Busy. Very, very, busy

Tuesday 7 April 2009, 01:00 GMT

I am always busy in this job. The last few months have been so interesting. Since the boat pulled out in Taiwan in January, there has been so much to do. We had to get the boat on a ship, get all the sailors home, move various bit of equipment around the world and set up base in Rio. So much logistics, but we've had a lot of re-structuring here and Marjon Kooistra has come in to share the load.

I've been here for more than a month now. It's a great country, but I've not really had a chance to see any of it yet. There's always a lot of running around getting things done, but it's not like the first few legs when we were trying to catch up and it was like ‘Dee, here's a load of things to be done, find a way to do it'. It's more organised now, but it's still all go and I've not had a day off in over a month of 12-hour days! We're all in the same boat, though.

One of my main responsibilities now is to organise the sailors. Hard work! They are not the easiest to keep happy. I sort their daily schedule: going to the gym, then back and breakfast, and everything else. Even though laundry has been Monday, Wednesday, Friday the last three weeks, they still don't remember and then give out when it's not back on time. Then there's sorting out the visas at the embassy for America. If you want to sort something with one of the guys, it takes three days of planning before you can get him to sit down because he has so much on. We are all great friends but they can be hard work sometimes! Once their girlfriends and families are here they tend to lighten up.

But there's always something to do and I guess that's one of the reasons why it's a great job. It feels like I'm always booking flights for someone or other - I must have booked at least 150 flights since this race began.

It's getting busier as well. One of my responsibilities is sorting out stuff for Galway because I only live 40 minutes away. Because we're all returning to Europe for the first time a load of the guys have family coming out and they're all like ‘give it to Dee to sort; Dee can you this?' Argghh!

I'll have two days off when the boats leave and I plan to do all the tourist stuff. The picture with the statue of Christ with my arms out wide, all the cheesy stuff that has to be done. Can't wait!

Saying that, I do love doing this race. I'm meeting so many people and doing so many things I didn't expect to do. But I got home between Taiwan and Rio and that was great. I got home for just over two weeks and went and saw Galway and slept in my bed for the first time in six months. That was nice. I caught up with loads of mates. They were surprised I didn't have a better suntan, so I had to explain the 20 foot office container life that I have. It was great to catch up and just chill out, go to the movies and do the things my friends get to do and I can't at the moment.

I still think it's a great way to spend a year.

Interviewed by Riath Al-Samarrai