Sunday 30, November 2008 06:00 GMT
Telefonica Blue – Bouwe Bekking (Skipper)
Hopefully we have used are last change at the parking meter, as parking up is bad for the nerves.
And boy, we parked up badly, but then everybody hopefully gets their fair share in the last part of the race.
Congratulations to ERT4 for their win, a big leg for them, scoring full points. So here we are 2 miles of the India coast line, short beating against a northerly breeze, making lots of miles through the water, but since the angles are so bad, the miles to the finish are horrible.
We just have to patient. We have chosen for the coast so that at least we get a bit of seabreeze , better a little breeze than no breeze at all, and offshore it doesn’t look that flash, so we are sticking to our guns.
As well the other boats behind us are all east of us, and they still can’t sail over land , how much they would have liked.
So they have to follow more or less the same path. And rule number one in sailing is: stay in between the finish and the opposition. Easy on paper, but even that we have a nice buffer, still not feeling comfortable.
As Jono (Swain) says it doesn’t matter how close they come, if we beat them with 1 centimetre, that is enough and that counts.
On the nature front there are things happening again, plenty of dolphins and other fish jumping around. And the coastline looks appealing, with lots of white beaches.
Sailed this morning through a fleet of fishing, and yes a dinghy got launched and came sailing full speed towards us. Only two guys onboard, told my guys just take it easy, it are just fisherman.
They sailed right next to us, 1 metre separated their wooden clunker with our high tech hull , one touch and for sure we would have severe damage. But the guy on the helm was pretty handy, so didn’t start arguing.
They asked where we were from: “Espagna”, shouted Pepe, they shook their heads. “Real Madrid, Barcelona”: were his next words. Ahha these words rung the bell for them. They asked for cigarettes, but none smokers, and even if we had them, I wouldn’t give them, because next thing the entire fishing fleet will surround and beg.
This promise something for the Malacca straits, where you nearly can jump from one fishing boat to the other, so many there are there. But that is next leg, let ‘s first finish this one.
Received 06:00 GMT