The Big Apple?

Team Jamaica

The Jamaica stop over was a really nice and welcome few days off, but the race start to NY wiped away any lingering thoughts of chilling with rum from our minds as we beat up windward to the east side of Cuba.

As we are not allowed within 12 nm of Cuba nor Haiti, that left us a very narrow passage between the two, from which the wind was blowing a decent 20 to 30 knots. Add a nice big 'ole swell and you have the perfect ingredients for some interesting sailing!

Unfortunately our actual start was rather poor. We were too far off the line when the gun went off, and as a result found ourselves at the back of the fleet. Some clever manouvering towards the first windward mark, and we managed to make up 4 places. However, a slight tactical faux pas saw us heading east and when the weather decided *not* to follow the forecast, we lost a lot of ground.

29 May 11 AM

Never ones to give up, we set about trimming and as we rounded Cuba we have been steadily ticking off places on the leader board. On the last sched we were 7th and making good grounds on the rest of the fleet, even though we've just hit a rather nasty wind hole. We have our code 1 kite up, and although it's slow progress, we *are* moving (and judging from the scheds faster than the others) through said hole, so hopefully we'll be flying at 12 knots again sooner than later.

The sun is still burning down on us, and although we are now no longer in the tropics, one could be forgiven to think we are eternally stuck in them. Perhaps that's the Bermuda Triangle at work!

Just a few days more and we'll get to NYC. And as we were stuck for a few hours in the lighter winds, we pondered just on why it's called the Big Apple. Without internet, this remains a mystery so we will now start making up stories. So far the best anyone can come up with is that "everyone can take a bite", which just isn't good enough... We have about 4 days to improve on that

PS. Thanks Ian for recommending (on Good Reads) the "Gone Away War"; very funny reading on off watches!

Driver License & Stuff

I am now the proud holder of a brand new Californian Driving License.

Its actually an interim driving licence, a piece of paper with my name on it that allows me to drive until the real one turns up in the post.

Why did I need a new license? (no - I've not been drunk driving!)

Annoyingly my Swedish/Brittish license was not recognised by the state of California so I had to first take the written exam, and then a 'behind the wheel test'.

Great.

Swedish License

Any fellow Swede reading this blog will remember just how much work goes into getting a driving license in Sweden. I still have nightmares about preparing for the written exam, remembering how to change a tyre and checking the oil, parallel parking, oh god the parrallel parking, reversing the car around street corners without hitting the curb, and not to mention the moose manoeuvre and slippery road course! But worst of all is the half an hour to 45 minute test drive with a moody inspector.

Californian License

Turns out that in California all you need to do is pass a really easy written test. If you somehow manage to fail it, you can simply go to the back of the queue and retake it. As soon as you have your written test in the bag (and you also hold a foreign driving license), you get a temporary license which allows you to drive in California for three months. The temporary license can be renewed, so I did, twice.

Behind the Wheel Test

Then eventually you have to take a 'behind the wheel test'. My test consisted of showing how the indicators work, how to turn on the lights of the car, being able to reverse the car in a straight line and driving around the block. In my case I had to drive twice around the block because the instructor forgot to tell me to turn back into the parking lot!

All they seem look for is whether you stop at stop signs and red lights, indicate before changing lanes or turning, check your blind spot before turning and don't hit any other traffic or pedestrians. They didn't even ask me to go on the motorway.

With so little preparations for the driving test there's no wonder there are so many bad and dangerous drivers on the road here in California. Its a little scary to think about but right now I'm also quite happy that I passed my test on my first attempt!

Touristing Around and Driving To Vegas

While Jelte is in Jamaica waiting for the next race to New York to start, Alfie and I have had a busy couple of weeks here in California.

Our Friend Sarah came to visit and it was great to see her and catch up on all gossip and show her around San Francisco.

We took the bus to the Marina district and climbed up Hyde street so Sarah could get one of the classic tourist snaps of the SF hills and the cable car transporting tourists up the steep hill. We also walked over to Haight Street and checked out the hippie area.

