Surfing Westerlies

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.

Last few days were not the easiest on the boat.On Sunday we’ve started sailing from Oban, after a fantastic send out, making our way to the north of Ireland and then to the west of Ireland.As we approached west of Ireland, wind started to get stronger, and we have had to sail upwind for the last few days.It was back to living on 40-45 degrees but this time more crashing into water. So we were flying above the waves and then crashing hard back on the sea.  That made me feel so sick, but having the scopoderm patches helped.  Then it started to get colder and colder, I started having deep coughs, which wasn’t pleasant at all.  Then yesterday I felt no energy in my body, not even helping me to walk to the heads (loo in daily language), or to the galley (kitchen & eating area in daily language).  I have excused myself from my team and from Hannah our skipper as I didn’t feel like I’d make it.  Also, we’ve been eating the emergency food (freeze-dried but quite tasty), and portions got too small.  I wonder whether that was a combination of reduced nutrition, cold days, and tired muscles.  Anyways, I found a protein bar in one of my bags and ate it afterwards and missing the 13-19 watch and sleeping instead really helped for my recovery.  I am back on the deck since late last night. I actually had a moment with the green monster and left it out on the low side with a perfect timing.Since then I’m doing better.  Today Ken & Vasi were the cookies we have had great lunch (I’ve eaten 2 seconds with pasta and the chorizo sauce) as I was super hungry.  Back to normal portions by dinner, I had one serving and it felt enough.Other than that, the crew member, who is back from an incident on the previous race, and taken by a helicopter rescue operation from northern US,  has joined us on this last race from Oban.  However, she realised that her bunk is getting wet and wet, which definitely wasn’t pleasant to sleep in. We’ve found a temporary solution to keep her a bit more dry, but I’m glad today she found Vasi has a second sleeping bag and now she has moved to the cookie bunk and is likely to stay warm and dry there. On other news, before I got sick, I’ve spent neatly an hour inside the lazorette or laz as we call it.  Clearly upwind sailing fills up our boat with lots of water, so between scooping, and pumping the whole area I was nearly inside laz for an hour during my watch.  What I’ve heard from Andy, who was responsible for the bilges on the other watch, he got very wet as the laz was again filled with so much water.  He said it was nearly Titanic 3. All his clothes and body got so wet, not an ideal situation especially when there is no good possibility to dry things properly. Anyways I’ve just found a note which made me happy, and I’m kind of looking forward to arriving at Portsmouth.  When I was in bed sleeping, I’ve dreamed of eating some of my favorite foods, so I may be looking forward to finding a proper Turkish restaurant in Portsmouth.Due to multiple windholes en route race office decided to reduce the race so there won’t be the sailing to France and back, which in fact is fantastic news for me as it is the stretch where nearly everyone gets seasick.  We are now going to Scily Isles and then turn to Cornwall direction, heading to East of IoW for anchoring on Friday night, and leaving to Portsmouth in the afternoon.

We’ve had arrived in Oban recently and it takes me some time to get used to being on the land. I keep on hitting to people on the streets, not my best behaviour  I was so happy to see my good friends Tac & Cem who came from Istanbul to greet me on my arrival. I found later on that their journey was disrupted so it was a pure chance that they’ve arrived on time to the pontoon when we got there. It definitely is a very nice feeling to have a homely hug at the arrival. Makes one feel all the hardship of the previous weeks disappear. Although I must say I wasn’t really talkative as I was super shattered and even when I talk I made super funny Turkish sentences and expressions, which reminded me of the similar expressions I’ve used on the boat in English. It won’t be wrong to say my language skills disappear in every language once I get physically tired. Oban is such a lovely wee town, and I was able to explore only a wee bit of it, as I have spent most of my time in bed trying to recover. My sleeping is nearly adjusted to a on land sleeping pattern as opposed to 3 hrs on and off sleeping at nights, but I sometimes wake up unexpectedly at the middle of the night. As someone with a very good sleeping pattern, it is a little uncomfortable but perhaps an element of adjusting from the 3 hrs on and off night sleep of the boat watch system. Few of us gathered to say farewell to Bence last night at a whisky distillery (or the name sounds so), and Juliet has already left. I’m now going to meet with Bill to help him carry his bags from the boat, as he skipped on the boat tangling to a rope during the deep cleaning event and unfortunately broke his arm. I’ll write more about the deep cleaning later on. Good news though is Cat who had an incident at the beginning of the Atlantic crossing and evacuated by the US Coast Guard is going to join us for this next race, she’s coming over on Wednesday. Today I’ll join a guided walk around the town and later in the afternoon we’ll be having the prize giving ceremony, followed by a Ceilidh.. my first one, although I’ve learned the most important steps from Kate during my refresher training, when we were cooking together for the boat, who was racing in the boat UNICEF on leg 7. Just came back from supermarket shopping, lovely to be able to eat yogurt, fresh fruits, feta, and a French baguette.. simple pleasures in life :) Must dash now, have a lovely day

