund-raising, training and preparations, it’s about to become a memory. It has been awesome. There have been some shitty bits. There’ve been moments I’ve been in tears. I’ve been dirtier and sweatier than I’ve ever been in my life. And the skin on my hands will never be the same again.
But what amazing memories. Seeing so many shooting stars, seeing the night sky properly for the first time in ages, witnessing incredible sunrises and sunsets, sailing across the equator, playing chicken with the doldrum squalls, sailing on a sea like a mirror with whales blowing alongside us, having an impromptu disco to the setting sun, learning how to steer a 68 foot 30 tonne boat down big surf in plenty of breeze, overcoming my inability to sew, getting to grips with power tools and discovering the best way to clean out bilges, having long, personal chats with people who a few weeks ago I didn’t know, laughing a lot, feeling free and mostly 100% alive.
I have sailed across an ocean. That’s a big tick in a box I never imagined would even get onto my life’s list of things to do.
A HUGE thank you to Chris who helped me make this possible and to Josh and Jamie for putting up with an absentee mother, to my friends and family who’ve been supporting me and cheering me on and to my understanding clients and the ladies looking after them in my absence.
All I can say that if you get a chance to do something crazy once in a while, do it!
October 21st, 2009
Today was the first day that we’ve had consistent breeze for about a week. So we’ve been trucking along at about 8 knots. We’re still not out of the doldrums yet but things are looking better. I was on watch this morning from 8 - 2 pm. It was incredibly hot and I managed to get
sun-burnt on the back of my arm where I missed putting sun block. But at least there was a breeze to cool us down. We had my ipod on playing and it was lovely just to be moving at pace with the wind in our hair, bopping to tunes.
This afternoon I mended a sail bag (actual real sewing and everything) and then sat on deck chatting to people. It was nice to actually just chill out. Normally when we’re on deck we’re either on watch which means constant trimming or we’re doing chores.
SO everyone feeling a bit happier now that we’re moving again.
October 14th, 2009
After the fiasco of going for the scoring gate, ending up in wind holes and then missing the gate resulting in no points (imagine the joy on board!), we are now heading rapidly down to the Cape Verde
islands. We’ve got good wind and it’s just downwind kite flying all the way. We’re watching the front runners and debating whether to go round the islands or through them. Through is faster but could mean more wind holes (which we’ve had more than enough of). We then keep on trucking till we hit the ITCZ (the doldrums) and try to find the narrowest gap of no wind to cross.
Now that we have wind, the temperature on board has become slightly more manageable again but it’s still pretty hot and given we keep rotating through our spinnakers, we spend a lot of time below decks in the heat repacking them. You end up dripping in sweat. Which you don’t get to wash off very often. I get to take a shower about once every three days and that’s in salt water, with a tiny fresh water rinse. So you feel permanently sticky. I wash my hair about once a week so it mostly resembles a rat’s nest. Luckily we all look and smell equally bad so it’s no problem really.
Yesterday we had another mini drama in that during a spinnaker hoist, the sail wrapped around the fore stay. So far we’ve managed to avoid a wrap - many of the other boats have had them and it’s taken them up to 27 hours to untangle them and Cork had to just cut their kite away so that it is beyond repair (and it’s only leg 1!) Somehow with all of us on deck we managed to get our wrap undone in just an hour and a half without any damage done to the sail. Of course now we brick ourselves every time we hoist in case it happens again but so far so good.
We’re now down to two melons and that is the last of our fresh food. Everything comes out of tins and everything is very similar in taste, texture and the way it looks. I am gagging for a salad and crunchy thin crust pizza. An ice cold glass of wine would be nice too. In fact anything ice cold would be nice.
The most amazing thing at sea is the sunrises and sunsets - I timed it today from when the sun just peeked up over the horizon, until it was a full ball in the sky clear above the waves. It took just two minutes. Amazingly fast and so stunning to see.
Anyway, I have 4 hours till I need to get up and I still need to have a shower so better go. Bugger - and another spinnaker just came down so that’s more packing to be done.
October 12th, 2009
We made it through the Cape Verde islands which incidentally I never saw as I was always off watch when we were close to land. We’ve had a few big spinnaker incidents including ripping our lightweight kite to shreds. I am sooooooooooo glad that I’m not on the sail repair team. I did help them a bit trying to tack it together. Can you imagine trying to sew something the size of a tennis court while sitting in a tiny squashed space with heaps of very hot material all around you, with a wonky old sewing machine to use? Nightmare. THe only good thing about it is that the have the coolest place in the boat to sit and do it in.
And the search for cool is what it’s all about at the moment. I cannot describe how hot it is on board. You head up on deck in search of fresh air but very quickly get baked in the sun (there is no shade unless you’re on a port tack in the morning and starboard tack in the afternoon and given we stay on the same tack for days it’s not really a solution to rely upon).
So you go down below to escape the heat and it’s like walking into a sauna. Within minutes sweat is dripping off you. During ‘Family Fun time’ where we all have to do maintenance jobs and cleaning, you end up sopping wet and it’s not from the bilge water - it’s your own sweat. We now all have little fans fitted above our beds but they are pretty pathetic and just waft more warm air over you.
We’re close to entering the ITCZ (doldrums) which are quite a bit above the equator and I’m hoping we manage to avoid wind holes because if we hit one, we’ll have this heat, this humidity but with no breeze to provide relief. We’re now crossing the big wide bit of the Atlantic ocean between Africa and South America. Have to say, it looks pretty much like the sea everywhere else. But it feels awesome to look at the map and go: Wow, we’re there!
We’ve had good trade winds sending us along at about 10 knots and hopefully within about 24 hours we’ll be going head into the wind as we exit the north east trades and catch the winds from the south.
My life on board continues to be surreal. Take today for example: woken up at 3.45am for my watch at 4am. Once on deck, immediately have to sort out a headsail issue. No time to wake up or have a cup of tea. Then just some good solid sailing by moonlight trying to make the boat go as fast as we can. Once watch ended at 8am, I got to have some breakfast of toasted waffles. The syrup (tin) got rusty so that was off the menu so I spread my waffles with bovril instead - not a bad combo actually.
Then I spent an hour sitting in bilges with a sponge cleaning out grime until I was utterly filthy. I finally got to have a shower - my first in 3 days. I couldn’t get dry so just put my semi clean clothes on wet and attempted to have a sleep in my bunk. But the heat was so intense that I woke up in a sopping wet bed from sweat and am now sitting at the computer (sweating) having scoured the entire boat for somewhere cooler and coming to the realisation that there is nowhere cool other than the ocean.
We’ve not seen any whales or dolphins for days now, just plenty of flying fish and two big turtles surfing in our wake.
I need to go find a fan to blow some of the sweat off now.
PS - since writing this we have crossed into the ITCZ and are now in the southerly winds. Amazing the collision of two hemispheres. Huge squall we just went through. The rain was amazingly cool!
October 12th, 2009
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