Race 8 - Day 9
Crew Diary - Da Nang, Vietnam to Qingdao, China
07 March

We are removed from stillness and stability, constantly on the move.

There's little fidgety-ness, the often adjustment of underwear, a little agitation as the watch goes on. Music off the speakers fills the space.

With four or five days to go, it's still hot! We live for adventure and excitement and the light winds are seeping our energies by way of lethargy. There is a certain waft of impatience on deck, helpless to the larger forces. We await the split moment, often unexplainable during helm change over where wind suddenly picks up by 15 knots. Meanwhile, ambling along, our circumference dotted with ships of all shapes and sizes.

There is some possibly misplaced sense of pride and purpose filled when a boat or light is first spotted. In such a vast sea, the possibility of collision seems minuscule. When a ship is spotted 35 nautical miles away, one can't help but thing about the proximity of the race start at the Sydney Hobart Race.

U.F.O's or Unidentified Floating Objects have been common obstacles in the busy seas that we have been sailing in. The presence of human presence has not gone unnoticed. With floating polystyrene, floating buoys, nets that stretch across our bow, and sadly, the most floating trash we have seen so far. I guess we aren't in waters that are that remote anymore and less than hundred miles from coasts of civilizations.

"The desert was once a sea."

Books currently going around the boat:

Unbroken, a soldier's recount of World War 2
Vanishing Games, A heist set in the South China Sea
The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo, A Fable about following your dreams
Down to the Seas,Horatio Clare, A writer in Residence on board the Maersk Gerd

Briefly,

T