Race 12 - Day 11
Crew Diary - NEW YORK, USA TO DERRY-LONDONDERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND
01 July

Written by Sue Ball.

Greetings from the good ship PSP Logistics. Our regular readers will note that we failed to send a blog yesterday. That was because our key blog writers were engaged on a mission of mercy - more about that below.

The past 24 hours have seen a number of changes of sail, changes of speed, changes of mood but to date no change of position - although our nearest competitor seems to be creeping ever closer. Still, we persevere and hope for the wind to blow in our favour at least once on this race. Currently the staysail and yankee 1 are up, after an interesting hour or two trying to hold the kite.

Now for that mission of mercy. The night before last whilst Starboard were on watch, a small feathered friend crash landed on the foredeck. We could not work out if he had hit the sail or was just exhausted. He staggered and flapped along the deck and eventually fell into the snakepit. Shaun (legs 1-4, 8) and Nicola (RTW) leaped into action and constructed a bed for him from a bucket and Shaun's fleecy hat. The rest of the night was spent nursing him and trying to get him to take sips of water.

Nicola tried speaking to him in a NZ accent and an Aussie accent, but it was her tweeting he seemed to respond to the best! A number of cynics, myself included predicted that he would not last the night and should not be named, to make the parting a bit less sorrowful. Nothing daunted Nic who called him Kermit and for the next 24 hours or so Kermit lived in a bucket under the coach roof, with log entries recording his progress. Daylight revealed that he only had one leg!

Despite the predictions of the doom and gloom merchants Kermit rallied and was happy to sit in Shaun and Nicola's hands and observe his surroundings. By lunchtime on the 1st of July he made a bid for freedom and was released by port watch, who saw him flying off into the distance. So a much happier ending than predicted. Staying with the animal theme we also saw a whale at very close quarters yesterday, from what we saw and the chart in the galley we think it was a humpback whale.

Finally on a personal note a very happy upcoming birthday to my fab younger sister Amanda. Have a great day Sis - when are you going to start looking older?

Sue, signing off from a nature loving PSP Logistics.