Day 22 – Rio Round the Corner

I’d like to do a bit of colouring in on the ‘Frank (Frankenbird)’ story from the last post by Ricky.

Brennan’s version: “I was rudely awoken at 3 AM this morning by the sound of a woman screaming. It turned out to be Ryan, and for some reason Kathryn and Michaela (who were on watch with him) were laughing hysterically. Even maniacally. I figured that because they were laughing, it couldn’t be too serious, so I *quietly and politely requested* that they keep it down.”

Ryan’s version: “Ricky made friends with Frank (or Frankie Four-feathers), who seemed to enjoy our company. When I got on watch, there was a silhouette of a winged beast perched on the guy rope. Ricky said it was harmless, but I knew better. It had a beak as long as its head and as sharp as a dagger. I was told not to let the spinnaker flap, so not to scare away the bird, Frank. When the spinnaker next flapped, Frank was shaken from his perch, and instead of fleeing, came swooping back at me – a black shadow descending with talons glimmering in the moonlight.”

Kathryn’s version:  “Ryan ducked under the tiller, screaming. Michaela scrambled to throw him a wide brimmed hat to offer some kind of protection. Once the bird left, it took a bit of convincing to get Ryan to sit back up again and steer the boat. Especially because we couldn’t say two words without laughing. Ryan had Michaela and I keep a lookout behind his back for the rest of the watch.”

Now moving on from that...

Another competing boat, HQ2, caught a 14 kg wahoo (that’s a type of fish) and was looking to arrange some kind of a trade with us for zoo biscuits. What they don’t realise is that in an ocean crossing, zoo biscuits are worth more than diamonds.

On the continental shelf about a day’s sail out of Rio, the oil rigs can be seen. These mammoth installations can be seen from miles away – especially at night when they are lit up like little cities. We caught our first sight of the oil rigs this morning at about 10:00 AM. In the last race we reached this point at night, and to sail past hundreds of these things in the dark is awe-inspiring. During the day they are slightly less spectacular to look at, but one must still marvel at the magnitude of the operations going on here.

Sighting the oil rigs hints that you’re getting close to the finish. We’re about 100 nautical miles from Cabo Frio (which will be our first sighting of land), and then a further 65 nautical miles to the finish. We have a stiff north-easterly at our backs, so it won’t be long now. This is even looking likely to be the penultimate blog post from us during the race. It didn’t seem this close when we drifting like a log yesterday.

There's talk of Team AMTEC Wits snapping doggedly at our heels. Also, if we finish early enough tomorrow morning, we can possibly nip ahead of Privateer for fourth place... So while we’re squeezing every ounce of speed out of Ciao Bella through the night, I don’t think that the Kuttel brothers will be sleeping much...

Brennan