Eight Days in Airlie Beach

What a bonus.  The extra three days in Airlie that arriving early afforded us were just what the doctor ordered.  The weather was beautiful and I had a lovely room with a balcony that I didn’t need to leave if I didn’t want to.  I was self sufficient, as it had a full kitchen including laundry facilities.  And I am very pleased to report that the tattoo didn’t make it.  It was vaguely visible until the first shower – and then kaputski!  What a shame!  It was fun whilst it lasted, but there is no way on earth that it will become a permanent appendage.  Somehow think that I may still be referred to as “Bad Ass” for some time to come though….

The first night was only a bog standard hotel room – I was only in it for about four hours!  We all had to be back on the boat for 9.30am for the beginning of the deep clean.  There were some sore heads!  I had a full four hours sleep, so it was better than a normal sleep in between night watches. It was also only just over 10 minutes walk away, and what a beautiful picturesque walk it is.  This is the first stopover that has been truly “resort style”.  The hotel is sea facing, as is my balcony, and it makes you feel relaxed right from the word go.  That is if you are there, of course.  The first day on dry land means not!  A full day on the boat, mainly doing the inventory of the food left over – of which we have quite a bit as we were so early.  Not that I am complaining of course.

But it is so hot – too hot to work.  The lunch break at the cafe on the marina was almost two hours long.  No-one wanted to go back.  But go back we did – well most of us.  A few had other ideas!  Most of the deep clean was completed by the end of the day.  Michael had his wife and family up here, and they had cars.  What a treat.  He dropped me off at Woolworths so that I could do a little food shopping (warming up for the big event!) for my apartment.  I then got a taxi back, and checked into my new room.  It was beautiful.  For some, a room is only to lay your head.  For me, especially on this trip, it is somewhere to escape, enjoy my own company and put my pyjamas on at lunch time if I want to.  Interspersed with all the tasks we have to do that is!

Monday was a day at the boat also.  I had planned to start on the shopping spreadsheets and menus, but it just didn’t happen.  That boat just sucks up time!  The walk to and fro is a delight though.  Much further and I would be on the verge of perspiration overload – as soon as you go outside your clothes seem to vacuum pack your body.

Tuesday went the same way – I can see that the “days off” we have been allocated are going to be spent on the computer.  We decided to go to the shops and buy the bulky stuff like toilet roll and kitchen roll, so that we would have more room for the food when we did the main shop.  Emily cadged a lift, as she wanted to find a bag to put her foulies and sleeping bag in for the flight back home.  Craig came as well, as he needed to change a tarpaulin that was bought the day before and was too big.  He bought the measurements he was given – and was not impressed!  Kat had found some fans that work on a usb power pack, so quite a few of us have bought them – just need to buy the power packs.  Good job Craig came – he turns out to be the expert in what we need!  As well as that, we found the “Prickly Pineapple” grocers.  All the vegetables were ordered for a Sunday delivery, and they also did the best mango smoothie that I have ever tasted.  Apparently, the town of Bowen not far from here is reputedly where the best mangoes in the world come from.  So if you are ever offered a “Bowen Mango Smoothie” take it!!

Tuesday evening we had a “Welcome to Airlie Beach” at the Abel Point Yacht Club.  It is a brand new yacht club, and is part of the overall new look of the marina.  About 31 million dollars have been spent on upgrading and improving all of the area.  It has had a good job done to it.  And the weather helps of course – everything looks better in the sunshine!  We then all went to a Mexican Restaurant, Cactus Jacks, to say goodbye to seven of the crew that will be leaving us this leg.  There were three that were only on for one leg – Lauren, Sandra and Rob – but we are also saying goodbye to Sergej and Amanda who were on for two legs, and Emily who has been on since London.  Also Michael will be leaving for this leg only to have his hernia operation.  Hopefully he will be joining again in China.

It is all rather sad really – a bit like saying goodbye to family.  Only you don’t know when and where you will be seeing these people again, if ever.  Some of them make a huge impression on my life onboard, and it will leave a massive hole in day to day life.

Let’s hope that the new people joining are going to be characters larger than life that will help to fill the void.  Spookily, two of the new joiners had messages from people I know back home.  Pete booked his flights with Crown Travel – the owner of which, Charlie, I met on a Canadian trip a couple of years ago.  Charlie introduced him to my blog!  Phil, it turns out, is godfather to the daughter of one of our long standing clients.  What a small world.  We also have An from Danang who is joining us from here to Danang only – he is a tug boat driver from Danang who won a sponsorship for a place.

