T-5 Days!! Yes 5 days!

How fast has that come around?! I can’t believe that its only 5 days until I fly out to Cape Town – better start getting organised! It was fantastic to see everybody on Saturday at the sailing club. Mum organised a fab party with everyone there, friends and family. Thank you to everybody who helped!

Kate and I packed my bag yesterday under the eye of Kerry’s Camera. We weighed in at 24 kilos, spot on for the boat’s weight limit. Phew! Kerry is the guy from North One Television who is making the documentary on the race and he spent yesterday afternoon filming Kate, Mum, Dad and myself around the house, watching us getting ready for the ‘big day’! His other camera-man, Wayne, did some filming with Jamaica on training and he’ll be on-board for all of Leg 3. We still don’t know when the programs will be shown but it will be after I get back so watch this space instead :)

With ‘the big pack’ done and dusted it’s now down to organising all my paper work and making sure I have all my documents in the right place. Most importantly, I bought my advent calendar today, as far as I’m concerned the most important bit of paperwork! It will only be a week out of Cape Town before we start the countdown to Christmas on the beach! Naturally its not a snowy chirstmas scene but its very sparkly and has fairies on it! What more could I want!

As I read more of the blogs coming back off the boat I realise how much I am jumping in at the deep end. Already, whilst still in the South Atlantic and somewhat protected by South America they are reporting the size of waves in whole building sizes, and seasickness is affecting the boat quite badly. Despite this, we are still moving up through the ranks and are only 6 miles off 3rd position.

It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling at the moment. As I said to Kerry yesterday, I’ve been preparing for this for so long that it’s almost become part of the background but now it’s being pushed to the front and I have to think about it. I keep going through cycles of excitement at the adventure, panic that I’ve forgotten something and shear terror at the 5-month rollercoaster ride ahead of me. It’s like climbing to the top of the Pepsi Max and waiting for it to drop, and you’re still not sure if you will like it or not! I’ve decided to take everything as it comes and focus on one thing at time.

So… Flying… uh oh!