After a hectic 10 days in Oakland/San Francisco we made it home in one piece last night. While memories are still relatively fresh I thought I'd fill in a few of the blanks from the trip - mainly Qingdao, arrival into San Fran and thoughts on the race since returning to dry land. So here goes....
Qingdao:
Those of you who followed our round the world travels from 2006 will probably recall we didn't enjoy China too much. So here I was, 6 years later, heading back into the dragon's den. We landed in Beijing to a familiar cold and smoggy sky, people spitting in the airport, no one speaking English and of course Kung Po Chicken (the only dish recognisable on most menus, hence the only dinner we'd probably eat for a week, again). And it all started so well - made the treck to the domestic terminal and depsite having a BA receipt saying my bags were checked through all the way to Qingdao, they informed me this wasn't possible - thankfully I had thought to check just in case. All the way back to International Terminal, collected my bags and just about made check-in deadline before catching flight to Qingdao. And we were there. It's quite a pleasant city right on the coast with a remarkably familiar French-Riviera feel to the natural coastline, albeit with a lot of big sky-scrapers. I'm pleased to say the locals were a lot more pleasant than those we had encountered previously in China - perhaps it's the more relaxed "Chinese Riviera" lifestyle they enjoy. Once checked in we headed straight for the boat where we encountered about half the crew and skipper, and headed out for drinks and dinner. What followed over the next 6 days was 1 day's maintenance, 2 sails (refresher sail and corporate sail) and a lot of fairly frantic drinking in a local bar called Lennon's which soon became Clipper's and more specifically Derry's favourite haunt. Jetlag wasn't a problem as we basically didn't change to Chinese time, finishing in the pub around 6-8am most days (9-11pm body time) and sleeping most of the day. It's the first time I've ever been in a bar so late that we had to wake up the staff to get served. Guns and Roses's "November Rain" became the stopover anthem as it was the band in Lennon's Bar's late-night masterpiece after which things generally fell apart. In Annie "The Assasin" and Robin "The Drunk" we met 2 great characters from Leg 5 who sadly we wouldn't be sailing with but who set the benchmark for the kind of performances expected of us new leggers both on land and at sea - they would certainly be big boots to fill!
Life on Board:
In previous blogs I referred to aspects of life on board, type of jobs we did and the watch system. But I still think people (skipper most of all probably!) wonder how we spent our time on the average day. So here's a rough breakdown of how the "average" 24hours was spent:
Off Watch:
1. 8 hours in bed asleep. By asleep I mean in bunk trying to sleep despite being thrown in all sorts of conditions. Actually, sleep obtained ranged from about 2 hours right up to nearly the full 9, depending on conditions and levels of exhaustion.
2. 2 hours spent after watches eating, having a bit of a chat/wind-down and preparing for bed ie getting out of gear, preparing sleeping bags etc.
2. 2 hours spent before watches mainly getting dressed, eating etc.
On Watch:
1. 3 of the 12 on-watch hours were spent on standby. On cold and wet nights (most of them for our leg), we split the watch of 6 people into two watches of 3. Three would go down below staying warm and ready for action should they be needed, while the other 3 helmed the boat in turns. We rotated these two sub-watches on an hourly basis to prevent all 6 people getting too cold on a 4 hour watch. Standby watch was usually when I would try to catch up on emails etc.
2. In good weather we'd spend 2 hours a day helming each. When the weather got heavy this would go as high as 6 hours due to some being unwilling or unable to helm in the very big weather.
3. One hour a day would be spent doing our daily job. These included cleaner (below deck), log entries (taking detailed notes of where we were, what was going on every 2 hours), engine checks - although we didn't use the engine should we ever have needed it in an emergency you'd want to be sure it would work first time. Bilges - this is the name for generic water that accumulates in the bottom of the boat - mainly sea water but also condensation, spilt water etc. The water is a dead weight so a 2-man team would clean it out every 2 hours to reduce our boat weight.
4. 1-2 hours per day would be spent on evolutions. These are well practiced (though not always well executed!) maneuvers such as changing sails and reefing (making the main sail bigger or smaller in size) which depended on the current wind. In truth there were many days when we did none at all as the weather and our course were both stable, and others when we'd be pretty much constantly doing them. The 1-2 hours is a best-guess average.