Nearly less than 100nm to finish line, very excited as we are head to head with teams Dare to Lead and Our Isles & Oceans.  I’m hoping the result will be in our favour.  We are fast approaching to the finish line at an average of 10.6kt.Oban harbour is 5 miles further away from the finish line, so it is likely we will arrive around 3pm at the harbour boat time which is 5pm local time I guess. A likelihood of a hot shower after 19 days is just amazing.  We haven’t changed the boat time to adjust recently but will do once we arrive to the land:I just came down for the 4am look entry.  It’s one of the chilliest nights of our race, I’m wearing 4 layers and foulies on top, although I didn’t bother wearing boots so I kept my crocs on, with waterproof socks underneath.  We are now probably leaning at 40-45 degrees, and I enjoying the movement of the ropes on the way to the saillocker and the everything hanging and continuously swinging.  Probably a rare view in the rest of life. After all, it is our last night on the Atlantic.  I was watching plactons on deck, what a lovely view.

Since we are in stealth mode, I can’t tell where we are, but a clue could be we are in a whale zone.  Today, in a 3 hours time period we’ve seen 4 whales.  While one got pretty close, I liked watching the one that didn’t mind us and continued swimming to its direction, squirting water periodically.  I’ve seen it squirting at least 6 times until it disappeared.  It looked like it was whistling a tune, I wondered whether it was a happy song.There is a different type of wilderness in the ocean, once you are in tune with the sounds and sights, you immediately know an unusual splash means a dolphin, and whales have a distinctive humming as they get closer.  I, however, found the clouds fascinating.  Not that they are giant and felt too close, there are so many different versions of them.  Some look like they are all connected to each other forming a huge mountain of cloud, or they are like pebbles on a beach, or the trees of a forest, all alone but in the brotherhood of each other.  I love how they are formed to give a perspective one ahead of the other, reminds me of the times we’ve made toys with my granddad, a theatre screen with different layers.As I was staring at them, I was also thinking how we humans are capable of giving meanings to clouds we see.  Then I saw the little chick like the ones mum made from mashed potatoes, nesting on shredded carrots and lettuce, for when I was a fussy eating kid, motivating me to eat my salad.  Then I saw Mavi, my cat, whose mischievous company I’ve been missing.  I wonder whether he is going to avoid me after leaving him with a good friend for 6 weeks.  I’m pretty sutra he’ll be super grumpy at least for a week.  Cloud watching is an amazing game, especially when you have free time and covered by such pretty and wild clouds.  At times one wonders how biting them would feel, are they like a giant cotton candy, or a buffalo mozzarella?On the boat, we are busy with a quiz saga.  It all started when Clipper sent us some abbreviations to find meanings of.  Then my bunk mate Andy prepared a maritime quiz to be solved by the 2 watches.  Then he tasked us to prepare questions for a quiz to Hannah and Ella.  Their quiz includes questions from our boat life they may or may not have observed, such as who is in the barbershop quartet.  Then there is also the cake madness.  I’ve never seen or eaten so many cakes in few days time.  There is like an ongoing bake off on the boat and we are baking day and night.  Which is good as we have fresh bread, but also massive amounts of cakes.  That reminded me of my grandma, as I didn’t have any cakes baked since she did.  Still the smell of a fresh cake is mind blowing and soul soothing. As I’m about to finish this writing, today is a special day as one of my best friends is turning to 50, so looking forward to have a toast with her in few weeks time.

