The race is over! It was called at 04.00 boat time by race control and I’m not surprised! The sun was beginning to rise as the news came in, we had a big cheer, and a pod of dolphins joined us for the celebrations, skipping and jumping in front of our bow. Just Washington, Scotland, and Tongyeong are yet to cross, race finish line 1 and will be given their finish, retrospectively from their current position. We, CV25, London Business School have another podium finish our first 3rd spot of the race so far, with an unexpected extra point for coming third in the sprint. A great effort from Gavin, Zoe and the crew. It’s been a difficult race for me in many ways, but I feel I’m stronger for that experience and how I’ve dealt with my own demons, I’ve had some great support from my crew members. We now have to motor for about 5 days all the way to Panama via Costa Rica for a fuel stop.
The boat is set up well for the next race to Washington DC. The crew have learnt quickly and are much better prepared for the next race. More importantly, we’ve not broken anything major on this leg and our sails are in a really good state, thanks to Petra and Kerry. The guys who will be with us to the end on Leg 8 have grown to 11. Ollie, Tony, Petra, David and I being the circumnavigators, with Michelle, Matt, Lucy, Lon, Will and Kerry, the multi leggers. With Andy a returning multi legger yet to join us, giving us 12 experienced crew for the start of leg 8. I feel we’re going to be in a great position for the last three races.
I’m back on Mother with Kerry again and I’ve got the short rest day this time, meaning I’m up at 05.30 for my 06.00 watch rather than 11.30 for my 12.00 watch. Now that we have finished the race, we’ve got a lot of jobs to be completed before we reach shore, stuff that we would normally do once landed. So, the guys have kicked off the work with a vengeance. However, Kerry and I are still on mother trying to prepare food and the guys have taken over the kitchen. I’ve had no rest. I’ve been up since 01.30 this morning and ready for a kip and the guys are stopping us from getting the food ready!
With the long motor sail to Costa Rica, we have a big jobs list that would normally be done on shore. Doing them whilst motoring will save us time in the marina but also keep us busy. Lucy has started the massive job of victualling and the day bags contained in the forward bunks and cubbies have been removed. All the day-bags from under the bunks have been pulled out along with the crew’s bags and they’ve dumped them onto my bunk! The food has been emptied into the cockpit for further sorting. I hope they get a wiggle on as I’ve got to prepare dinner and there’s not a lot of space. I’d like to get the most from my sleep tonight. We will try to get the bosun jobs done over the next few days, including all the winches and grinders, which have had some hammer this leg. The steering will need a look at. I think the plan will be to transit the canal early, so we’ll have more time on the Atlantic side of the canal with our stay probably being in Panama, a good 90-minute drive in the morning! So, we want to get as many of our repair jobs done before we transit the canal.
Nana’s pancakes on deck
Back to mother and we put up some American style pancakes for breakfast with a combination of toppings. My favourite, very simple, butter and caster sugar. It takes me back to when I was a child, around 8 or 9 years old and my Nana, who was a wonderful woman and baker who owned and ran a delicatessen in Belfast. I used to walk home from school via The Arcadia, which is still in the family today. There was always a comforting aroma of roasting chicken cooking away on the rotisserie at the back of the shop. She took me back to the small bakery in the rear of the shop and made me fresh pancakes, with butter and caster sugar, hmmm, what’s not to like, although my pancakes are no match to my Nana’s.
We made some meat balls in a chilli tomato sauce for lunch on some freshly cooked bread. Then dinner a chilli con carne served on a dollop of really buttery mash. Eventually the day bags went back down below under my bunk, but you’ve guessed it, I had to put all the personal bags, left on my bunk, away before I could get to bed.
A relatively good sleep last night, despite the heat and when back up on breakfast after some porridge, GOSH and Seattle are slightly in front. CV27, GOSH have got Seattle under tow. After a cup of coffee, we crack on with emptying the sail locker for a deep clean. So, all the sails are dragged up on deck and the floorboards lifted, the bilges cleaned and dried before the boards are all put back down again. Petra will have a look at the hanks to make sure they’re okay before they can come back down again.
It has been another day of wildlife. The boobies are now fighting over our bow sprit. To be fair there’s not many perches around these parts and we’ve got 4 birds at any one time hitching a ride. There are loads of turtles around, we’ve even seen the boobies hitching a ride on their backs. There’s been a few whale sightings, mostly just their blow holes and a number of dolphins join us for a while then disappear as quickly as they arrive.
With the boat motor sailing in relatively light winds, both watches have been split at night in half, requiring just 3 crew on deck for no longer than 2 hours, giving everyone 6 hours sleep in a slightly cooler environment. My 1st night watch on the new system and we’ve been treated to an amazing lightening show. We can see the steaming lights of both GOSH and Seattle about a mile on our port beam, but with the flashes of lightening behind them, emanating from the Mexican coast, they’re lit up like Christmas trees. An amazing sight. We’ve also had a few restless dolphins zooming about with their trails just visible under the sea surface. Initially I didn’t know what they were, it looked like two torpedos heading straight for the boat! I was so glad it turned out to be two dolphins. I wasn’t worried, honestly!