Haight Street

Lands End

We went for a hike in Lands End, followed the trail and found the longest set of stairs known to mankind leading to a cute little beach. Above the beach on a cliff was a labyrinth decorated with tea lights inside paper bags. We suspected someone had planned to sacrifice a virgin in the centre of the labyrinth, but later learned that its apparently just a piece of art.

Lands End Trail

We also checked out the Sutro baths before climbing a final couple of stairs to get to the Sutro's restaurant at the Cliffhouse. The Cliffhouse has a gorgeous view over the sea, and we were lucky enough to see pelicans flying past and grey whales looking for food all whilst enjoying the beautiful sunset and tasty food.

Lands End Beach

Labyrinth

Las Vegas

We drove for twelve hours to get to Las Vegas where Alfie and I had been invited to an awards ceremony. Alfie's blog had been nominated for a blog design award at the Blogpaws Pet blogging conference so of course we had to make an appearance. 

We arrived late in Vegas after a dramatic entrance to the city. The motor way was busy and lots of fancy sports cars were racing to get to Vegas for a Friday night of fun.

Out of nowhere, our car was hit from behind by some lunatic who must have been driving like a maniac. We were hit hard enough for our car to be pushed forward, but luckily nothing except the bumper of our car got damaged.

I got really worried as Alfie was in the boot, but he was okay and simply looked surprised by the sound waking him up. He is such a good dog.

The other driver didn't stop to exchange details and we shakily drove the rest of the distance to arrive at our hotel after midnight.

We didn't win the award, but we had lots of fun meeting the other bloggers and walking up the red carpet.

The Rainbow Basin Natural Area

On our way home we made a pitstop in the Rainbow Basin Natural Area. Its such an amazing place, with rock formations and canyons that change colour with the changing light conditions, and we were the only people there. We didn't find any fossils though - although Alfie did his best to sniff out some dinosaur bones!

The rainbow Basin Natural Area

Bringing it home...

Saturday 17 May 10:30 - Jamaica Lime Green

Finally we have some speed! After putting in our losing tack early, we now find ourself on a straight run home to Jamaica. At 43 degrees apparent wind, the good ship Jamaica is much happier, and we are breezing along at a happy 9 knots. Better still, our VMG is the same 9 knots as we are heading straight for the eastern tip of the island.

The crew is happier now that all our telemetry is showing "green" graphs. With the opposition dropping every hour. Unfortunately the front runners are probably too far out to catch, but even just seeing us claw back the miles is a pleasant sight.

With a bit of luck we'll be just about crossing the finish line tomorrow at this time. And as things are looking now, we will at least not be last.

Frustrating Times

15 May 10:30

Well the good position didnt last long... For a (very) brief second after the start, we managed to get ourselves up to second place. But then we dropped and dropped and dropped some more.

It seems that since the forestay problems, our rig is not capable of pointing high on the wind. We've known we were a little slower going up wind, but on this race it's shown by how much; a LOT.

We find ourselves going slow and watching the boats around us not only be ble to point 5 degrees higher, but doing so AND going 2 knots faster!! They simply all sail around us, and no matter how much trimming we do, we can't get her to move. The sails are too fat, and she's not responding as
she should.

As you can imagine this is frustrating to say the least. Especially since we are running a new (and much tougher) watch system. All in all it's taking it's toll on the crew. Morale is a little low, but we're struggling on.

Since we clearly can't outsail the other guys close hauled, we are changing tactics to see if we can get a better wind angle. It's a bold move, but then quite frankly we don't have a lot to lose :-/

Living at 45

Well the Panama canal was pretty special and amazing, but is already a
distant memory as we're 24 hours in to the race to Jamaica. With this being
our home port, we REALLY want to win this. So we're pushing on every level.
Dedicated helmsmen, and a 4 hour on/off watch system (as opposed to our
usual 4 hours at night and two 6 hours during the day).

