Day 10. Sailing into nothingness

As one of the crew says: it's like sailing into nothingness. You can't see a thing around you. Two nights in a row the sky was occasionally brightened by lightning. Here in the vast ocean, they appear to be so close and so bright that our night vision is damaged for at least a minute after they disappear. With all the troubles we've had we lost the second position but we will get it back I am sure. Everyone is feeling great on board and we're all focused on racing fast and winning. This race is going to be very close. Everyone is saying this is the first leg where all the boats are so close together this far in the race. We see a clipper boat almost every day and what's more this is happening in the Pacific-the biggest ocean in the world. It's amazing. Wish us good luck and keep your fingers crossed nothing else breaks.

Day 12. Things keep breaking.
12 pm to 4pm is my favorite watch. The sun is out and has been keeping us warm. The number of layers we are wearing is down to 1-2. There have been sightings of shorts and t-shirts. Apart from yesterday when we had high rolling waves pouring down on deck, the Pacific has been quite calm. It's a great feeling to surf the waves. We have seen flying fish, dolphins and whales. The ocean is a beautiful turquoise blue in certain areas and I never get tired of admiring it. There is a feeling of serenity and one feels so distant from the worries of every day life. Well, actually we do have few worries onboard. Things just keep breaking. The other day the instruments indicating wind direction and speed on deck started fuming. Now the only thing we have left is the compass. Thank god for that! Our ropes keep snapping and we had few spinnaker wraps. During the last one Marcus, our skipper, spent more than an hour up the mast trying to bring it down to safety. One good news is that our water maker is working again! For the moment. So we stopped collecting rain water. It tastes a bit funny but it's better than nothing. I guess we have been spoilt with the lovely Laoshan mineral water we had our tanks filled with in Qingdao. The nights have been quite cloudy and dark.

Crew profile: Gary Jessop. 41 years old. Stock broker by profession. Born in UK but has spent quite a few years living and working in Asia. The last 3 years he has been living in Hong Kong. He took some sailing classes at the Hong Kong Royal Sailing Club and was hooked. He saw an ad for the Clip race years ago and thought he would like to do it one day. Recently a friend of his mentioned to him he was planning to do the race and Garry decided the time has come to make his own dream a reality. He is enjoying this adventure of a life time more than he expected.