5. That leaves around 2-4 hours a day which fall into the "miscellaneous" category. Some of this time was spent on Leg 9 (see below in case that expression is new to you). Some was spent trimming - looking at the sails every 15-20 minutes to see if they were still the right shape or if small adjustments were needed to move the boat along as efficiently as possible in changing conditions. On very cold days, some was spent below trying to quickly warm up. The vast majority of this time though was spent chatting to crewmates about every and anything and all without the ability to look up google for the answer - good old fashioned conversation! Some of the best topics discussed included best celebrity encounters (all fairly rubbish but funny none-the-less), geography - can you name any of the countries from Mexico to Columbia (answer was generally no), why Gold Coast Australia were so fast (illegal use of engine and giving themselves a miserable time were the main reasons we liked to conclude), what adventures we had planned next, what we most looked forward to on dry-land and why Bondi used to stick his tongue out all the time when helming (we're still not sure).
Arrival into San Francisco:
We all surfaced from our 8am-2pm off watch fairly early - like kids on Christmas Eve we were too excited to sleep through knowing what lay in wait. We all arrived on deck around noon with land well in sight. We had one last crew meeting where skipper congratulated and thanked us all for our efforts in the crossing. We then got ourselves ready for the finish and crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge accompanied by the Clipper media boat at around 4pm local time. The spectacular arrival into San Francisco Bay was outdone only by the wonderful sense of accomplishment at being there - we'd made it, still smiling and all in one piece. The sun was shining as we passed under the bridge with Alcatraz dead ahead and the skyline coming into view to starboard - it was a sight I will never forget. We passed around a well deserved bottle of Calvados to celebrate, while Bondi, in a shameless bout of media prostitution, sprinted to the bow to pose for photos for the Clipper camera - we were not angry at this act of self-promotion, just disappointed (sorry, small in-joke there - we actually just found it quite hilarious!). Our attention was suddenly grabbed by the wonderful smells of food wafting over from Fisherman's Wharf as we remembered all the land luxuries we were soon to enjoy. It took a further hour and a half before we docked in Oakland, greeted by a hundred or so fellow crew, interested locals etc. It was a very warm and unexpected welcome which we then provided for all the boats finishing after us - although it's a race and we are rival crews, the safely and timely return of all boats and crew is the most important thing to everyone involved. And after a quick and friendly customs/border control visit, we headed straight to the bar in full (and smelly) kit for some well deserved beer.
Incredibly, after an initial lull in adrenaline (I think it was our bodies expecting to be back off-watch at 8pm), the mood picked up, as did the drinking pace and we drank on until about 3am the following morning. The next 2 days were taken up with a big and much needed boat clean and a day of boat maintenance - CV10 (our boat) had looked after us incredibly well across the Pacific, it was now our turn to return the favour by looking after her. And by day 4 on land, most of us made the move from Oakland (slightly dodgy area where the boats were moored) over to San Francisco to await the arrival of friends and family. It was great to see Helen, to start the transition to normality, to enjoy our last few nights out with our new-found Derry family.
Thoughts, Conclusion and the trip on Leg 9:
I think I mentioned the concept of Leg 9 before on the blog. The round the world race involves 8 racing legs. On our race (Leg 6), we introduced the concept of Leg 9 - the mental/spiritual journey undertaken by each one of us during and after the race itself. On those long night watches spent staring up at the stars or even longer day watches spent looking at the horizon, each of us had much time to ponder life, our current adventure, future adventures and a whole lot more. The crossing was a strange experience - there is no doubt that it was a big undertaking but as with many challenges in life, in the day-to-day of living it, it just felt normal. As I type this I wonder how I could ever describe surfing down 20m waves at over 25 knots as normal, or spending 20 minutes at 45 degrees trying to get dressed as normal, or being wet for 29 days as normal, but each day of it and even now having finished it, although it was a fantastic experience, it was not something I would ever describe as remarkable. I suppose it was a good reminder of just how adaptable and tough humans really are when pushed out of their comfort zone, but that has a lot more to do with evolution than it does with any great achievement on our part. And I'm afraid other than that there was no great, earth-shattering enlightenment for me on the trip. I loved the experience - not every minute of it (see previous blogs, notably "The Dorothy Button") but undoubtedly the overall adventure. There were sights and experiences I will never forget, friends I will have for life and I'll never quite look at the sea the same way again. Maybe not life changing but not bad none-the-less.
I've some great photos and videos downloaded from the boat media camera which I'll post shortly. And I'm sure there are a couple of topics I've forgotten which I'll post if/when I remember. And of course if on my ongoing journey on leg 9 I do encounter spiritual enlightenment or the meaning of life I'll be sure to let you all know!
