Greetings from the East China Sea

Jamaica takes another wave in the China Sea

Sent:: 17th February 2010

Position: 027degs 57'55 N  123degs 05'13 E

Boat time: 11:05hrs

Hello from the East China Sea. And don't we know we've arrived! The last few days have been a roller coaster of big seas, heavy weather and wet evolutions! (sail changes) Not to mention the temperature plummeting rapidly and still on the decrease! Whoop! Whoop! It's been a little while since I last wrote as, for some time, we were having to use 2 keyboards as only half the letters on each one were working! Very, very tedious so it's been a bit quiet in the nav station.

Before the weather started, I managed to get a good few days of learning in. Charles has taught me how to use a sextant to get our position from the sun. I can 'bring the sun down' to the horizon and get a pretty accurate angle reading but the sums which follow afterwards are a little out my league! They will have to wait 'til I'm some where steady and not moving and where I've got several hours to waste! I can follow the gist but would be lost by myself - apparently we're in Kenya.......dohhh!

I've been helping out with a bit of the maintenance around the boat as well. I helped Matt fix the port-side heads (loo) the other day. We took it completely apart, replaced a couple of springs, put in a new rubber washer and put it back together again. It's not working quite perfectly but a lot better than it was! I also helped him replace the diaphragm on the grey water tank pump, too, which was a much simpler procedure just in a trickier place, especially as lunch was being prepared around us as we worked! Then, whilst on the maintenence spree, Skip showed me how to tension the steering cables, something that apparently needed doing quite badly!

The phosphoresence the last few nights has been incredible, possibly because the sea has been rough so the little phosphors have been very agitated! I was trying to work out if it would be possible to catch some and take it home but I dont think American customs (when I get off the boat in San Francisco) would be too impressed: "And whats that large jar of liquid you are carrying Miss?". "Oh, it's just some phosphoresence I caught in the China Sea!" Yeah, that would work!

I'm sure most of you will have heard about Team Finland losing the top section of their mast. Not entirely sure what caused it but everybody is safe with no injuries and they are in a Taiwanese port repairing it as we speak. It is expected that they will sail under jury rig (a sort of heath robinson thing cobbled together from what's left of the rig) and motor to Qingdoa but we don't know if they will be able to rejoin the race yet. However, the newsletter says they had a warm welcome and everybody is in good spirits, joining the local coastgaurds for a bit of karaoke!

We have suffered some minor damage, too, but nothing on a major scale. The other night we lost the top six hanks on the stay sail and ended up having to replace all of them before we could re-hoist. Also, this morning, just as we came on watch at 8am, the snap shackle at the top of the Yankee halyard snapped (thats the bit that holds the foresail up) and it came crashing to the deck. Luckily, we got hold of it before it went over board and we quickly swapped to the spare and re-hoisted.

After spending a couple of days with the minium amount of mainsail (3 reefs in) and the storm jib and stay sail, its a relief to finally have a more normal sail plan! 1 reef in the main, Yankee 3 foresail and stay sail. Some of the waves we've had have been crazy and I've found myself: being physically thrown into the bunk above me as the boat comes crashing down off the back of a wave; clinging to the inner stay trying to get the staysail down; swinging off the lazy sheet to allow it to come down; screaming "Yeehaaa!" as the next wave crashes over us and.....I woke up this morning to the sight of my breath condensing in the air above my face. It's getting very cold! Apparently, this is what we signed up for! But despite how horrific it sounds, I've still possibly had some of the best moments so far! xxx

PS. Thankyou for all the comments. Dad keeps passing them on. It's really great to know that everyone is still so interested and following the race so closely! We'll be getting those points again dont you worry!