Last part bits of Leg1

I am officially drawing a line under day 6 and half of day 7 screw you stupid decision making it is time to get smart like we were in the beginning. It is perfectly possible to get these miles back so here goes. Keep looking forward

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DUN DUN DAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! THE DOLDRUMS AND USUALLY THE TUNE TO WHICH I DELIVER A POSITION REPORT.
SO ON THE 22ND OCTOBER AROUND 0100 HOURS THE MAGENTA BOAT SPOTTED A BOGEY AT 1100 AND THEN ANOTHER EVEN BIGGER ONE AT 1200, THIS ONE WE WERE GOING STRIGHT THROUGH AND MARKED OUR ARRIVAL  AT THE DOLDRUMS. WITH THE RADAR ADN SATELLITE IMAGERY WE ABLE TO GET A GOOD HEADS UP ON WHAT WAS AROUND, THAT AND THE MASSIVE FLASHES OF LIGHTNING WERE PERHAPS A BIT OF A GIVE AWAY!!! BUT SHHHH, DON'T TELL ANYONE.
BEING ASKED SPECIFICALLY WHAT DIRECTION I THINK THE WIND WILL BE ON A CLOUD I CAN ONLY SEE REMOTELY HALF AN HOUR AGO BY SATELLITE IMAGERY AND IMMEDIATELY ON THE RADAR IMPRESSED ME AS TO HOW EXTRORDINARY PEOPLE THINK MY SKILLS ARE. ANYWAY THERE WAS NO CRAZY WIND STRENGTH BUT SOME PRETTY IMPRESSIVE CHANGES IN WIND DIRECTION, SHEET LIGHTNING AND SOME VERY COLD RAIN. YES I CONTEMPLAED PUTTING ON MY THERMALS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TROPICS!!!
THAT WAS ROUND ONE AND i THINK WE WON IT, ROUND TWO CAME ABOUT AN HOUR LATER WITH ABOUT 5 SAIL CHANGES AND I THINK THE CLOUD WON THAT. AT ONE POINT IT FELT LIKE WE SAILING AROUND IN A CIRCLE WITHIN IT. WE WEREN'T BUT WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF BRIEFLY POINTING NORTH WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO GO SOUTH THE SENSE OF URGENCY SOMEWHAT INCREASES!!

The Doldrums blues is settling in a little bit here in the boat. It is hard for me when I can't overly predict anything with any certainty and it is hard for the others to feel that they can't control things or minimise loss in relation to clouds. There are plenty of them adn if we tried to avoid them all we would be weaving all over the ocean and probably never getting south
Today I have started to feel the blues a bit with it all as I am not sure how helpful or useful I am being I am trying a lot but there is a sense that I should be able to predict better the clouds and how they are going to affect us. I think a lot of that is years of sailing in them and also sometimes a cloud just dies and takes you down with it. Currently what has happened to us........a lttle annoying as we need to close the gap on people.
The other issue is that we had Alvimedica in our sights and sadly through the night they slipped away in theur own private wind. However I am sure other boats are equally have slow and fast patches at elast I have to believe that.
I felt I was coming back from the disappointment of earlier decisions but each time I do I realise the reason we are on the back foot here comes back to that point. Most annoying.

The clouds today have been more interesting adn next time I am going to take my own camera to get some good piccys. By that I mean next leg.

HERE IS AN INTERESTING ONE FOR YOU. CONTRABAND. QUITE A FEW PEOPLE SEEM TO DO IT ON OUR BOAT BRING SOMETHING ON THAT IS A TREAT ADN BREAK IT OUT AND SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE. NOW I AM TRYING TO REMEMBER WHAT THE REAL DEFINITION OF CONTRABAND IS I AM GUESSING IT WAS MORE TO DO WITH SAILORS IN THE OLD DAYS BRINGING BOOZE ON BOARD AND GETTING DRUNK WHILE AT SEA ON THEIR JOB.
I CAN CONFIRM THAT THE CONTRABAND THAT HAS APPEARED SO FAR ON OUR BOAT IS NOT OF THE ALCOHOLIC VARIETY IT IS USUALLY LIQUORICE (GYRO LOVES IT), CHEESE (SAM- DEFO A GOOD SHOUT), SWISS HOT CHOCOLATE (THE SWISTAS), SEB OFTEN SENDS LIZ OFF WITH SOME HOMEMADE TREAT.
IT IS SOMETIMES THESE SMALL LITTLE DELIGHTS, LIKE BREAKING OUT THE GINGER NUT BISCUITS WHEN NO ONE IS SUFFERING FROM SEA SICKNESSES THAT MAKE EVERYONE SMILE AND BOND.


The equator crossing is approaching and I don't know why but i am unbelieably anxous about it and it is fully stressing me out. partt of me thought we would cruise across the equator toasting king Neptune with a bit of dressing up but nothing to gross as we are Ladies after all. But as we have got closer and I have heard the rumours it is fully freaking me out. In my head I have convinced myself this feels like a mild form of bullying made to stand outside in your underwear in 20 KT of wind while we hoon along at 25 deg heel and water sprays over the boat so that someone can throw fish guts and freeze dried food at you.

Happy thougths did work and our King Neptune did a great job and fair play she was the one with little clothing on so defo deserves the above and beyond. Abby carried off with grace and style adn just enough grossness to not push me completely to vomitting. So was entirely unnecessary to get worked up at all. but remarkable how much I did.