Just have seen one of the most amazing sunsets.  That’s one of the things I’ll miss so much about this trip, all the vibrant colours, smiling over a wild wild ocean.We have now started the ocean sprint but the wind has slowed down.  We didn’t even need to clip on the whole day as the apparent wind speed was less than 15 knots, not the wind conditions we’d like to race this Ocean Sprint zone for sure.  On a different note, we must be somewhere pretty north as it started getting super cold. This morning when I was back in my bunk at 4am, I started to shiver and trembled with cold until 7am.  I’m sure I fell asleep few times in between.  However as a result I couldn’t leave my bunk at 7am.  I was worried of hypothermia at the time and sadly I couldn’t call anyone as I wasn’t able to make any sounds due to trembling inside the very fluffy & warm Ocean Wear sleeping bag.As a result bunk above me had to be cleared up from bags so my bunk mate Andy could rest there, as I wasn’t able to move outside of my bunk.  Later during the day my fever came out as 35.9degC.  Can’t tell whether I have had hypothermia but I felt pretty cold most of the day.  I then spent rest of the day either resting or having a compulsory stay on deck for fresh air.  I was lucky as we’ve seen a group of dolphins that came to play with us.  I’m doing much better now, out for my 7pm shift.  I have added 2 more layers on top, long sleeved merino base layer (which goes on the short sleeved merino base layer), and the Musto salopette mid layer.  It makes really hard to walk on deck with them though.  I took the bin bag to the lazorette and it took about 10 mins to walk, get in and find a place to place the bin bag.Now just clipped on as it is officially night.

It’s been busy few days.We have been changing sails very often to catch the best wind and make the fastest speed. Despite our delay at the start we are now less than 900nm to Oban, and probably at the 7th position.Starting with the wonders of nature; there has been two visits by sperm whales in the last 2 days, one which got pretty close, probably to less than 10 meters.  We were then escorted by a group of dolphins who came to play with us for few minutes.  I was wondering whether they were challenging us for a race.  We have had then repeated visits from dolphin flocks.  One thing I found very curious is the birds that are flying around us.  There certainly is no land nearby and I have learned that they fly and rest on the ocean when they need.  They either fly in groups of 2-3 or solo.  I’ve seen at least one having an orange fur on the chest, I’ll check that up once I’m on the land.  Funny enough when we were getting closer the northern ice line (which is the border that we shouldn’t pass), we’ve had a visit from a very weird bird which I suppose was a drone.  It was very high above us and was not really flying.  We were told that above the northern line there is the us navy so I presume it might be trying to figure out what the heck we were doing at those lines.Talking about the northern border and icy patches, we believe we saw an iceberg 3 days ago.. at a distance.. we had no clear vision to identify, so we have had to agree amongst us what it is and the final decision was that it is an iceberg.  Since I’m the first person to see that I’d like to name it after me :)Last few days have been very windy and tough to continue a life on the boat.  Yesterday it was me and Andre cooking and it was really a hard to stand up day yet to cook but we were able to feed our fellow crew members.. as a bonus, I’ve had the opportunity to sleep until this morning without any watch.. amazing..Menu was very basic which have helped us as it would be far harder to prepare any other food not coming from tins.  We’ve cooked breaded fish for lunch, and stir fry for dinner. On the sailing side we’ve been changing sails very often in the last few days.  Dropping code 1,2 or 3 means a sweaty wooling session for us.  As we do not have many space to spread the kite, tack goes into our tunnel, head goes up to the end of the sail locker and clew goes to the other tunnel.  Then we need to figure out the sides, it’s the red line between clew & tack, black line between clew & head and it is the numbers side between head & tack.  Once this is set, two people facing each other start rolling the kite on 2 sides and depending on the size of the kite we tie one or two wools in every 2-3 feet.  Which in fact is a very sweaty activity at the middle of the night.  Imagine doing it for few times.   Since weather has been a bit rough and stormy, we are back to white sails now, so no kite wooling in the last few days.Now the time for lunch so I’m stopping now :) it’s been a while when I started writing today’s blog and now finishing at 8th July, 12:14 boat time.I’ve chatted to Ella this morning about our position, weather and arrival time.  She doesn’t see a good opportunity to arrive before the 14th.