He tells us that we are local heroes – and Wendo’s face is on the side of busses.  Should be a good stopover!  We also have Tony from Tenerife joining us again (he was on leg one) – a late entry.  I think our recent Sydney Hobart win might have had something to do with it!  A lovely young man called Chris is also joining us, Shona from Adelaide and one other whom we are yet to meet.

Wednesday and Thursday were designated as days off, and many of the crew made arrangements to go out to the Barrier Reef, or go on some sort of adventure.  I have had, and will have, enough adventure to last me, so a day doing the menu planning for the next leg was a good enough option for me.  I started – but didn’t get very far.  Because I had so much time to do it – unlike other stopovers – I sat and read for a bit, did some washing, and generally took my time.  Then there was a knock on the door.  Emily was sleeping on the boat, so I had invited her to come and spend some time around the pool if she wanted to.  It wasn’t too far off lunch, so I cobbled together a salad of sorts and ordered a bottle of sparkles from room service.  It happened to be called Emily.  Funny.  We sat on the balcony and ate lunch and drunk Emily, and then went to sleep for a while.  Hmm – looks like the human Emily is about as energetic as me!  Either that or she is just humouring me.

I really did have to do those spreadsheets the next day – we were shopping on Friday, so there was no choice really.  I decided to put a few cold salad type meals in, as the whole of this next leg up to Danang is going to be very warm.  That doesn’t sound too bad in itself, but it means all the recipe spreadsheets have to be altered to take into account the new ingredients.  It was a good day’s work.  But I got it done.

Friday we did the shop.  We had Michael’s in laws ute and small car – and we filled both of them up to the brim.  There is an awful lot of groceries involved in shopping for 21 people for 32 days.  But I am getting used to it now.­­­­  I had lots of help – apart from Michael and his wife Chris I had Pops and Kirsty, as well as Shona who is gluten free and who came to make sure what I was buying was suitable and Tony.  We all had a trolley and some – as I said, there is a lot of food needed for 21 people for 32 days.  We got most of what we needed in the first shop, but just had to go and “mop up” in Coles and IGA.  It then all had to be loaded on to the boat, and then packed in the day bags.  There were many hands, but it still didn’t all get done by the time we had to rush back to shower for the prize giving at 6pm.  Unfortunately we weren’t on the end of a prize this time – Mission Performance quite rightly took the Stormhoek Social Spirit Award.  Many thanks to all of you for changing allegiance and voting for them – they were well deserved winners.  And to top it all off there were fireworks.  Allegedly.  I have to admit that I slipped off early, thinking that I would watch them from my balcony.  But I fell asleep, and missed the whole thing.  They were good apparently!

Saturday was another day off!  Except that I had the menu planner to type up still and the put the recipes in the folder.  Never quite get a whole day off – but I won’t complain, as I have had more time to do things in this stopover than ever before.  I did wander into town and get a pedicure – nice to start the next leg with well looked after feet!  I have managed to read two whole books in the last week, so it actually has felt more like a holiday.  Emily and I went out for dinner at a lovely fish restaurant called Fish D’vine.  The food was excellent – except that I had crab which came almost the same as when it was living, and it was too much of a pfaff to crack it open and get out the teaspoon of meat inside.  It was in a lovely thai curry sauce, so not all bad.  It was a pleasant evening – one of the last we will spend together as we go our separate ways from here.  Sad.  We did have a giggle over the movie trailer Paul had put on facebook.  The characters were amazingly similar to their counterparts on Danang.  Spookily so!

As we wandered back along the main (and virtually only) street in Airlie, the bars full to the brim with backpackers were in full swing.  Neither of us felt a need to stop.  This is a lovely stopover Clipper style, but perhaps not one that I will make again.  Perhaps if I was thirty years younger……but probably not!

Last full day in Airlie, we reported to the boat for the 9.30am meeting.  Michael and I then went to buy the last minute bread and milk, and the other odd things we hadn’t managed to get, together will a salad for lunch tomorrow, pasta and sauce for dinner, and some really lovely yoghurt and granola and muffins for breakfast the following day.  A bit different to the usual rolls, pies and pastries.  We will see how that goes.

The fruit and vegetable delivery was a little late, but turned up just before we had to go for our immigration check to get out of the country.  There was loads of it – not sure where it all went!  Let’s hope everyone is hungry and eats it quite quickly.  There are lots of spare vegetables this time, so I hope the “mothers” will take the initiative and make some meals with fresh ingredients.

