We have finished our Doldrums Corridor motoring period. It’s been a bit random with squalls and more wind than expected. Unfortunately, it has not been long enough to whip out the old golf club for doldrums mini golf (shout out Tom Neill from Leg 1, whose prized putter still lives under my bunk, now significantly rusty). However, it has been bliss to turn the donkey off and return to sailing, far more peaceful.
Over the past couple of days VHF channel 72, the Clipper Race fleet boat-to-boat channel of choice has not stopped. At one point it somewhat resembled an incoherent radio station on deck with a multitude of presenters, except instead of musical interludes it was just radio static, terribly pleasant. Hot topics in sailing small talk included: the tornado, to what degree one will get ‘wind-holed’ as we exit the corridor, and a lot of references to sweat. Stellar Clipper Race entertainment, up there with Mark Light’s crew brief icebreakers.
On another note, it was just over a year ago that myself and many of the AQP’s trialled for this job back in Gosport -it’s crazy to think where we all were a year ago and the journey it has been with the Clipper Race so far, which makes me quite excited for what this year will bring for us all. The next big navigation interest in this leg is the aforementioned wind-hole between the islands and the Scoring Gate: it’s going to be an interesting period on the Race Viewer as the fleet will be very close again to begin phase 2, so stay tuned, as we have many, many miles to get to Nam yet!
Laura, Dan and the UNICEF team