A drift off

Yesterday morning I got on deck prior to sunrise, which was a magnificent sight but it was glass, a drift off. I immediately thought of that great movie Dead Calm, it s a good thing that we don’t have a psychopathic mad man on board- and come to think of it probably a good thing Nicole Kidman isn’t onboard either.

I don’t think she would like it- but you never know, she is a good Aussie battler, just like our skipper and navigator who again have been spending long hours identifying any more potential opportunities to produce some more signature moves that will help us to jump into the lead of the fleet.

Only days ago we were blasting along at up to 30 knots, yesterday 1.3 knots. So when we eventually got rolling after a ripple on the water turned into the slightest puff going 7 knots seemed like great speed. Unfortunately Puma and Telefonica got that breeze and the 15 knots it built to slightly before we did, which soon doubled Puma’s lead and evaporated ours over Telefonica, so now we bow to bow with them locked in a bit of a 36 hour speed test again, until we all reach the next ‘sand bunker’ which will hopefully allow us to come back into Puma, then it will be all on for the final push to Miami.

Drifting in light air is always a good opportunity for a few jokes, most of which were hilarious, all of which were inappropriate. The least so was one of Stu’s favorites, “What is brown and sticky?”

A stick… so simple, yet with underlying connotations. Stu is full of good jokes.

While on the topic, the toilet paper shortage has reared its ugly head again, I signed up for a lot of hardships in this race but one of them was not having to use handy towels in such an intimate way. They are nearly gone now also, so what next…

The night times at the moment are not too dissimilar to day times because the moon is so full and so bright. In case you didn’t know at the moment we are experiencing what is referred to as a ‘super moon’ and it is really super. It’s when the moon is at its closest to the earth (obviously).

But the term ‘super’ really got me longing for our arrival to America because if anything and everything can be super anywhere its in America, I guess I am mainly just thinking of supersizing everything again. The food program onboard has become tiresome, so as usual there is a lot of talk about food in Miami.

I am looking forward to going to your typical American diner with booths and silver napkin holders, tomato sauce and ketchup on the tables with waitresses walking around pouring coffee- even though I don’t drink coffee, I think I will get her to pour me a cup just for the hell of it.
I think I need something equivalent to coffee to keep me awake at the moment, I’m tiring of this leg, I feel like I am having a sleeper hold slowly synched in by Ravishing Rick Rude.

These last 1000 miles are taking forever to tick down- but that’s no change to usual really.

GOLDEN QUOTE: “We have a drag race for probably the next 400 miles, and then it starts to get really light again. There is a big high over the Bahamas, the front-runners will sail into it and slow up, so we will start again there so we are looking at strategies on how to deal with that. There is an awful long way to go in this yacht race yet.” WILL OXLEY