In the afternoon we had the crew brief for the next leg.  The good news was that there are no cyclones forecast.  The bad news was that we are heading into pirate country.  We have a full pirate brief, and what to do if we are approached by them.  Which includes getting dressed in our orange shirts to scare them away.  A bit like the British did when they painted themselves blue to keep the Vikings at bay I suppose.  If that doesn’t work, we just have to give them what they ask for – they apparently are not the kidnap type, they just want watches and money.  Not sure there is much of either on this boat!!  Let’s hope we don’t meet any.

We then had the final briefing on the boat with Wendo.  All the new crew were present – including Qui who was the last member of the crew we had to meet – and ready to go, along with the “old” lot.  Michael came – I think he is finding it very hard not being part of this next leg.  We all hope that his absence is short, and he will be fit and healthy to join us in Qingdao.  Pete and Phil entered into an outrigger boat race this morning, and got the first place trophy.  A good omen for the start of this leg.  We all know what we are capable of now – let’s hope we can be at the pointy end of the fleet going into Danang to make our sponsors proud.

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You Have Been Danangoed

The finish of the race into Airlie Beach was rather exciting – in a slow sort of way.  The speed in which we flew up the east coast of Australia seemed to come to a screeching halt about three hours out.  We were firmly in fifth place for several days, with Derry off of our port bow, and Unicef and Ichorcoal hot on our heels.  The distances didn’t seem to change an awful lot – we were about five miles behind Derry and just over one mile ahead of the other two.  With about sixty miles to go, it looked as though we had fifth place in the bag as long as we didn’t stuff up and let one of the other two behind catch up.

The scenery through the islands is beautiful – most of the 74 islands that make up the Whitsundays are completely uninhabited, but very green.  Some are mountainous, some are flat.  Some are tiny, some are bigger.  During the afternoon of 9^th January, we worked out that we should arrive into Airlie Beach early to late evening.  Just in time for a beer!  Derry took off, and we almost lost sight of them.  They were closer to the islands than we were, and it looked like their wind was a little more favourable as they seemed to gradually increase their lead.  We were increasing our lead on the other two, so all looked like it was going to end that way.

We were still flying the spinnaker on one heavyweight sheet – that had done us very well thankfully on this leg.  The wind was due to change, so when we came on shift at 6pm we had to prepare to change to white sails (yankee and staysail).  We had the yankee 2 already hanked on, but it is good for higher winds than we were expecting.  Wendo suggested that we take that one down, and put the yankee 1 up, which is better for lighter winds.  She seemed very apologetic – asking if we minded doing that.  It was coming up for the end of the race, we seemed in a safe position, so it would be easy enough to leave things as they were.  But we didn’t – we changed the sail and how glad were we that we did.

The sun went down fairly early – the beautiful islands that we were sailing through were now appearing only as darker mounds against a dark moonless night.  Quite scary – there are a lot of them, as well as sand banks and coral reefs that could put pay to a very delightful afternoon’s sailing.  Wendo is used to sailing these waters.  She has raced many times up to Airlie Beach, so did not seem perturbed at all.  We went off shift at 10pm, having slowed quite considerably.  Not as much as Derry had slowed in front of us though.  We can see on our AIS any boat that is within around 10 miles from us, and their heading information and speed.  We could see that we were doing around 5 knots more than they were.  There was then a good chance that we could catch them up.

One of our main primary winches had also stopped working part way through this leg.  Michael had it stripped right down and found quite a lot of mashed up metal bits inside.  He fixed it as best as he could – and in his words gave it a 48 hour guarantee.  That was two days ago.  We all hoped that the winch would hold out, as it would have been devastating if equipment failure let us down at this point in time.  It did hold out – he had done an excellent job!

Michael decided to give Wendo a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans.  Wendo doesn’t drink coffee – the caffeine in the coffee beans totally hot wired her.  She was popping out of the nav station hatch and buzzing around like the Duracell bunny.

We were only a slightly different course to Derry, and were catching up by the minute.  Wendo was on the AIS directing Craig on the helm of the exact co-ordinates to steer to, whilst David was on the bow calling the trim on the sails.  We silently glided past them in the dead of the night – everybody whispering as if talking would slow us down.  The wind then stopped almost completely.  The windseeker went up, then came down, then went up again, then came down.  David had a trick or two that he used with the sails to get a knot or two more out of them.  That was the difference between fourth and fifth.  We sailed around the headland – Wendo knew the route like the back of her hand, knew where the wind would be and would not be, and more importantly where the rocks would be.  We didn’t want to do an “LMax”!

