Hello to friends, family, supporters, and crew. Good afternoon from the Bahamas! We’re currently weaving between the various islands of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands, dodging cruise ships and sand bars as we go. Imagine the beautiful sandy beaches, pristine coral reefs, and gorgeous sun-drenched cayes that currently surround us. Then imagine sailing past all of that without even stopping for a beer. That shows the enormity of the challenge that the Our Isles and Oceans crew are currently struggling with.
During our thoroughly enjoyable stopover in Panama, a few of us discovered a glorious little rum bar that I have sadly forgotten the name of. Nestled in the old town, that little bar served some of the best mojitos I’ve ever tried, and let’s not even mention the rum-soaked bread and butter pudding that forced me to return every night. Dreams of sipping cocktails on a Bahamian beach at sunset are saturating the thoughts of many of us, but, alas, we have more important things to do.
I wrote during the previous race that we were looking forward to the heat after battling with surprisingly cold Alaskan winds on our way down the coast of the western US. I regret those words. The sail and subsequent motor down that coast brought temperatures that even the seasoned sailors among us were struggling to cope with. The paddling pool we bought on the last morning in Seattle went some way to alleviating the heat, but the only real reprieve was checking in to a Panamanian hotel with air-conditioning.
Thankfully, so far at least, the Caribbean side has yet to hit the sweaty heights that its Pacific counterpart offered up. While down below is still routinely hitting sauna-esque temperatures (and stickiness), we haven’t quite had the sweatbox that we endured previously. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon to find yourself sweating in places you didn’t even realise you could sweat from.
The race has so far been an exceptionally enjoyable one for us. This is in large part because we’re finally sailing again after what felt like weeks of motoring. Crashing upwind at 10 knots with the boat fully heeled has never felt more rewarding. While it’s been enjoyable for sure, it hasn’t passed without incident (as to be expected on an OIAO race). We managed to lose all of our wind instruments on the motor to the start, and nothing we’ve done has brought them back to life.
No doubt about it, this puts us at a disadvantage. We’re relying on feel to dictate trim, course, and sail changes. Not anything spectacular, and something that many of us have been doing generally anyway, but the lack of a number ‘safety net’ has proved challenging. Even at this stage of the race, it’s surprising how steep a learning curve there still is.
The race has been close so far. We’re sitting mid-fleet at the moment, having come through the first round of wind-hole roulette relatively unscathed. We have to see that as an achievement in itself considering our dysfunctional instrumentation. At the moment, there are about 25 miles between 1st and 10th. That’s nothing, and clearly, this race is still all to play for. One error or an area of patchy wind might be the difference between a podium and 10th place. We’re hotly debating whether or not we make a play for the scoring gate, and I’m sure those discussions are happening across the fleet right now.
What’s for sure is that the next few days are going to make for some extremely interesting racing. Washington, we’re coming for you!