Our 4th of July celebration…on a British boat!  Tossing tea bags over the side with NasDuck Statue of Liberty.  They also served Hot Dogs!

To continue this amazing saga you must meet some more of our watch…and those from other the other watch, Vincent, who keeps trying to get into the pictures at watch changeover.  We have a father/son team who are great to watch how they work together, play together and just basically compliment each other in their work on board.  Richard (Dad) and Mike (Son).

Working together on the pedestal grinders to keep the kite flying effectively.

Teamwork between Trimmer and Helmsman.

Working on staying the course together.  Being the second on the helm for helping stay on course.  Or as we have learned being ready to grab the other wheel should the one in current use decide to come off again.

Now, a few words about our Skipper, Rob.  He is great as he leads by example (ALWAYS clipped on!!!), works beside us to help us continue refining our moves, and is the best role model as he also makes sure we understand that we need to brush our teeth!

What a guy!

Another added attraction with this crew is extra reflector tape on some of the foulies so we can see what is going on in the dark.

Also a quick note here about “red sky at night sailors’ delight, red sky in the morning sailors take warning”.  We are headed east so that means the sun is rising.  Is it red or pink?  Since we had very little wind that day it was deemed pink!

Though life was slow up on deck, our mascot Nasduck has become Chief chef down in the galley.  No work on the food goes unsupervised either by him or Dave (our victualler and fractured shoulder guy).

Dave is trying to be incognito in that left hand corner.  He did in fact make Alison and my day of Mother duty quite successful.  Yea Dave!

When we have the staysail up along with the windseeker or kite and cannot see the leading edge, JW or one of us is on the front and calls trim.  Why do we call him JW….because we also have JC and JE onboard.

Which can lead to a crick in one’s neck!  Not JW, looking up to call trim.

Sometimes we get a great view when we can sit or steer from the lowside.

Wind seeker and staysail in harmony!  Check the tell tales… The pieces of red that stream so nicely back (on all but the middle windseeker).  Oh well!

It’s always hard to get someone to want to sit and enjoy trimming the kite or windseeker so we have this cool pink beanbag chair that entices crew to volunteer as they then have a nice comfy spot on deck!

King Richard has the throne and Sir Pete is anxiously awaiting his turn!

Since the pink throne was gone and the wind was light I had to try a new way and hope that no sudden gust struck!

Pete guarding me.

Now just some fun pictures of the crew…

Me with my award winning Picture for my dermatologist!

Afraid some of the lip cream wore off.  For several days my watch (people, not clock) were worried that I forgot to rinse after brushing my teeth!  Silly people!  My new name is Little Blue Riding Hood.

Our watch leader, Phil….mysterious sometimes… I think a Darth Vader or bandito complex?

But he cleans up pretty good.

Can you tell Kathi is a California girl?  Maybe a movie star? Model? Hmmm.

Mike and Kathi.

Richard and Phil

Andy, Mike Phil and Richard.  Looks a bit cold!

Mike, Vinnie (sneaking in from other watch), Richard and Andy.  Think they want to be a singing act?

Luca (Greenings buddy and father of a 3 day old baby!) and Vinnie.

Us girls and Vinnie.  Like I said…Vinnie loves to be in the pictures!  And he is a great sailor to add.

Oh yes, something about the boat.

Some great wind… and some not so great wind where our main job was to watch for fishing buoys.

During some of these times we just enjoyed life!  Why not?

I am helping weigh down the boat from the high side… do I not look HEAVY!

and now playing hiding go seek ….ok now, maybe a bit silly but not as silly as: and guess who!

Yes that is me… you can tell by the hood!

Always fun when they bring down the kite and trying to straighten it out again.

And, there is a new way to wooly the kite without the wool….. Snaps.  Everyone likes them and at the beginning I bet they were awesome. But now the straps are sometimes tangled and tied in knots from flying in the breeze, etc.  But well done, this is what a kite looks like before going back to its bag.

How neat is that?

Since we are on the kite subject here Kathi and I await a strong young man to help put the kite in the bag.

Rapunzel Rapunzel let down your hair!

Linda, there is no lion in here to scare!

OK, Kathi is going ape!

Why is Linda hiding?

Because Big foot Phil is going to shove the windseeker out the hatch above her.  You would be scared too.

But, during the light air lots of work was done as we waited for the wind to fill.  Phil and Sophia Flip Flopped the chafing on several of the halyards.

Andy studied the Mariner book.

JW and Pete set up the music speaker.

The last bit of the race was filled with wind holes so we had to just enjoy each moment as you can tell.  Our imaginations ran wild!

At one point we had an art show:

Nasdaq Vs. Sanya

Our rendition as well as Sanya’s of abstract art.  We are the red line and Sanya is the black.  The finish line is the little triangle on top of the purple.  Oh, so close yet so far away.  Who do you think won the show? Or would you vote for either of my two picks designed by shadows on the still water?

You might have to look closely for the subtleties in the work.

Believe it or not we finally finished race 13 (is the number 13 a bad omen?) and Alison drove us in to port.

Is that a look of joy, relief or what?  No matter, we were all happy and ready to celebrate.

I had some references to home and good 15-16 memories with me.  Nice to see familiar surroundings!

Clipper Telemed, my boat/home from 2015-16 race and Dell from back home in Austin where many friends work.  What more is there in life along with my new adventure and friends?

LIFE is GOOD

Probably need to give it up here as you can tell we had a fun time no matter the weather.  Looking forward to seeing Danny and Sue and Paul, my Derry friends from 2016 stop at Derry.

Tomorrow we take off for Liverpool.  Having 6 days to get there (we can’t arrive before the 28th) we will be going west around Ireland for our route.

Enjoy each day!