I will miss the open ocean…

Our last roll call as we approach the golden gate bridge with less than 50 miles to go. We are starting to see a lot of sea birds and clumps of kelp are going by. It has been a good trip and all the crew I got from the Pac Cup website have worked out really well. For one I know it is a lifetime experience that won’t be repeated, for another it is the start of his offshore career and for the other I think he will continue to look to do a trip like this every few years.

There is always a feeling of accomplishment no matter how many times you cross an ocean when you get to the destination with the boat intact, everyone in one piece and happy. This was my sixth crossing and definantly the most benign with the most amount of sleep and the least time spent motoring. I think the crew got what they wanted out of the trip including some spinnaker sailing for about 7 hours on Sunday in pretty perfect conditions. We had to catch Green Buffalo so we crept up nice and steadily so as not to cause a stampede! It is touch and go as to whether Ed or I will win the bottle of wine if we average 7 knots from here he has it by 45 minutes!

Through out these trips as I explained to my crew you go through differentmental states about the distance to go and the distance you have come. At some point you just get into a rhythm and really it doesn’t matter how much longer you are out there unless it is really miserable conditions. I was very much looking forward to being on land for more than 5 days until it dawned on me on Saturday night that I only had 4 (potentially 3) nights left as boat captain on the ocean for what is likely to be almost 20months. I will leave San Francisco on the 12th September and not come back till January 2012 and I leave the UK for South Georgia on the 18th November. While on this delivery I was sent an email with the dates – it will take 10 days from London to get to King Edward Point as I go by sea from the Falklands.

So stay tuned. The next few weeks of posts will be about my adventures trying to enjoy everything the US has to offer before heading to Europe. Then you will hear all about my training for going south and last but not least there will be a 13 months of posts from South Georgia.

So now time to enjoy my last partial night at sea hopefully there will be some stars out though I can’t hope for a moon. It is likely however, that we will be bucking the tide coming in the gate under a cloak of fog listening intently to VTS for incoming and outgoing traffic into the bay. Thanks for reading.