Skipper's Log #45
34 56s 00 23w at 19:30 GMT
Technology is great. My moustache was getting long and in the way, but I have no mirror on board and needed to trim it. The video camera has a screen that I can fold out and see what I am filming, so I filmed my face as I trimmed the moustache in the camera mirror, and feel much better. I tried to call Gwen, but the signal on the satphone is so poor, we can't talk. It is very frustrating for us. I will cross the Greenwich Meridian sometime in the early morning. I have overtaken Robin Davies and keeping pressure on Winds of Change, Russia. We have now 935 miles to go. The count down has begun. It could be as early as Tuesday, but boats don't run on schedules. The last 24 hours I have covered 176 miles, in fresh conditions. Arrangements are underway in Cape Town for my arrival, being headed up by Graham Bougardt, my brother-in-law whom I still have to meet. He has done a great job in securing media coverage and co-ordinating my schedule. I am inviting schools in Cape Town to the vessel in groups of 12 students and 2 teachers for a lesson on the applications of knowledge on a vessel and life in general. I gave over thirty such programs in Charleston, and I am willing to do the same in Cape Town. It is a one hour program, dockside. If there are any schools who would like to take up the offer, please call Graham at 797-7379 to shedule your visit. There will only be a limited number of dates available. Times and dates will be confirmed after my arrival. The gift that I am carrying for the youth of South Africa from Cainhoy Elementary School in Charleson, SC will be presented to Livingstone High School, my Alma-Marta. I have asked the school to select two students who can represent the youth. I hope that this presentation can be made immediately when I get ashore, depending on the hour that I arrive. Lets hope its just after lunch time. Well, I better get back to driving the boat. It is fresh and with a reefed main, staysail and half genoa, we are making between 7 to 9 knots. Good sailing seas, but a grey sky instead of starry and clear.
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Skipper's Log #46
35 47s 03 25 EAST at 19:30 GMT
The days are passing steadily, today covering 192 miles in 24 hours, with 750 miles to go. I have been in a foul mood. I have been enjoying 30 minutes a day of audio books. Well, no more. My Walkman ended up in the bilge and won't play. Now I don't know what is happening in "Into Thin Air." The storm has come and some are trapped on the Face above Camp 4. This is a disaster! Now that I am east of the Greenwich Meridian, I feel I am nearly home. I estimate my arrival somewhere between Tuesday and Wednesday. In some ways, I will miss being out here, but then I am ready for ice cream, hot fresh water shower, and holding my nephew, plus I am eager to get back to work with the youth in Cape Town. My days out here have developed a slightly different routine from earlier in the leg. I am normally up for the sunrise, then will go back to sleep for an hour, rise, brush teeth, take vitamins and blue green algae pills, have either a hot chocolate or Russian tea, download my messages and make a position plot. An hour or so will have passed, and I will climb back into my sleeping bag to warm up, listen to music or a bit of the book on tape. Then at 10:00 I go to the SSB radio and try to raise s/v "South Carolina" or "Paladin", but lately the propagation doesn't get us a link. Then I turn the phone on for my daily interview with Radio Good Hope, which today had my brother in law in the studio. The forward hatch is leaking, so the next 15 minutes I pump out water as the boat roles around making it hard to keep a puddle in one place, followed by turning on the computer and reporting in to Race Control and giving them my weather info. Its now about 12:00 GMT, time to have something to eat and drink, then back into my cot to read, work on my new book or listen to music. I turn the engine on every second day for 2-3 hours to charge batteries. Its noisy but warms the cabin. I will pass the day being up and down out of my cot to the chart table, to the galley and sticking my head out of the hatch. If there is maintenance, this is the time it would be done. Late afternoon I fix my cooked meal, clean up before dark, and take a nap till 19:00 GMT. Download messages, write my daily log, play computer game till the 20:00 plot of my position, weather analysis and make my plans for the next 24 hours route. Then get onto the SSB radio and talk to Robin and Neil for 30 minutes, turn on the phone and log my daily interview with Quokka Sports and have my 10 minute conversation with Gwen, if I have 10 minutes of sat time left. Fix another hot drink, climb into my cot and listen some more to my books on tape, and then sleep. I have been sleeping for 60 to 90 minutes, if my GPS or radar alarm doesn't disturb me, get up, put my head out of the hatch, and go back to sleep. About 23:00 GMT, I will down load messages from my office, reply to Diane Woodruff in the office, plot my position again, and go back to bed. Three more times I will be up, and then it is sunrise and the cycle pretty much will repeat itself. When I get closer to the coast, I will be fresh and alert, ready to deal with shipping and landfall. I will also be too excited to want to sleep. It is too miserable to be on deck, cold and wet, so I don't spend much time out there. I let the radar be my eyes.
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Skippers log #47
35 56s 06 59e at 19:15 GMT with 578 miles to CT, covering 172 nm in last 24 hours.
I spent the entire day helming since sunrise. The wind is from astern and I am sailing with the genoa to port and mainsail to starboard, surfing often, having reached a maximum of 16.2 knots today. I took a break late morning to await a radio interview, but call never came, so I took time for 30 minute nap and back to driving. The swell is about the size of a double story building. Last night it was blowing very strong. This morning I found 2 squid on deck. I thought about eating calamari, but with no lemon butter sauce, instead I fixed tuna pasta for dinner. Saw lots of birds all day, including one dead one floating, and dolphins. I helmed through rain squalls, pushing as hard as I can. It is going to be a tough ride if I am going to make it early afternoon on Tuesday ashore. I have to get my average up 8 more miles a day. While driving, I was off in dreamland to pass the hours. I was thinking about the day I will be helming my 60 footer in the Globe Challenge (Non Stop around the world in 2000). I was imagining how she would feel to drive, doing double to triple the speeds I am doing in this boat. If I could have closed my eyes, I would have felt it even better. Soon I won't have to dream about it. Then I was thinking about the students who will sail on the new boat, and what I could teach them, not about sailing, but about realizing the future we dream of. I am not here by accident, but by design. If I can be here, so can you be living your dream. I was also thinking about the team building programs for corporations and sponsors I could do with the new boat. It would not be just enough for me to sail it, I want others to be a part of that experience too. That would make it feel whole, and when I am alone, like now, I am never totally alone. But then I came back to the reality. I have to be in CT early on Tuesday as Livingstone high school is modifying their exam time table to be on the dock when I get in. A Cape Town talk radio program is coming in real strong now at night. I have to get used to the accents. It sounds so different to what I am used to right now. Its hard to believe that that is how I sound. I feel the anticipation of going to a new city, the excitement of its culture, but its great to have these feelings where I know people, the streets and landscapes. I feel more like a guest going to Cape Town, than a local boy. It has been too long. I am more at home in London, Dublin, Galway, Los Angeles, Charleston, places I where I have lived more recently than in Cape Town, and where some of my best friends are.
