Saturday 20 November 2004

The day of departure draws near. The temporary crew has returned to Finland and main crew has arrived. For the past few days the crew has spent preparing for the journey. The preparations are an enormous task as the ARC officials inspect all the boats to ensure they satisfy the necessary safety norms.

We bought all our groceries from a local supermarket El Corte Inglese. The whole shopping process took hours and it even took an hour to pack them. Of course we were only supervising, as the packing was done by four Spanish girls….nice! A Similar trip to a Finnish grocery store would be a nightmare, but here it was almost a pleasure. In the end we had bought seven shopping trolleys full of stuff. The supermarket promised to deliver the goods same day, but to no ones surprise the delivery was delayed for a day, ‘man jana…man jana.’

While in dock, there has been a party every night. Tonight our hosts were Raymarine, a company that manufactures and designs electronic equipments for boats. The party was relatively boring and we left early to get a dinner. Jallu was begging for a Chinese meal, but democracy prevailed and he had to settle for a western cuisine, however the food was still great.

In the morning our goods were finally delivered. When the contents of the delivery van were loaded on to the pier, it was truly an amusing moment. How on earth are we going to fit all that food into such a small place? It had taken us hours to select and buy the food, but it took us a day to pack it into the boat….madness!! Especially when the chef Make insisted he did it all so he knew where everything was.

Again that evening, it was our duty to go to yet another sponsored party. It can be a tiring job drifting from one party to another. Life is so difficult sometimes. This party however was better than the one we attended last night. We met the other Finnish crews and of course, since ARC is a competition, we had to make a few bets. “We’ll beat you by at least for a two full days!”, and so on…

Sunday 21 November 2004

Finally we’re off. The days spent in preparation had been good to get everyone in the right mood, but we’re here to sail! The last thing we did before setting sail was to call home and say our farewell to family and friends.

The weather was nice as usual +25C and sunny, but the winds were very light, only 3-4 meters per second. The start took place in three stages. First to depart were the competing teams, then the cruisers. There were no major problems during the start, however because of the lack of wind, most boats turned on their engines after only a couple of minutes of sailing. According to ARC rules, the use of engines is allowed, but time penalties are awarded for it. After a couple of hours sailing, only 5 or 6 boats were ahead of us. A catamaran is fast, even if only using it’s engine.