After what seemed like an interminable amount of hours getting to the finish line, we pipped Derry to the post.  Or what is now termed as “being Danangoed”.

That is the second time we have overtaken someone on the home straight when it looked as if we had no chance.  Wendo was over the moon – she did a couple of celebratory donuts after we finished.  It may not have been the win that we experienced on the previous race, or even a podium finish, but just managing to get one place better than that we had resigned ourselves to made all the difference.

We docked at the marina at about 3am in the morning – we were greeted with wine and beer, and everyone was in the mood to party.  It was 3am in the morning – I was ready for bed!  I had a phone signal from about forty miles out, so had contacted Paul with the request to have a hotel room waiting for me on arrival.  I had already changed my reservation to include an earlier arrival of 10^th January – thank you Gareth from Inspired from Australasia, you always come up trumps.  But this was the night of 9^th – I did not want to sleep on a sweaty smelly boat any longer than I had to.  Cheryl and Anita at Travel Stop played an absolute blinder with the night manager at the Coral Beach Resort, who had a room waiting for me when I pitched up at 4.30am.  It wasn’t the penthouse that I had booked for the remaining nights of my stay, but it was a lovely cool room with a hot shower and a comfortable bed.  I left the others on the pontoon – who apparently all went to bed in daylight much the worse for wear.  I may have only had four hours sleep before I had to be back on deck for the deep clean – but that was the best four hours sleep I had had since leaving Hobart.  You have to take it when you can get it!!

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Bridget only has basic email facilities on the boat. Editing and the choice of images on this blog is entirely by Paul Keevil!
Don’t miss another of Bridget’s blogs – click on follow and you will get an email when her next post is online.

Whitsundays on Saturday.

We are sailing through (literally) the Whitsunday Islands on the Great
Barrier Reef.  Earlier than expected – that is novel.  Our arrival window
was 13th/14th January, and if all goes well this afternoon/early evening we
should arrive in the early hours of the morning.  Three whole days extra in
Airlie Beach – perfect!

Because we are now in the Northern waters, there is another little hazard
to make life a little more difficult.  There are little jellyfish in the
waters called irukandji, which are tiny and virtually invisible.

We will take them in the intake with the sea water, so no cleaning teeth or
washing up with sea water anymore.  They are similar to the box jellyfish
here in that they will give you a really nasty bite – in some cases fatal.
The vinegar has already been put in the medical cabinet, which is used to
administer bites, as we are all on deck with only tee shirts and shorts on
and they can potentially come over with a wave.  Something else to look
forward to!

The journey hasn’t entirely gone to plan.  We have had the spinnaker up for
most of the second half of the race, apart from taking it down a couple of
times when the wind turns in the wrong direction.  A couple of nights ago
we took down the spinnaker on a night watch.  There was no moon, and it was
extremely dark.  When we came to tidy up after the spinnaker was shoved
downstairs, we found one of the sheets missing (ropes).

It must have gone overboard in the drop, and because it was so dark no one saw it pulling out over the side.  These are the longest ropes on the boat – they must be around 150 feet long – and very expensive.  We will have to get it replaced in Airlie Beach, but will suffer some penalty points for damage.  We now have a new policy in place to stop it from happening again.  Horses and stable doors come to mind – but at least that should stop us from losing another one.

We have managed with one, as we also have lightweight spinnaker sheets on
board.  We have the one heavyweight sheet left as the active sheet, and the
lightweight sheet as the lazy sheet.  OK unless we have to tack – but as we
should have been on this tack for “the next half an hour” nearly two days
ago, it isn’t too bad!

As with every leg, something always goes missing.  this time it is the
toilet cleaner.  No idea where the toilet duck went, but it isn’t where it
should be.  No doubt we will find it when we do the deep clean.

The weather now is unbearably hot.  Trying to sleep in the afternoon after
coming off the 6am to 12 noon shift is virtually impossible.  My little
coffin bunk is like a sauna – there is absolutley no air at all.  the bunk
above me is even worse – the sun beats down on the deck, which is about
eighteen inches from your face if you sleep in the top one.  Put your hand
on the roof, and it will burn.  And it will get worse – it is all coming
back to me!!  I think I will invest in some sort of fan in Airlie Beach
that is rechargeable – will make life a lot more comfortable.

