The good ships Nasdaq and Garmin, along with the nine other clipper yachts arrived safely in Qingdao on Thursday after an exhilarating 12 day voyage from Sanya around the coast of China. Both Graham and Jane are unscathed but a little bruised and battered, with any feeling yet to return to our fingers (so please excuse any typos).
Family honour and equanimity were restored in this our second race, with Garmin (Jane) crossing the line in sixth place, ahead of Nasdaq in seventh. This time Garmin won the Ocean Sprint so we are completely in balance after the first race from Aus to Sanya where Nasdaq finished just ahead of Garmin and also took the Ocean Sprint.
The finish near an island off Qingdao was completed in spectacular fashion in forty knots of breeze and clouds of icy spray, with Nasdaq heeled over at 60 degrees, flying along for the last mile, just pulling metres ahead of GB whom we'd been chasing for the past 2 days. Unfortunately in the excitement we (along with 2 other boats) sailed a little too close to the island and incurred a penalty which dropped us 2 places and allowed Garmin to gain one, but hey, we were still 7th and Garmin 6th across the line. We arrived in the evening and then had to spend a very cold night sailing round in circles waiting to have our official welcoming ceremony at 9am the following morning.
The welcome ceremony was very lavish with each boat in turn being greeted with fireworks, and marched up to club house accompanied by troupes of drummers and dancers, where speeches were made, welcome scarfs and fur hats issued and the skipper dressed in a red cape with a trident. We were then ushered into the clubhouse where copious quantities of the local Tsingdao beer and baiju (rice wine) soon meant that any plans for spending the day deep cleaning the boat were soon abandoned. Nasdaq had a beautiful sunny day for its drinking whilst Garmin, arriving the evening before had to put up with their interminable speeches in a howling gale before getting to the bar.
The race from the tropical holiday city of Sanya starting in light winds and 30 deg temperatures gave us the full range of sailing conditions and experiences as we progressed north to the harsh winter of northern china where it was 0 deg at the time of arrival. Leaving Sanya Nasdaq was first over the line in a very tight start where Visit Seattle's bow-spit actually protruded between the stansions of our pushpit (the railing at the stern) and lots of unladylike calls were heard from their female led crew. Other boats including Garmin were forced up and had to complete 360s (a penalty involving turning the boat through a full circle) to exonerate themselves from infringements or for missing the mark. There were a series of photo opps to keep the local authorities satisfied, including rounding a mark just off a spectacular 200m statue of the female Guanyin Buddha at sunset, before heading out into the fishing boat bobbing South China Sea.
We must have picked our way through more than a thousand fishing boats on our way round Taiwan and up the coast. Some of these were lit up like the sun, with strings of halogen lights to attract squid, whilst others were content to fish in pairs, often without any AIS (the automatic identification signal which ships sent out to identify themselves, their speed, size and course) and dragging a net between them, up to a km apart. Often the boats scattered nets marked by little black buoys which sometimes showed up on radar over about a km range but which otherwise were nearly invisible, particularly in the dark. Fortunately neither Garmin nor Nasdaq picked up any nets but other boats were less fortunate and had to spend time detangling themselves from nets around their keels or rudders.
As you can imagine, navigating through such an obstacle course, at night usually without a moon and in the last few days of the race in thick fog was a major challenge. At times there were over a hundred boats visible on our screen such that determining a course and communicating it to the helm (the person steering who can't see the screen) was a full time job. On top of that there were lots of commercial vessels, some over 350m long coming or going to the world's busiest ports of Hong Kong, Shenzhen or Shanghai plus quite a few oil and gas platforms to avoid, not to mention all the new Chinese islands they have been busy building in recent years.
However, we arrived safely and not too scarred (maybe a little scared) after crossing back eastwards through the South China Sea and the Straits of Luzon, then along the east coast of Taiwan, which was surprisingly mountainous. For most of the voyage the weather was quite good, including one perfect day without a cloud in the sky from dawn till dusk, although it progressively got colder and warm clothes, sea boots and thick sleeping bags replaced shorts tee-shirts and silk liners. By the time we neared Qingdao every item of clothing was being worn, with up to 6 layers for the night watches including two sets of thermals, two padded jackets and foulies (ie our wet weather gore tex smocks and salopettes), beanies and gloves. I tell myself that part of this was purely an experiment to try out what worked best for the next leg through the World's Deadliest Catch territory of the North Pacific, but in reality it was just that it was more than a bit cold and wet. Fortunately most of the voyage was on one tack with the wind on the beam, allowing us to have the spinnaker up for much longer than was expected but it did mean the boat was constantly heeled over, generally at an angle of between 45 and 60deg. However this time we managed to avoid any kite disasters such that our sail repairers have had a relatively easy stop over.