I'm one of the helmsman, and also find myself on the bow often for headsail
changes. The last 24 hours have been a bit of a reawakening and have shown
us how we've been spoilt in the run down to Panama. Running for 12 days
down wind with a spinnaker is a hellufalot more pleasant than beating close
hauled. The boat is heeling up to 45 degrees (30 at a minimum) and bouncing
off the waves as we plow through to Jamaica. Which is making living on
board (getting in your bunk, trying to go to the toilet, or even writing
this email) *very* tricky.

The steady trade winds should give us a nice beam reach, but they are not.
Beating in to the wind is tough going in and of itself, but add to that a
raft of technical problems and things get even harder. Our generator, which
we run about 15 hours a day packed up. This means that we have to use the
engine (in neutral obviously) to charge our batteries. But since it's water
intake is on port side, we can only run the engine (at this heel) on our
starboard tack.

So although we'd like to tack when it's good for our strategy, we are
finding ourselves tacking when all computers start turning off (a sure sign
the batteries are too low). All fun and games.

Even typing this email is hard, so there might not be a lot over the next
couple of days. But the good news is that some early smart tactics have put
us in a favourable position. Now lets just hope the wind veers a bit to
give us a smoother ride!

Podium for Jamaica!

Jamaica crosses the finish line in third!

The final 24 hours were nail biting. We managed to outsail Team Garmin, and gave chase to Henri Lloyd, but in the end they managed to cross the finish line just a mere 2 miles in front of us.

Still delighted with third, and the crew have just had a celebration swim. Not sure how many people can say they've swum in 5,000 meter deep water :-)

My first race done, and one podium in the bag...

Tempting a Squall & Shortened Course for Race 11

Jamaica Lime Green - Sun 4th May 11:50

White Squall

For anyone who's seen the movie "White Squall", the reality of squalls in the tropics (or anywhere for that matter) is far more manageable these days. Ocean going yachts (and racing yachts like our good ship Jamaica) have a pretty good radar system, which is used more for spotting bad weather than other boats (for that you use AIS).

But although we know when a squall is about to hit us, dealing with it is another matter. Ideally you want to have your sails reefed before it hits you (but not too soon or else you lose valuable speed); or be able to do so *quickly* when you have your 10 second warning when the temperature drops drastically.

So when two squalls were in our path yesterday, I found myself 10 feet up the mast, ready to put the first reef in whilst my crew mates each had their own roles in the pit.

Careful What You Wish For

As we stood on standby, the skipper was eyeing up the first squall. It appeared to be passing us by, giving us just a few drops of rain as it went along. Jokingly I threw my head back and roared at the sky "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!"; drawing laughter from crew and skipper alike.... careful what you wish for...

Within seconds the sky roared its own thunder back at me and we had our answer... nope, that wasn't all she got... The winds shot up to 40+ knots and horizontal rain drenched us so hard it felt like hail.

The crew changed gears in to overdrive and in no time the first reef was in; but it became clear we needed more. The halyard was dropped further, but by now we were over powered and heading for a broach. If I'd been wearing a tux, I could have done a mast walk a la Alex Thomson.

The main sheet was quickly eased, and once the boat righted itself we got the second reef in. Followed quickly by four of us attacking our Yankee sail and brining that down to de-power the boat further.

And like Keiser Sosee in the Usual Suspects: like *that*... the squall was gone... Leaving us drenched to the bone.

In short: that's how you have a shower on an ocean race... it was all very refreshing :-)

Note from the Clipper Race Committee

The Clipper Race Committee, chaired by Sir Robin, has shortened the course for Race 11 - the PSP Logistics Panama 100 Cup by introducing a new finish line within the Course Instructions. This line is perpendicular to the route and is long enough so that it does not adversely affect any team tactics.

It is currently (at 1900GMT) 100nm ahead of Henri Lloyd. The Race Committee has taken this decision after it was advised of maintenance work that is being undertaken on the Panama Canal locks over the coming weeks, the lighter than expected wind strengths on this section of the race and then need to maintain the overall race schedule.

