‘Even the most difficult situations will eventually pass.'
So read the inscription in the fortune cookie I opened after a quick lunch while in transit at Seattle’s Seatac airport as we waited for our flight to Sydney via LA. “Hmmm” I thought, “What a curious, if not cliche little gem to appear on the eve of a little adventure with the Clipper Race.”
Within a couple of weeks we were out on the water. My wife, Tanya, and I had spent days in Fremantle resting, working on the boat, and catching up with what felt like old friends - folks we had met through the Clipper Race this year during training and through Tanya’s participation in Leg 1 of the race. It was my turn to join her and the crew on what promised to be racing through nearly every kind of sailing condition. A bit of heat, a bit of cold. Some heavy upwind sailing, the odd wind hole here and there. Just to make things interesting. “Perfect!” I thought. “Let’s go.”
It felt familiar being back onboard, yet I also felt like quite the newbie amongst this group of now seasoned sailors. I watched myself move awkwardly about, trying to be helpful but also recognizing that at times my band width didn’t allow me to see the simplest things as we moved from one evolution to the next. I didn’t sleep during my first few hours of rest but simply laid in my bunk listening to the sounds of a Clipper 70 racing for every advantage. The winch above my head would crash into action from time to time and I could hear the calls among the crews ring out. The water swooshed against the hull, the rigging creaked and groaned as the wind built and built.
By the time I appeared on deck to begin my first watch we were galloping along. My first assignment was to man the pulpit, right up at the bow of the boat, and keep watch for the floats which mark out fishermen’s traps. We had hooked one on our rudder during training six months earlier and it had proved to be a real pain to untangle. So I paid close attention. Scanning out ahead from my perch on the bow, looking for the tell tale white floats to appear in the moonlight, hidden among the dark waves as we powered through them. The bow was heaving up and down as our tuned sails pulled our yacht out to sea. The lit sails of our competitors were the only lights around us other than the occasional star peeking through the cumulus layer of cloud above. Beautiful. Our adventure was underway!
Our first sail change saw me down below decks in the sail locker in that now heaving sea. And I started to feel this odd little feeling in my tummy. By the time the sail was up on deck I knew what was coming. Within a few more moments my situation was now pressing. I emerged onto the deck, lay down on my belly and vomited in the direction of the water. To leeward, fortunately. And there it was - my dinner lay as a tidy little lump on the deck for mere seconds before being washed away by the roiling sea. “Ah, that’s better,” I thought in relief that the worst was now over. Not quite. Over the next half an hour, as I struggled to lift and scramble, to reach, grasp and pull alongside my new team, I puked three more times, until I found myself literally hugging the mast, my face to windward, blinking through the spray that covered my cheeks. The moon was there, steadily watching me dry heave until tears filled my eyes. And in that moment I remembered that little piece of paper hidden in that funny little cookie. And a smile came across my face. I was in it. The adventure was on.
Sure enough, within a day I started to feel somewhat normal. And a couple of nights later I lay star gazing under a clear sky on deck, in the company of an amazing group of people. People out for an adventure. Up for the challenge of making this boat arrive in Newcastle as quickly as possible. It’s an amazing sport, really. It is physical. It is complex. And it is SUSTAINED. All focus is on making the boat go faster. Every second. For days on end. Heck! For months on end. I’m around for such a short time - just this one leg.I know only that these folks I’m with out here are a pretty special breed. That we will witness many difficult situations together in the days ahead. And that my time on this boat will come to an end much more quickly that I can dare imagine.
Christmas, of course, has always been a time for being with family. Tanya and I are blessed to have an amazing group of friends and family who we consider our core. I was thinking of each and every one of them the other night as I finished an exhausting stint on deck in heavy weather and climbed, quite exhausted, up into my bunk. As much as I will miss being with them tomorrow, I feel so blessed to spend this Christmas with this unique cast of characters racing onward to Newcastle.