The heel made life pretty exhausting, climbing up deck to perch on the rail meant a serious rock climbing challenge, and ensuring you were clipped on with a short tether, as a 5m plunge down a near vertical deck could be fatal (and wet). It also presented sleeping challenges as rolling out of bed was a real possibility, and going to the toilet was almost impossible. Even getting dressed was a nightmare as you had to balance precariously whilst pulling on your pants with a momentarily free hand - lying on the floor was the most practical option but it still didn't stop you from being flung from side to side.
Despite this we still managed to bake bread, cook pasta and make porridge, although at times much of it ended up on the floor, over the stove or in people's laps. Pouring tea or coffee was an art, as contrary to real life, on clipper boats it doesn't flow downwards but rather comes out of the pot at 45deg. So when you think you are holding the cup in the right place, it actually goes well to the side, and often over you leg or wrist. Cooking which each of us did in rotation resembled a scene from the Sorcerer's apprentice.
Given all the fishing boats its no surprise that we saw very little wildlife on this leg, apart from the occasional dolphin. We did however encounter fog which was a bit disconcerting when a large container ship is bearing down on you but passes by invisibly less than 300m way, with its eerie fog horn blaring.
Now we are recuperating in Qingdao, the beer and washing machine capital of the world, both of which we are taking advantage of. Unfortunately we were moved at the last minute from the city centre marina we had previously visited when we were living in China to a remote location 40km south in the 'West Coast New Area'. Like many such new areas in China, it will be great when it’s finished but at moment is still largely a 20km long building site. The marina itself is superb, even though it wasn't even started six months ago. The club house is very opulent, reminiscent of Versaille with gilded statues, domes topped with angels whilst the surrounding district is full of empty towers, unoccupied shops and hotels nearing completion. The movie world theme park opens next month, as does the massive shopping centre. Meanwhile trees are being planted by the forest-load and hundreds of workers are putting the finishing touches to the pavements, museums and assorted buildings drawn from a vast array of international architects' catalogues.
It's all great fun and the local people are very friendly and enthusiastic. Today we ventured out and bought up Decathlon which had a good sailing section, and the supermarket, as well as H&M so Jane has some clothes to wear to fly back on Saturday and this evening we will try to find a KTV lounge, which shouldn't be too difficult.
The next leg starts on Friday with a Parade of Sail and then an easterly course past Jeju Island and round the southern tip of Japan before turning more northerly on an arc across the Pacific to Seattle. It's quite a long leg, which threatens some challenging sailing and serious waves but im assured no icebergs. Fortunately the boats are very strong although I'm not sure about the crew. We have a full boat on this leg, with around 23 people, compared with 16-17 on the last leg so at least there are plenty of people to help out, although limited space to store our gear and food.
So the next bulletin will come from the city of coffee, aeroplanes and windows in hopefully 26 days or so (similar in duration to the leg from Airlie to Sanya - which was long enough). In the interim please keep up your support, check out the skipper's and crew's blogs (you can now ignore Garmin) and watch our progress on the Race Viewer all of which are at this link . There are loads of photos on the Clipper race instagram and the various facebook pages.
Thank you all for your comments and feedback - I apologise that we have not been able to reply to everyone individually as we don't have any email on the boat but please consider yourselves thanked - it means a lot to us.
Also thank you again to everyone who has donated to Unicef, the clipper race charity partner to help children in danger. If you haven't yet donated and would like to help us reach or beat our targets, you can access our Just Giving (for non Australian) or our Australian Everyday Hero web pages. Every little bit helps!
Best wishes, sail strong and stay stormy!
The good ships Nasdaq and Garmin, along with the nine other clipper yachts arrived safely in Qingdao on Thursday after an exhilarating 12 day voyage from Sanya around the coast of China. Both Graham and Jane are unscathed but a little bruised and battered, with any feeling yet to return to our fingers (so please excuse any typos).
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