Today at 03:10 GMT Qingdao arrived at Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa, in 6th position.
Life is tough at the moment, its cold, very wet and strong winds and big seas, but the boat and crew are up for it and we will be fine, Everyone is in reasonable spirits given the conditions which appears not to be the case for all boats (if you read some of their blogs by all accounts!) We think another 24 to 48 hours of this and we may be able to change our sailing strategy and make life a little more tolerable again on the Mighty Q! Big bangs every few minutes do tend to interrupt your sleeping, and make your
bread tin flip onto its side while baking!! still tasted good, im never buying bread again by the way! Had my first real medic job, TJ's nose, he is fine (dented pride and nose) I ended up using steristrip to stitch his nose back together. Did you see my initial repair job being removed the next morning! That was a little scary, my first broach! I committed my first crash gybe the day before and we had broken (but repaired) a spinnaker halliard (hoisting rope), our vang (holds the boom down), although the repairs failed 3 times before we got it sorted, a few other small bits and then last night (as you will have heard) our steering!, The thought of 2000 miles under emergency steering (taking 5 people just to steer) was not good, but skipper and Mike got it sorted in a few hours! it was a "all hands on deck" shout while my watch (the Slim Jins to compliment the "Tele tubbies" jin being jim and Tele being Terry in mandarin) was asleep! Pants!! Well Leg 2 (Race 3) is well under way now and for now we appear to be in a good position, with the start to this race being one of the only tactical points to sway the outcome of this race we are all waiting to see if its the boats who went south first or those who went east (we being the furthest East) who will get the westerly forecast wind and start the Kite run to Cape Town, the next 48 hours will be interesting!
The boat is beginning to settle into its routine now, I have a new watch (no solid name yet, I will keep you informed) but as we lost 4 people in Rio and gained only one, the watches are much smaller and life will be that little harder on deck but less cramped below, trade offs!! My new watch crew are, Sam 'O.B.' Hall (my assistant Watch leader), Tom 'THe Meerkat' Foster (trim boss) Vivian Lee, David 'Airborne' Starr and Sam Lloyd (yet to get nicknames for Viv and Sam, they will come!!) All are great and the watch is happy, if still very sleepy from too much fun in Rio! We Lost leggers, George (from Qingdao), Maz, and Deb's also RTW Lynn with an injury that we all hope she will recover from soon amd get back to her home on Q! Get well quick Lynn! The opposite watch is now being led by Terry with David taking a break from the fun of watch leading and are currently looking like they may be known as the 'Terrytubbies'! nothing to do with the crate size box of M&Ms donated to us by the Edinburgh crew! fantastic gift!!! Shorts and deck shoes are already making way for foulies (wet weather gear) and boots as the nights are getting colder (as are the days) soon the South Atlantic will have us all crawling deep into thermal underwear and dreaming of those warm equatorial evenings... all memories of sweating forgotten i imagine! But for now its not too bad. Its mother watch for me today so I shall have to go make a veggie balti in a moment but then I get a full nights sleep....oh the simple things! Well I will speak again soon, hopefully regaling tails of being the lead boat in the fleet, think of us as we do battle with our closest rivals "Visit Finland" we can see them and are catching them slowly so fingers crossed. Firstly can I say a massive thank you for all your support over the past Month, It has been a real roller coaster in every imaginable aspect and without your messages of encouragement, support and love I'm not sure I would have made it! Thank you! and Keep them coming, Im only 1 month into this epic 11 3/4 month holiday... sorry Adventure!
So where are we up to? Well the Mighty Q and Her Crew have left the incredible city of Rio De Janeiro. And what a stop it was! The highlights have to be Christ The Redeemer, and Sugarloaf Mountain by night but the food can not go unmentioned. If you are a carnivore (as I am) then Rio is one meaty heaven! From perfectly cooked steaks to meat on sticks it is all available and all amazing. Whats more is that many of the restaurants are "Kilo Restaurants" basically you pay a set price per weight of food you have! Awesome idea. But the best bit about Rio had to be the people, apart from the quite dodgy area around the Marina, the rest of rio felt safe, inviting and friendly. As with any destination like this you have to keep your wits about you but if you do Copacabana and Ipanema are wonderful places with friendly helpful locals, Go and enjoy it, I will go again sometime I hope! While mentioning people in Rio, the best bit for me was without a question getting to be with Julia again, just too short, eh J?! being able to shower, sleep in a real bed (horizontally) and read messages from back home (from you guys!) were all close seconds, and skyping the few of you I managed to get connections with (bad internet and time zone issues!) was amazing. Hopefully in Cape Town with a more reasonable time difference i will be able to speak to more of you, I miss catching up with everyone, and to old friends and family that have been in touch (you know who you are) its amazing to hear fom you! Send me an email to james@jimmysailworld.com (that i can read in port) or a short one to Julia@jimmysailsworld.com that Julia can forward to me on the boat! Tell me what you have been up to!! Leg 2 - Rio De Janeiro to Cape Town, started today at 6pm (BST). Come on the mighty Dragon!
Today at 8:28 pm (BST) Qingdao arrived in Marina de Gloria, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, In 6th position.
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