It has been a hectic couple of days since I last blogged. il mostro exited the Doldrums and entered the South East trade winds, crossed the equator and made a date with Neptune. We rounded the turning mark at Fernando de Noronha and all of this was done in sight of another competitor (Ericsson 4) and on the radio to another (Green Dragon).
As I write we are in a close third place and being tailed by Telefonica Negro about 15 miles back. I am however very aware of the fact that you the public has access to as much if not more detailed position reporting than we are allowed here on the boat. All of our information is controlled by Volvo Ocean Race, including weather forecasts and fleet positions. So I won't go on because you can get all of this information in a much more a timely and factual way if you want.
We've been sailing forever and I just found out that we are 49.2 percent of the way to Cape Town! We often get questioned about entertainment on the boat and what the crew does for relaxation during off watch periods. Do we have TV? Playstation? Chillaxing on couch anyone? NO SUCH LUCK!!! The race so far has been hectic to say the least and there has been little or no down time for the crew whether on or off watch. The racing is so tight that when the crew has some time during an off watch the only thing they want to do is try and get a few hours of sleep before they have to go back on deck and do it all again for another 4 hrs.
A few of the guys have "nano's." I know this because they get me to do the charging- which I am happy to do but I've got no idea what they are listening to although its fun trying to imagine what they like. Our crew is such a bunch of mis-fits. Here is a sampling from one that I'm charging now - B 52s, Big Audio Dynamite, Bachman Turner, Overdrive!!, Billy Bragg, Beck, Blondie, and Buzzcocks...that's just the "B"s on Capey's machine.
The computer that we media crew members, or OMO's as I like to call the position (Odd Man Out), use on the boat is supplied by Volvo and my plan all along had been to transfer music across from my personal computer at some point. I have a fairly large amount of music as well as audio books that I just never listen to so the race was going to be an opportunity for me to start working thru all of this. It would have easily kept entertained the whole way around the world with stuff left over.
OK so I admit it, I may have procrastinated a little in getting around to the music transfer, and once I did get to it I found that the boat computer is registered to Volvo and therefore no good to me for my music. No-one carries CD's around anymore and I wasn't comfortable getting my son involved in showing me how to "share" music. Thus my quest began. I found three CD's in the crew workshop. They are...Leftfield, "Leftism, the "24hr Party People" soundtrack, but none of the track info moves across so it displays track 1 thru track 18. There is also Van Morrison Greatest Hits. I found Soar by Christina Aguillera on an old hard drive that I use for video back ups. Sandy Kiff, who works tirelessly on our shore team, gave me a USB drive with Fatboy Slim's "You've Come a Long Way Baby" as well as four tracks from Prodigy's "Their Law." Sandy also got me The Dropkick Murphys "Shipping Up To Boston" - it's our unofficial team song, and Paolo Nutini's "New Shoes" because it's a Puma anthem...and that's about it...pretty grim.
At the moment I'm listening to Van Morrison "Queen of the Slipstream" and thinking about my wonderful, lovely, beautiful wife and thinking that I will be seeing her in ten days or so in Cape Town. It is the type of track that I would never normally think of listening to but having listened to it 12 times now I continue to be moved by Van's wonderful melancholy voice and the simple artistry of the song. One other song that I have from Sandy is "Monster" by The Automatic, and I think I will use this for the next unofficial team video that I plan to make in Cape Town.
- Rick