I haven’t actually slept properly for a couple of days now.  The kindle
came out – not because of needing to read, but trying to take my mind off
the sweat running down my face and back.  I have music on my phone, which
up to now I haven’t used.  Thought that would be a good idea until I found
out that the ear plugs don’t fit the iphone with the “clipper proof” case
that William put on for me.  I should have had a little extension to plug
in – I probably have still in the case in the UK. Luckily someone else had
one that I borrowed, and Il Divo and Andrea Bocelli accompanied me in my
sweaty, smelly, uncomfortable bunk.

Not looking forward to getting to Airlie Beach and an air conditioned room at all!

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Bridget only has basic email facilities on the boat. Editing and the choice of images on this blog is entirely by Paul Keevil!
Don’t miss another of Bridget’s blogs – click on follow and you will get an email when her next post is online.

Welcome to the Sunshine Coast – Reloaded!

The champagne sailing around the Australian coast has arrived at last –
minus the champagne of course.  It is now absolutely boiling hot, and very
very sweaty.  There just doesn’t seem to be anything inbetween. That would
be too easy!!

We are at present off the coast of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast.  We
have dropped back quite significantly in the rankings, after leading for
most of the first few days.  As, in the words of Wendo, she dropped the
ball and made a couple of bad calls re gybing or not gybing.  That’s life.
We haven’t finished yet.

The weather significantly improved as from the afternoon shift yesterday,
when the shorts and tee shirts finally made another appearance.  Not only
that, Amanda appeared for the first time since leaving Hobart from her
bunk.  She has been struck with sea sickness for the first four or five
days at the start of every race.  Unfortunately for her, this particular
leg has had three starts – so three lots of five days in bed.  This is the
second of her two legs – I think she is quite pleased that she hasn’t got
to endure another one.

Several others were also sea sick at the beginning – including me.  Luckily, every time I needed to be sick there was a receptacle handy to throw up in.  Once in the rubbish bin, once when I was serving porridge and I grabbed a bin bag (sorry for all those that were having breakfast!) and once when I was cleaning the toilets.  Perfect place!!  But it was only a brief moment every time – nothing debilitating. Anyway, we have a full crew again now.

The sun does seem to put a whole new perspective on going up “over the
trenches” as it sometimes seems when the weather is doing its worst and I
come up the stairs to go on deck.  I always think of the Blackadder episode
when I stick my head up, and think of the trenches in World War One.  Not a
real comparison, but I somehow think the feeling of dread may be similar.

I would like to thank everyone who voted for Danang in the Stormhoek Social
Spirit Award once again – it is a real honour taking the prize as we have
done for the second time in a row.  This time, however, my request would be
for you to vote for Mission Performance.  They answered a mayday signal
from a yacht with someone stuck up the mast.  It was on a delivery back
from a boat race (not the Sydney/Hobart) which means that there are only
one or two professional crew on board, with others that need to get “sea
miles”.  Mission did a person to person transfer with one of their round
the worlders, who went up the mast and helped to get the man down.  A truly
heroic act by both the skipper who made the call, and all the crew that
helped.  They deserve everyone’s vote this time.  But you can go back to
voting for Danang next time!

So, the sun was up and out at 6am for our shift this morning.  We came out
to seeing Qingdhao about one hundred feet in front of us.  We overtook them
quite quickly, and set off for Garmin who was next in line.  There were
about six boats all around us – amazing after over a thousand miles that we
are all so close.  Except the two that had stayed well offshore, and are
well in the lead.  About three hours later we gybed, and came so close to
Qingdao we could have passed over a cup of tea.  Everyone waved – it is a
very friendly race.  We just need to keep making the right decisions, and
get back to the front.  Now we know that we can do it.

Back to the frivolity.  If you remember in the last leg, Sergej won £100
for our crew fund for having the best photograph.  It was a fantastic
photograph, and very well deserved.  Anyway, there has been a debate as to
what we are going to spend the money on.  We had already purchased a bilge
pump that we had not allowed for, so it was suggested that we put it
towards this.  We also thought that we could use a steam cleaner for the
mattresses, so there was a list up that we could choose one or the other.
Not everyone voted, but Wendo decided that she didn’t want either of those,
and added her own choice.  A male stripper, preferably a fireman.  Valerie
checked the accounts when we were in Sydney, and announced today that we
could afford the bilge pump, and Michael had purchased a steam cleaner and
donated it, so we still had the money to spend.

