Nearly there

Out of adversity comes something....can't remember what it is but am sure it's
relevant to us here. Perhaps it's strength. The Derry crew has certainly shown
it in abundance since we lost our 3rd place. Morale is very good - maybe we're
just demob happy, maybe now that we've taken our focus off the podium and back
onto why we're really out here doing this we've realised just how amazing it's
been. It feels like months ago that we waited in Qingdao to see if we'd be able
to race at all after our water-maker failed. Had you offered us then a 4th place
finish with all crew safe and smiling we'd have ripped your hand off. Yet after
29 amazing days on the Pacific that's exactly what we're looking at. It's all
very, very good. We had 2 great day's sailing, counting down the number of
watches left before arrival and watching the ETA tick down towards zero.
Humidity levels down below are near saturation levels - I've really never seen
anything like it. If you hang something out to dry it gets wetter, so
counter-intuitively the best thing to do with something wet is roll it in a
ball to hopefully stop it getting wetter.

One real downer has been finding my "dry-bag" of land-clothes to wear in San
Fran has leaked so I now own nothing dry. Going to quickly turn my hotel room
into a chinese laundry on arrival. Not to worry - with a bed, beer, burger and
shower just 11 hours away it would be diffiicult put a downer on things. It
seems spirits are the onky thing left on board that aren't damp. And by way of
a final goodbye the Pacific threw us a quick 40 knot headwind for the last 6
hours just to remind us of how potent it can be. Despite some fairly extreme
conditions it's been a fairly benign crossing.

The schedule from here is 3-4pm crossing of line tomorrow, sorry, later today
(just started 4am watch). Moored by 6pm, beers, quick shower, food then more
beers until tiredness overcomes us. Big boat clean tomorrow followed by
maintenance day the day after and then crew dinner on the 4th. Then a lovely
week with family before returning home at last. Will post more details of the
adventure in the coming days/weeks, but for now, one more watch to go, a sleep
and then the Golden Gate Bridge awaits.