I’ve been to 2 watches already and now in bed till my next one starting at 1pm.We are heading towards the iceberg zone limits as it a remedy to be the best route after leaving our injured friend with the US Coast Guard.  We are expecting to be there in a day’s time.Some info about our boat life, our boat days are made up of slots which defines our watch system. They are;7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm, 7pm-11pm, 11pm-3am, 3am-7am.  We have 2 groups/watches, while one watch is resting, the other is on deck.  Our meal times are also around those watches, so the 7am ongoing watch has their breakfast at 6:30 to be ready on the deck by 7am, then the 3-7am watch goes into galley and have their breakfast.  Similar with lunch 12:30-1:30 and dinner 6:30-7:30pm.  Hence although the rest times are 4hrs on paper in fact we have a 2-2.5hrs of power naps.  We always have an all all crew meeting at 13:00 with our skipper and AQP to share any daily suggestions and discuss course etc.Last night my 7-11pm watch started pretty warm, I was out wearing shorts, then started to get cooler, so I had to put some layers on. Wind forecast was very consistent, so there was not much to do, we played a Q&A game, had few hot drinks and listened to Olly’s playlists, he has downloaded 6000 songs. We ended up the night dropping code 3 and making it ready for wooling, which is a very long process.3-7am shift was a bit more chilly, but sky was amazing.  The Milky Way and star constellations reminded of pieces of sand on a beach. I was lucky to see the Virgo constellation and the ISS immediately.As the day started we saw some dolphins racing and playing with us, it was so beautiful watching them.  Interestingly we sometimes see one or two birds flying around.  One of them landed on our port helm cage this morning, then minutes later we saw 2 others coming to look for him/her.  Later in the morning few whales sprayed for us and we saw their pretty tails.  It was also amazing that they were humming as they got closer to us.. what a lovely moment in life, connecting with sea life at such an intimate level.  Splendid morning indeed.I was talking about the roles we have on the boat so here is a brief on the roles and the jobs we do;Cookies- responsible to prep 3 meals a day at minimum (some bake cakes as snacks)Enginners - checking engine parts and oil levelsNavigators- update log book every hourHeads- responsible to keep heads (toilets) cleanBilges- remove all water from bilges and lazorette (I did lazorette water pumping yesterday, water was pool like, so it took too long)Media- makes photos and writes crew blogDeck- checks deck parts, Epirb, all chafing etcThose jobs are assigned to one person from each watch for a day then they move to the next job as per the wheels of the day (photo to follow once I’m on land).That’s all about our boat life for today.  We are likely to have Marshmallows later today and celebrate 4th July with our American friends.