Winches and Wildlife
Today I’ve changed up my watch patterns to do the winches on both watches. We’ve done three with the morning watch and hope to get another three done with the afternoon watch. We’ve been visited again by a large pod of dolphins, with some very happy and playful individuals. Jumping into the air to a large cheer from the crew. The louder we cheered the higher they jumped, lt was amazing. In all the excitement I didn’t press record on my phone! Thought I’d captured some awesome footage, but nothing? Not my best moment behind the lens.
Two primary winches and 4 secondary winches fully serviced and I’m now stinking of diesel fuel and roasting hot, phew! (we use diesel to degrease the winches before greasing them up again). Great help from Will, Petra on Tony’s watch and Kieke and Lon from mine. Both Lon and Will are with us to the finish, so really worth the effort training them. 5 more winches to do, the grinders and their gear train, the jammers and the steering. We should get it all done before we get to Costa Rica.
I’ve been up since 04.00 and getting ready for dinner in 20 minutes I’m knackered, but I’ve just had enough time to shave my head and have a full body wash, an all over clean! I’ve got a new pair of undies, clean shorts and T shirt, feel a million dollars. I’ve also got a clean sheet out for my bunk. Let’s hope it lasts until we get to Panama.
Back on deck this morning and believe it or not, it’s too windy to do any work on the boat! It’s the 1st time some of the crew have helmed upwind. But we’re still only travelling at around 6 knots, but at least it’s in the right direction. Such a shame the wind is not on our beam, we’d be flying into Costa Rica. We’ve seen a few fishing flags for the 1st time since leaving Chinese waters and we’ve only gone and caught one of them! Bugger. David has spotted it early and put the prop into neutral. We’re not sure if the line is around the keel or the rudder and keeping our fingers crossed it’s not around the prop. It’s a heavy blue plastic line and thank God it’s not around the prop. It’s off! David has saved us from a more stressful situation.
A stack of wildlife again, dolphins jumping and spinning everywhere, turtles trying to avoid us and a few sharks.! It’s still hot hot and to top it all it’s Alistair’s birthday, so a big happy 61st birthday to him. I couldn’t buy him a drink, so he got an ice-cold Guinness zero from me. The guys have all signed a birthday card and Zoe has baked Alistair a cake, and to top it all, Alistair has had a WhatsApp message sent to him, via Gavin from his wife Susan and his dog, Buleigh. An emotional, but hopefully enjoyable day for Alistair.
The wind has died again. Well, that was short lived! Looks like we won’t be getting into Costa Rica until Saturday AM.
I’ve just got up for watch again and the wind appears to have picked up and the guys have tacked with Seattle directly behind us, we can’t see GOSH, who are somewhere in front of us. The engines are now off to conserve our fuel and to be fair, a lot quieter for those trying to sleep.
David’s murder game is drawing to a close. We’ve managed to kill 3 of the leadership group (the baddies) with one left to find! I’ve been killed off, probably because I know so much about the game. Gavin was up for killing today, but Lucy has sprung from cover and protected him! So, we will see who is killed today.
A night in Costa Rica
We’ve managed to arrive into Costa Rica earlier than we thought and the rush is on to get through immigration so that we can refuel. It’s going to be tight. GOSH are sorted, Seattle are just heading over to be refuelled, but we’ve been delayed. The clock is ticking and no clearance and we’re fast approaching the cut off time for the fuel, 17.00! Sure enough, we’ve missed it and so we’re going to have to stay the night and refuel in the morning. Ironically, the marina has a barbecue on with all the food and drink options signed in English only! Me thinks a plan had been sprung to keep all three boats in port. Who knows. Anyway, we all had some food, a few beers and relaxed and played a little pool with the locals. I had an interesting conversation with a fully fledged Texas Cowboy, who was working at one of the local cattle ranches, complete with cowboy boots, wrangler jeans, a chequered shirt, a necktie and of course a cowboy hat. Then there was Attila, the Romanian sailor who was really interested in our boat and set up and then we met a young lad from Coalville in Leicestershire who was the junior mechanic, one of 25 crew working on a super yacht, stopping over in the marina, before continuing onto Alaska, the next destination of a world tour!
We were up at 05.00 in the morning to get the boat over to the refuelling dock for 06.00 and once full, we followed GOSH and Seattle back out into the Pacific Ocean on our way to Panama.
There is no wind and the sea is like a mill pond. There’s the odd splash from jumping fish, a couple of dolphins can be seen surfacing in the distance as a few small speed boats are heading out for a day’s fishing as the sun rises over, what is, a stunningly beautiful landscape.
