By now there isn’t that much to write about the day-to-day stuff as you have heard most of it. With the exception of the heat and humidity. I have never felt so uncomfortable for such a long time. The fact that we haven’t showered since our departure in Cape Town (excluding the rain squalls we went through) means that we all are feeling very tacky.
There has been some commercial ship activity today. I saw two freight ships at the same time during my morning shift. Hitting a shipping lane meant that we were getting close to shore.
Later the day we saw 5 oil drilling platforms…at once! The one was burning excess gas from the drilling process which we could see long before we could see it. We had to sail quite far around the platforms as they get agitated if you get too close.
A school of Dolphins swam with us. I tried to take photos, but they swam too fast. So I made a video :)
We saw our first piece of land! Its an island about 40nm offshore called Cabo Frio. This caused some excitement. At our current pace we should reach Rio by sunrise. We can only hope the wind plays along all the way. Since we can almost smell the finish, we decided not to sleep tonight & all push through to the finish line.
We kept our pace after the sun set, maintaining an average of 9.5kts and catching surfs up to 14kts. This was the best sailing we had the whole race. We were hoping to keep close to the coast to keep the wind, but it didn’t work out that way. Fortunately the wind was with us…well almost. At the 10mn mark (to the finish) the wind died :( We were down to 1.0-2.5kts of boat speed…with a 1.6kts current from the front. This caused us to creep the last bit in 2-3hours to the finish. By this time we were all pretty tired & nerves were a bit on edge.
We motored into the bay, where the yacht club is, at about 5am local time. We couldn’t get a nice view of everything, but what we say by the city’s lights was beautiful.
Tying up on the dock, we were welcomed by John Martin (the commodore of RCYC and main organiser of the event), Marcus (the committee’s main liaison person with the yachts, who also did lost of work with the organising) and admiral Louw (of the SA navy), with fresh Caparinia’s (a local drink: Equivalent of “Wit blitz”, sugar and lemon) on hand. Leroy and I finished our 2nd Caparinia just as the sun rose. I understood why so many people like the views of Rio.
After our long anticipated shower we headed for breakfast at the Penguin bar (on the yacht club’s premises) and cleaned the boat out. There were lots of wet stuff as the bow has a bit of a leak and the last 2 days were our wettest of the race.
Our “Groot Trek” across the Atlantic had finally come to and end. I have heard some good and bad stories of what happened on other boats, and one thing come to mind…I did this trip with some great guys! Unfortunately this is the end of my sailing with these guys for now…as my adventure is only starting.
If anyone connected to the race is reading this, I would like to thank the organising committee for all their hard work and late night to make this event possible. All the competitors for putting time and effort to make the crossing. I don’t think I will do this event soon, but then again the next one is in 4 years. I will probably change my mind by then :)
This has been an amazing experience that I am happy to have done!
The final stretch
5mn from the finish
From our mooring
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