Sailing the Pacific: Photos & Videos!!!!

Firstly the videos. Here's a couple of edited ones - there should be more to come as there is loads of raw footage - as and when people edit and upload them I will update further.

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOpT131xIao - footage of our first steering failure.
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWTSXAAvL_0 - some great footage of the rough weather on board. I was helming the big wave at the end (from 1:40 to 1:49).

Now for the photos - quite a lot here so be warned!

- Qingdao - Olympic Sailing City and our Base for 6 days before race start.

- Sadly this was more the side of Qingdao we saw during our stay. For those interested, this lovely little bundle of joy is called a Grenade - you "pull the pin" by taking out and drinking one of the shots allowing the other to fall in as a Jaeger Bomb....wonderful.

- The send off was only outdone by the cold weather on race start day.

- Once the water maker couldn't be fixed we had no choice but to load on 50 of these 19L water bottles which was more than enough to see us across the Pacific.

- And we're off - Le Mans start in the South China Sea 24 hours after leaving Qingdao.

- Starboard Watch - this (plus Emma who presumably took the photo!) was our watch for leg 6. We had many many laughs on our way across the Pacific.

- The only land we saw from China to San Fran was the south tip of Japan.

- Taking advantage of one of the only 2 sunny days to finally dry out some kit.

- The sunshine was brief - back to wind, rain and waves coming over the bow.

- AFS (Another F'ing Sunrise/Sunset) - the round the worlders were very bored of their twice daily AFS but on this leg we only saw 2 sunsets and 1 sunrise - the rest of the 29 days were covered by thick cloud.

- Tim getting into the spirit for Paddy's Day

- Our rather tired looking mainsail feeling the full effects of 25,000 miles sailed to date.

- Me and Tim on deck, still smiling! Based on lack of beards though this must have been fairly early on.

- AFS (see above)

- Celebrating Jav's birthday. Yes that is me looking hobo-like to the right.

- Action shot on the bow

- Helming the big seas was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip. Capturing the sea-state on camera was very difficult - this was one of the best shots taken.