LIFE AT 25 DEGREES OF HEEL
So iinn the middle of the night with my nav chair as fully reclined as I can really get it I watched the computer screen as we sailed past hanging on to my bowl of porridge Iiha ferenando de Noronha a Brazilian Island and th eonly real mark of teh course and in someways it feels  like the halfway mark. In number of days we are over half way, in number of miles we are still under halfway with the SOuthern Ocean and the dast lane about to open its doors. It looks like we will be heading deep south so buckle up and thermals on we will be late to Cape Town but not too late!!

Day 16 this is more of a wrting for me to try adn relieve the the inner stress I have been feeling about the  last 24 hours. 24 hours ago we decided to VMG downwind (sorry boring I know) but this is quite a big decision in what mode we are sailing and where we are sailing to.  Intiially I was very confident in our decision to do it we had closed om the fleet and it seemed the next logical step that everyone would be doing. Only it was just us adn Mapfre that kept this mode with hindsight I wonder if we should have carried on sailing higher and faster haveing gained on Mapfre in order to minimise distance between us and Alvimedica and potentally sail past and over Mapfre. It is hard because I understadn that our gains will only be realised tomorrow and th enext day as th eothers sail into the high pressure.
The latest sched (position report) shows the leaders gybing back towards the west, which for us is a good sign that they are either A. Worried about getting sucked into the high- suspect they have had the wind a <010   B. Have got signs of it getting lighter? though 3 KT on Brunel adn 22KT on Azzam doesn't tell us a lot  C. Are covering th efleet even if we are quite far behind  or  D. Are as confused as us or should I say me!!!
I didn't realise how hard I find the element of not really knowing what is happening/happened I gues in small boat racing the day ends you can look at all the info and make some conclusions and then draw a line under it - out here it is ongoing. An element of mystery as Sam says. I wonder how sam manages to stay so cool and calm an dessentially appear unruffled about it all I sadly clearly say it all on my face and body language which is probably not good when I feel we are making a loss and I am not sure how to minimise it.


HAD A SHOCKER.
I hate to blame the weather gods but I am goign to and they were exceptionally unkind to us over night as our breeze got lighter we headed west for more (the wrong way to the finish)


IT IS THE 2ND OF NOVEMBER, WOW NOVEBER ALREADY AND I AM NOT SURE HOW MANY DAYS AGO I WROTE GUESSING ABOUT 5 DAYS.
SADLY MAPFRE ARE STILL 141 MILES AWAY BUT WE ARE CLOSING FAST AND POSSIBLY IN A DAY THEY MIGHT BE LESS THAN 100 MILES AWAY WHICH IS AWESOME AND BY THE FINISH WITHIN SIGHT I HOPE. THEY ARE CURRENTLY HIGHER ADN SLOWER.....THAT IS NEVER A GOOD MODE.


Today- 3rd of November was all about the Ladies Room which is sadly now out of order with a polite sign apologising for an inconvenience.
 It is a question often asked of us regarding the toilet adn showering adn obviously as ladies we don't wish to sound crude and talk about our habits but when you live in a small space with 11 other women and doing a wet adn salty job for many days at sea you probably become better aquainted with each other than anyone in your life.
No we don't have a shower but there is plenty of water in our environment and evryone likes to be clean even if washing with salt water feels a little weird and we are fortunate enough to be sponsored by a leading hygeniene company SCA and so we have plenty wipes, shower caps to help.
But I digress from the real action and that is the toilet pump did one pump too many today and the seal broke on none other than our very lucky bow girl who seems to have the best luck with toilets and these kind of boats. I suspect very soon Sophie may never use a boat toilet again. What resulted was the toilet being taken apart Sophie donning her balaclava for protection as an epic cleaning process began. As buckets were passed out through the hatch, which had me fully gagging, there was a little bit of chuckling on deck more at how grateful it was not us in the toilet sorting it out.
Conclusion is seal is broken and not replaceable onboard we shall have to return the tried and tested (rarely failed) toilets of old, much like outhouses of the home we have buckets and a very large outhouse of our own.
Fortunately we arenot deep in the Southern Ocean otherwise Sophie's on deck shower would not have been possible and I think baring your bottom outside might be too much!

Final approach to Cape Town jsut over a day and bit away and closing fast on Mapfre at least we were not so sure right now think it might be evening out but hopefully we will get within eye sight of them and in dream world past. Visualise and it you never know it may happen. I mean today (not that visualised this) we have watched the scheds as Vestas have sat still adn lost over 200 milbes to us. They are currently only 234 nm having started off the day over 400 nm away. Painful. Probably more painful for them to have lost to the lead pack who are now finished that at oe point they were parallel to
We are going to be 2 days later than thought and that ahs meant food is kind of being rationed or has cleverly been thinned out over the last few days so we have some meals tomorrow. It is funny thos trip I have got vey bored of the food and found it hard to eat enoug - I need to get better at snacking and forcing myself to eat the bars, there also doesn't seem to have been enough food. Now the food is limted adn the toilet is outdoors I have never needed to use the ladies before so much and I am definitely getting hungrier by the day even though we are not eating any less yet!!!. All in the head.....but a decent meal is probably the thing I am most looking forward to. Sushi or Chinese or Steak or all of the above.....and ice cream or some kind of chocolate souffle, preferably both at the same time. A nice glass of wine overlooking a good view  while chatting about the garage build, Sara's new job, when Sharon might come out, how the Hamble paddling club is fairing now it is winter! what the boys (my brothers) and the girls (my nieces) have been up to, Clare's latest venture, Leslie's AC event planning, Mum and dad's holidays, J'ronimo racin gor lack there of, who is trying to buy what house and of course my cats and the garden.