Race 13 - Day 2
Crew Diary - Derry-Londonderry to Liverpool
23 July
Leg 8, Race 13, Day 2 – Simone Talfourd
Gerardo “Jerry” Injoque and I like to rename races, not that there's anything wrong with the Clipper given titles but on-board we have our own vernacular as you would expect and we enjoy surmising what we think a race represents. For example, the race across the North Pacific from Qingdao to Seattle became: 'Seattle: The Beacon of Hope', and the race up from Panama to New York was 'New York: The Race to the Land of Liberty'. However it's been no easy task to conjure an all encompassing name for this last homecoming leg then yesterday we think we hit on a winner... 'Liverpool: The Exodus to Mercy'. Not grandiose at all!
Jerry has given us Garmin worlders' the challenge of using our blogs to sum up what this race has meant to us. In all honestly I'm not sure I can say accurately what it's meant just yet, until it's over and the dust has settled, and my foot is on Alberts Dock a year later safe and (hopefully) dry. I have realised that the myriad of questions you get asked be it by family, friends, crew, new crew, other crews, skippers, race office all seem to funnel to the same point ultimately. Everyone wants to know whether your experiences on the race have been life changing. People ask what you did before the race, what you're going to do afterwards, what's the worst thing you've seen, what have been the highlights. No one asks 'what's the most mediocre non-affecting dolphin sighting you've seen' or 'talk me through the most unmemorable sail change', thankfully. People often dance around subjects, especially us Brits, so we laugh and joke about the bilges, how difficult the heads are to use, being on mother watch etc because we find it hard to easily say – wow my life has changed and I'm grateful.
The worlders' on Garmin are a special bunch (you might say a motley crew... but I'll go with unique). Unsurprisingly after living together for over 11 months we know each other very well but we also seem to still like one another. There's no point listing specific memories as firstly you weren't here so they will never translate as well, and secondly there are too many to mention. I have a lot of respect for what we've done and I now have a smelting pot of friends for life. Although I'm still holding all the worlders responsible for bullying me into doing round the world, I was only meant to be away for 6 weeks!
In it's essence I think 'whether it's life changing' is already answered before you even set off for the race. The commonality in all of the Clipper crew, especially the worlders, is that we were all looking to change our lives, even if we didn't realise why. This is what we came for. Everyone is here for one reason; to live, to be challenged, to see what they're made of. Isn't that great?! So rather than get too soppy and tell you how much I miss my sister, yes and you too Dad, and my friends, instead I'll say how great the worlders I have met on this race are, on all the boats. Knowing smiles on pontoons, and hugs and shared looks before race starts all around the world. We know what we've seen and we know where we've been.
Thank you to everyone that has made this race life changing; Garmin crew, GT, Race Office (especially the Logistics and Operations Manager!), Maintenance team, and the other skippers and crews. What fun we've had.
I really enjoyed Chris (Skipper of Qingdao) constant quotes in his blogs so in homage to other people being able to aptly say better than I here's one I'll leave you with that I hope I've remembered correctly from Oscar Wilde: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are starring at the stars”.