With no wind, we’ve not put up any sails, a prime time to finish servicing our equipment. David and Kieke help me finish off the remaining 5 winches, The primary main, the two traveller and the two running back stay winches are all stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. The sun is rising and it’s getting hot. We then continue to service the jammers and we get all completed bar the topping lift jammer, we can do that when we raise the main sail. We stop for lunch and after the watch change over, the wind has picked up so we’ve hoisted the main sail, so now Kieke and I can finish the last jammer. All done and time for bed.
How things can change, when we awake for our 18.00 shift, we’ve hit a squall, they’re like a very localised storm, with lots of heavy rain and strong, variable wind. The off-watch is soaked through and the temperature has dropped significantly. They’ve taken down the Yankee, the staysail and they’ve put two reefs in the main. It’s a bit cold and when I’ve got wet, the wind chill is making me cold. I’ve gone down below and put my foulie bottoms on which helps. I’m knackered and struggle to keep my eyes open and drift off having a small snooze in the cockpit. I can’t wait to get off deck for another sleep. When our watch finishes, I’m first down below deck and into my bunk as quick as you can say 1st spot.
Up and at helm again for our early watch at 02.00 and the rain and heavy wind has stopped. So, a little bit warmer. Seemingly, these waters have not been properly surveyed since the 1940’s and we’ve already had a surprise when the depth gauge dropped to 3m, so little wonder that Gavin has suggested, we’re to follow behind GOSH and Seattle, just in case they run aground 1st. We are taking precautions with the check helm monitoring the depth. There are high storm clouds building in the darkness to our West. You can see their outline with the sheet lightening. The lightning storms are fairly impressive; there are at least 3 separate storms growing. Mostly sheer lightning, interspersed with some very dramatic forked lightening. I’ve never seen lightning storms like them and they just continue to grow. As daylight approaches you can see the significant cloud formations of these tropical storms building out to our starboard. They are still a fair way away so fingers crossed they stay where they are as we couldn’t outrun them and we certainly don’t want to get caught in them. As the day progresses and we continue down the Costa Rica coastline, more storm clouds are growing over the mountains and we can hear angry rumbles of thunder. So, we’re now flanked with storms brewing to our East on land and storms brewing to our west out to sea.
David’s murder mystery game is over, the truth is out and Michelle, the little minx, has been a baddie all this time, lying through her back teeth to protect the skipper. And the Skipper, (chief murderer) was in fact the Skipper aka Gavin, who I’m not to sure understood the rules of the game, or also played a blinder. But he was nominated, voted for and then killed. In the end, he was found out and the crew win. Well done David who put in a big shift to make the game work. I wonder what the next game will be.
Back on watch again and still a load of lightening about and a lot more boats. One can only assume, they’re on their way to Panama or maybe they’re fishing boats, which we’ve not seen a lot of recently. Visited by a few more dolphins this evening. You can hear their blow holes as they come along side the boat and as you peer into the darkness you can pick out their torpedo trails in the water. We’ve now left the Costa Rica waters and entered Panama’s coastline, probably another day or so.
Back on Mother with Kerry today and our choice for breakfast was Granola or Granola! So not as many happy faces at breakfast. We are nearly in port so nearly everything is tinned. We have one potato, 2.5 cabbages and a bolt load of onions, the rest is tinned or powdered but still looks like we can put out some great food. Lunch is a mushroom and Chinese sausage pasta. I must say, I’m not a fan of the Chinese sausage, but it sorts of mixes in well. The dried mushrooms, once rehydrated and fried off in some garlic, tasted good and also left some great stock. I chopped up the last potato into small cubes and fried them off as a crispy topping. For dinner we had beef stew with mash. The mash was surprisingly good even though it came out of a packet. We did add lots of extra butter. Last but not least some tinned peaches.
We had a bit of a hidden talent contest in between courses. Tony vegetable juggling act started us off, Kieke and her amazing, twisted magic fork routine. Gavin and Zoe’s whistle/flute and dance routine went down a storm, Lucy put together a leg 7 poem and David made a paper bird. An interesting night of entertainment. After all the excitement, Kerry and I set about cleaning the galley before making a last round of drinks and up on deck for a cooldown before hitting the bunk for a well needed rest. But sleep wasn’t great. We hit a couple of big squalls last night up to 40 knots of wind and I nearly fell out of my bunk on a couple of occasions.
Well finally we can see Panama under a very large grey cloud, which is a shame, but nonetheless we’ve made it. All a bit tired and on edge. Hopefully we’ll be tied up in a couple of hours and if possible, add an extra day to our AirB&B to get some much-needed shut eye.
We get into Flaminco marina and tie up alongside GOSH & Seattle. We get the podium finish arrival with beer and champagne, pack our bags and make our way to the club house to find a taxi to get us to our air B&B in the old town. It’s been a funny old leg, fast starts and slow middle and dead slow end. Mostly down wind. I’m just glad to have arrived and thinking about the guys out on the water who are still a long way away. Now for some much-needed R&R