Qingdao to San Francisco

Well the big day arrived for the trip across the Pacific. As I drew back the curtains the blizzard was in full flow. The red carpet they had laid out for the dignitaries to walk down had turned white. With all my layers on I looked huge and could hardly move. The goodbyes were very difficult and I have to say I really wasn't looking forward to the pacific crossing.
There was the big send off we expected with the dragons, drum bands and fireworks. Also a flotilla of small boats, wonderful and colourful but so very cold.
Once out to sea the fog came down and race start was abandoned as it was too dangerous. It suited us though as we could motor in a straight line for 24 hours getting us nicely on course for Japan . At 10am the next day we did a Le Mans start whereby we all had to line up with main sail and motor, head sails attached but down. At the given start time it was engines off and dash forward to hoist the stay sail and the Yankee 2 and we were off.
In previous races I have kept a diary in which I have made regular entries to help me remember what had happened, help me write my blog and just help remind me of wildlife sightings, other sights and how I was feeling at the time. On the Pacific crossing I only had 6 entries, I had written:
1) Hell, Hell, Hell
2) Tring's Birthday
3) Hell
4) Hell
5) Date line crossing, and finally you guessed it
6) Hell.
Well I think you get the picture.
Basically we beat our way up the side of Japan then turned East across the biggest patch of grey water in the whole world! There was just no let up from the heavy winds, no sunshine just pounding into the waves day after day after day...... I have to confess that I kissed Mandy goodbye in Quingdao and when I kissed her hello in Oakland I was wearing exactly the same clothes (apart from my underpants) the whole way across, that included sleeping in my thermals. I know I always say this but it was so cold and so wet there was never any time for the foulies to dry before the next shift, the next onslaught.

Alan being put in the dinghy

Three days into the race as you will know we had the incident with poor old Alan. He got up out of his bunk, put his foot on the floor between a sail and the bunk and decided to reach for an apple he had stowed in a side locker, the boat lurched sideways, his knee bent the way it shouldn't and that was it the race was over for him. As he put it, it was no glamorous accident! He was in so much pain that after 6 hours it was decided to call for a medivac. The Japanese coast guard were great and within just over two hours he was on board the inflatable, ready to be taken to the big coast guard ship and off to hospital in port. There was much negotiating with the coast guard as they were insisting on taking Stephen our medic along too. Only when Gordon explained that we needed him for the crossing would they agree to take Alan on his own. They were very thorough in needing to know what had happened and I had to play the part of Alan to reenact the whole bunk/apple/knee twist thing for them so that they could take photographs, goodness knows why and the language barrier was a bit of a problem. However it seemed that their biggest concern was that Alan had his credit card with him!

So back to it, the wind, grey skies, grey sea and wet. It shows how bad it was when Paul made me laugh by every single day coming up the companion way and saying "well Webbo, similar view to yesterday", and never were truer words said. No ships, no birds, no wildlife at all just grey sea for weeks.

Grey, cold and wet 1

Tring's (Richard Abraham's) birthday was a highlight as you will gather from my diary and luckily happened to fall on a slightly calmer day. We blew up some pink rubber gloves and made him a cape (photo explains everything) a large cake was rustled up out of nowhere by Baz and Goldilocks and fun was had by all.

The next memorable event was crossing the date line when we went back a day, funnily enough Tuesday was still grey, wet and windy the second time. Fortunately we didn't have to have a repeat of the mother watch and have the same food twice.

Grey, cold and wet 2

A lighter shade of grey, still cold and wet

The upside of the strong winds was that we were travelling really fast, we seemed to move up the fleet and back down again daily, but the crossing was a fast one. I think one of the fastest the Clipper race has had. As we approached the finish line the mood improved quite a bit, we could see the light at the end of the grey tunnel, although the last week still dragged a bit like it always does. 2000, 1800, 1000 miles to go. Towards the end we had some fast downwind sailing with big surf and 27.5 notts recorded on the helm.

On the way in to San Francisco... note the improvement in weather

Us coming under the bridge

Eventually, on my mother watch day, land was sighted and a few hours later we could see the Golden Gate bridge our much longed for finish line. Mandy, Penny, James and his girlfriend, Victoria had managed to get to a position under the bridge to wave the saltire for our arrival. It seemed to take an age to cross the line as the wind had dropped and the tide was against us, at some points we seemed to be going backwards but at last we had made it. We motored the 10 miles past Alcatraz to Oakland and amazingly the flag waving gang had managed to negotiate the 20 mile drive from San Francisco via the Bay Bridge and were in Oakland to wave us in. They had only arrived the evening before and Catriona, Paul's wife arrived just as we did, running down the jetty straight from the airport to welcome us off the boat. They aren't used to us arriving on schedule!
On arrival we all went to a local bar where we were given food and beer. Several of the other crews were there as they had arrived a couple of hours earlier and some were fairly inebriated. One crew member from DLL started a bit of a fight with the Gold Coast skipper which was quickly stopped but then he started on Gordon who rather aggressively head butted him! To be fair to Gordon the chap was an idiot and Gordon had just safely got his boat and crew across the Pacific so was a bit stressed out but it was pretty unprofessional and probably sealed his fate. We'd had our differences but were sad when he resigned, he was a nice chap mostly, he was a safe skipper just not a racing skipper.

Cycling on the Golden Gate Bridge

Lucy, Penny, James and Victoria at the Mexican Restaurant in Monterey

The stopover has been amazing, almost two weeks, unheard of!  I must mention that I have become a great uncle for the first time as baby Thea Fletcher was born whilst we were in Oakland, congratulations to Jono and Emily and thanks for adding to the Edinburgh supporters! (Grandparents) Sarah and Colin, (Great aunt) Jane and Lucy flew out to Oakland to see me and we had a great holiday together. But before they arrived we had three days of sail mending, there was lots to do but with Karen, me and team Webbo (Mandy, Penny, James and Victoria) on the job we got it all done. Poor Victoria must have wondered what she had let herself in for.....some sort of slave camp. However, work done we transferred to San Francisco and so began the shopping which everyone seemed to be very good at! How many pairs of Levi's did the 6 ladies need to try on? And why did I need a pair when I hadn't changed my clothes in 4 weeks? We also managed some sightseeing in San Francisco, most notably the whole group of us cycled along from Fishermans Wharf, across the Golden Gate bridge, down into Sausalito and back on the ferry. It was a really great thing to do and so memorable, everyone loved it.
Shopping completed we moved down the coast to Monterey where we saw pelicans and sea lions and sea otters and went to the aquarium which was amazing. We also did the 17 mile drive around Pebble Beach golf course although by then it was pouring with rain. From there we drove to Sonoma and spent a day at the wineries and sightseeing and then it was back for the final 2 days to Oakland, doing boat jobs and having meetings with Flavio. So all in all a very successful end to a horrible race and a new start for us with Flavio who I did level 3 training with. Quite a few new people on this leg and I am looking forward hopefully to a warmer and less grey race. Keep watching, keep supporting and let's see how we do.

The waving off gang