I’ve been thinking of writing but was totally exhausted and also very busy in the last few days.Here is a short summary of what we’ve gone through;I guess it was thursday early morning hours when we had our windseeker on wind started to get stronger and stronger almost immediately so we were reefing one after the other and I heard one of my crew members was preparing the breakfast.  All of a sudden I’ve heard her shouting in pain from the galley.  It was very difficult for me to get to her and help as I had reef lines I’ve been pulling so I shouted something wrong at the galley can you please help.  One other crew who was sleeping went quickly and helped her.  Afterwards the tele doctors were consulted with, and to avoid any inflammation that can happen iki of  the time on boat, decision was to take her back to the land.  So we had sailed back to the land (in case you were watching race viewer), at aa sa proximity of 100 miles.  There we met US coast guards, Lathat sent a helicopter to us and a very impressive operation started.  There was a helicopter accompanied by a small plane coming over and swimmer was dropped down and then came over on our boat where he has climbed himself up impressively and took tje injured crew member with him.  Since then we’ve heard that she is doing well, which we made us all happy.  It’s a pity that she won’t be with us and we definitely will miss her wonderful company.The following day and following night I have helmed on the Atlantic, some very firsts for me.  I felt I did okay, and also tried training my ears to the sound of the wind so I don’t need to watch instruments continuously.  Helming at night was ing, where you can target a star (from the helming point due to illumination from instruments, it isn’t possible to see many stars), and conscious that you won’t see it forever due to moving clouds.  I’ve also learned that it is best to target a star closer to the horizon.  Also during the day we’ve seen some wonderful clouds, at some point it looked like the clouds were a sweater eaten by moths with few holes in them.. all amazing nature.Yesterday I was one of the cookies, and spent a lot of time in the galley cooking, cleaning.. at some point I felt very exhausted and had very strong headaches and I felt like I’ve lost any of my muscle power.  I didn’t realise that it was dehydration, so I’ve been taking lots of electrolytes in my water.  While we have a working water maker, it’s just water with no minerals in, hence whatever you drink goes out immediately also I felt I sweated so much.While being a cookie I realised how hungry people gets and how important it is to eat.  So I’ll always keep that in mind in the rest of the race.On the race front, before we decided heading back to land to meet with the coastguards, we’ve been in the top 3 I’ve heard, and due to this being a medical evacuation we’ve told that we don’t get a redress, so we’ll have to make our way back into the group, regardless of what has happened.  I guess we don’t really worry about that much but it feels really good to hear how close we are getting to the group ahead of us.  Boat ahead of us is nearly visible to us, which is a very good marker that we have been doing the right things.Finally I didn’t have a visit from the greenmonster and decided not to report about it again, as I feel like my body is used to the motion, I’m hoping my sealegs will get better and better every day.  I can also add that every move is a workout doing the day or night, when the boat is sailing at 40-45 degrees.  I wonder how it’d feel to walk on the land again.Enough for today, next time I’m hoping to write about our roles on the boat as well as shifts etc.

We’ve arrived to the Atlantic yesterday around 9:00 am, after hours of motoring through Potomac river.We were due to have a Le Mans start at 10:00 under Quingdao leadership.  Their preference was to have Y1 to start with, and as per the Les Mans start rules we had to sail with that, and at the same course for 10 mins before we can follow our preference.Following the first 10 mins we dropped our Y1 and hoisted Code 1 up, then our staysail.  From then on we have had multiple changes and now at the time being we have our Windseeker on, which we hoisted in our previous watch as there was nearly no wind.In terms of the others we’ve seen UNICEF, PSP, Ha Long Bay, Bekezela, Our Isles and Oceans around and mostly behind us.  Perseverance and Zhuhai seems to be gone at the very front of the fleet.  Interestingly we have some boats heading towards the Gulf Stream and some boats heading to north, for a shorter course.  We’ve just started our watch again and will be around for the next 4 hours.   We were just talking about taking down Windseeker and have Y1 going up again as per the changes expected in the weather.Other than the technicality of the race, I’ve had my very first night in Atlantic Ocean, probably one that I won’t easily forget.  We had a wonderful sunset and the clouds were amazing.  It was such a beautiful passage of the colours on the water, some parts were pinkish, others were purple, such an amazing view, which reminded me of French Polynesia, Bora Bora and Moorea.We’ve also sighted a submarine, and a group of dolphins.  There is also a residential dragonfly on our boat.  We’ve started stargazing with the apps we have and trying to see which satellites are passing above us.  Such fun, and Olly’s Spotify list has really good vibes.  No sign of whales yes but overall we’d like to see sperm whales.I had few instances where I was about to meet with the green monster but I guess I managed it well, I feel much better at this moment.  I ate quiona with salad (thanks to Vasi’s Greek salad inspiration) for lunch and  plain pasta for dinner.  Vasi had been amazing in baking us cakes which went down very quickly and still staying there.That’s all from my first day on the Atlantic Ocean, it seems still unbelievable.

We have been sent from DC with fireworks and we gave them a wonderful parade of sails.