Meanwhile At Home

With all the blog updates about Jelte's sailing adventure, you might be tempted to believe its all about sailing at the moment in our family. Not entirely true - although, admittedly I check Jamaica's position first thing in the morning and last thing at night!

New Healthy Diet

With Jelte out of the house for six weeks I saw a golden opportunity to start a new healthy diet - while there is no one to tempt me back to the evil ways of pizza night! A couple of weeks before he took off sailing, I signed up for Weight Watchers Online, and lost a pound or two before realising I hated all the low calorie foods and points counting. 

I started researching for a a diet more in line with my beliefs about what food should really be like, you know - real ingredients, no funky additives or pesticides, and ideally organic. I found the Paleo diet which is based around the use of whole foods, cooking everything from scratch and cutting out gluten and grains such as wheat. That means no bread, rice or pasta and more tasty veggies instead for good carbs. 

The diet is often called the cave man diet as it only allows foods that were available to our Paleolithic ancestors and cuts out lab-concocted Frankenfoods and ready made meals.

So far so good - I thought I would really miss bread, but I haven't. I don't think I've ever spent so much time in the kitchen though but I'm secretly enjoying making my own spice blends, herbal salts, and home made stock! And yes I'm loosing a bit of weight too which is great.

Here's a super easy paleo recipe for making your own herb salts - the Rosemary salt is amazing for roast chicken.

Home Made Herb Salts

• Dry some fresh herbs in the oven - for example rosemary, sage or lemon peel. Use the lowest oven setting and dry the herbs for up to 4 hours, they are ready when they are dry and break when you touch them.
• Mix the herbs with some good quality sea salt. You need twice as much herbs as salt
• Put your new salt in a cute jar - and its done!

Las Vegas 

As you might have heard, Alfie's Blog has been nominated for a Blog Design Award and so we're off to Vegas for the awards ceremony next week! Our friend Sarah is coming to stay for a couple of weeks, and we're planning a road trip to Vegas with Alfie.

We've also signed up for a new training course called K9 Nose Work which I'm sure Alfie will tell you all about on his blog.

View from yesterday's race in the bay

More Sailing

I thought it would be fun to learn some more about sailing so I've joined Jelte's local sailing group here in San Francisco. I haven't really done any sailing since my time in sailing school when I was a kid, and a competent crew course in Thailand ten years ago - but I'm slowly picking up some skills and I almost know which ropes to pull when now. But oh my gosh I had forgotten how many bruises you get from moving around in a boat, my legs are black and blue now! :-)

Steaming to first place

Friday 2 May 11:40

Too hot to think

It's 38 degrees in the nav station as I type this, which is causing everyone's brain to fry... It's making it hard to focus, which is exactly what we have to do; and what we have been doing, in order to charge to the front of the pack.

If you check the mileage we have made over the last 12 to 24 hours, you can see that focus paying off. Whilst other boats have ground to a complete standstill in various light wind conditions, we've been milking every last ounce of speed out of the good ship Jamaica. In some cases that saw us gain 50 miles on some boats within 6 hours!

Racing Ahead

But we have to continue this focus and drive if we want to grab that top podium step in Panama... Great Britain are just a few miles ahead of us (we can see them tantalisingly close on the horizon). And no doubt, as they see us coming, they too are doing everything they can to keep going.

But rest assured we are not going to stop trimming and tweaking every sail in our wardrobe until we cross the finish line!

Stealth Mode and Ocean Sprint Bonus Points

Sneaky Stealth Mode

Jamaica is doing really well at the moment. Yesterday saw Jamaica Get All Right win the two Ocean Sprint bonus points by a clear 39 minutes ahead of its nearest competitor PSP Logistics, leaving them just 25 miles behind leader GREAT Britain in Race 11.

But Why Is Jamaica Standing Still?

Now the race is becoming really tactical and the Jamaica team have entered stealth mode, meaning they will be invisible to the other boats (and us!) for a 24 hour period as of 06:00 UCT today (I think!) allowing them to disguise any tactical route changes.

How exciting!