So, the stripper issue came up again.  Previously, David had suggested that
he may be available for £100.  He often wanders from his bunk to the toilet
in nothing more than a tee shirt and budgie smugglers, with Ugg slippers
completing the outfit.  He decided to “try out” round the companionway
pole, and gave us a leg kick as he went into the toilet.

Anyway, at lunch today Wendo had a big grin on her face as the fact that the £100 was still available, and she asked for a vote.

She was the only one that raised her hand apart from David (ulterior motive), and Marc on the helm.  He reckoned he didn’t hear what he was voting for, but as it was a vote thought he had better put his hand up.  Wendo looked at him, and said they would have another vote for Marc to be the stripper, to which March innocently raised his hand again. He couldn’t understand why everyone was falling around laughing – until he was enlightened.

When we went downstairs, Wendo was sitting on the fridge by her bunk down by the nav station and Marc’s bunk is the next one along.  I was sitting at the crew pc (which is now working momentarily) when I heard Marc say “is this worth £100”.   It seems his backside was out of his shorts – but thankfully pointing Wendo’s way and not mine.  Not sure whether there was a sensible answer amongst the groans and the shouts.  Now that wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been over eighty degrees.

We have had a very delightful lunch of carrot, orange, apple and raisin
salad with a very delicious vinaigrette.  What could be better that sitting
on a yacht off the Gold Coast, in the sunshine, eating a beautiful lunch?
If only it was all like this……

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Bridget only has basic email facilities on the boat. Editing and the choice of images on this blog is entirely by Paul Keevil!
Don’t miss another of Bridget’s blogs – click on follow and you will get an email when her next post is online.

Welcome to the Sunshine Coast

2016 – we have clicked over to the 16 part of the 2015-16 race.  Four
months gone, seven to go.  Nearly at the end of Leg 4 of 8, but it
seems we are taking the scenic way home.

We started the third and last race of this all Australia leg in
somewhat cooler conditions than I would have expected.  Hobart is very similar in temperature to the UK.  It was an early start, as there was another
regatta due to start in the afternoon, and they wanted us well out if the way
before then.

We slipped lines at 9am, and had a very short parade of sail – we
nearly didn’t make it at all as our main sail halyard came undone as we were
hoisting it.  Took a little while to send Matt up the mast with the
other end to rethread it and get it all plugged in again.  But we did, and
we took our place a the end – doesn’t matter where you start, it is where
you finish that counts!

We were not first over the line, but we had David at the helm with all
of his local knowledge.  Which meant we were first out of the Derwent, by
quite a few yards.  I know that, because Paul was on a little boat
following us and that’s what he communicated.

It was hard saying goodbye to family this time – not sure when we are all going to meet up again.

We kept our lead along Storm Bay, and hung a left around Tasman
Island. This was where there was a helicopter when we came in a few days ago – it turned out to be a photography helicopter, and the photos were rather
good so I am now $605 lighter, but will have a memento to hang up on my
wall! The dolphins that escorted us in were there again to escort us out.
Fabulous.

It was lovely to see all the fleet behind us again – we got the
spinnaker flying and all was good.  We could see the the others come around the corner and pop their spinnakers.  A lovely sight.  Local knowledge
helps.  We kept the spinnaker up for a good few hours before the wind
started to pick up.

Then it started to get really fruity.  The wind at least was in the
right direction, and we were trucking along quite nicely.  It may have
been in the right direction, but the boat was on a 45 degree angle.
And still is – three days later.  We passed Sydney in two and a half
days, so the speed is good.  But life is not comfortable!

The computer screen is not working, so I am having to type this in the
nav station.  Which means every few minutes someone needs it, and I
have to stop.

I am the only crew member with internet access this leg, and the crew
pc doesn’t seem to come under anyones remit on board, which means that
there is no urgency to get it fixed.  Shame!

The conditions at present are not exactly as one would imagine.  I did
say “Welcome to the Sunshine Coast” at lunch today, but was told we
weren’t there yet.  Must be why it is a grey January day, raining and
miserable, and very, very wet on deck.  There is so much water coming
over, I actually came off shift today with a soggy bottom.  The
foulies obviously can’t cope with sitting in what amounts to a
paddling pool.  The water had ran up my sleeve and soaked my clothes,
and I was wet down to my pants.  The only thing that wasn’t wet was my
socks!  The one consolation is that the water is fairly warm – until
the wind whistles round and cools it down.  Champagne sailing at its
best!

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PS: I have posted a new video from Clipper showing the Sydney Hobart race
in Bridget’s blog “And the winner is……….”