'Have a Nice Day'

We have made it to the USofA! Finishing under the 'Awesome' Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. After 30 days at sea it is now sinking in what we have undertaken. In many ways this was my biggest barrier and now I feel I'm on the homeward run, which actually makes me very sad with only 3 more months to go to our London return!

Another amazing stopover, we arrived at night, but were still greeted by lots of friends and family on the dockside and some familiar faces from past races, along with my great friend from The Mount School York; Olivia Bright, who came over especially to visit me.  After a celebratory catch up drink I went to my hotel and had the shower I had been desperately waiting for!  

The following morning it was the boat that got the deep clean... and an assessment of our sail damage during the Pacific crossing, the Yankee 3, unfortunately had to go to a sail loft for professional repairs, this meant a lot less work on sails for me over this stopover! However I spent most of the day working on some repairs to the mainsail. We then all went to the prize giving ceremony in the evening where it was good to catch up with friends from the other boats and compare our experiences over the last month. After that it was on to a Mission Performance crew meal at Pier 23 and we finished off with our traditional boat drink, a 'Dark and Stormy' (oops! I don't think I should mention this with the drinking laws in America!).

Sophie, Eva, Helen, Ben & Josh 

Plus Olivia and Dan

Next day I took some time off from work on the boat and met up with my Aunty Helen and family who had flown over for a holiday. We went for lunch over at Fisherman's Wharf and then all of us caught the Municipal railway taking us through 'the streets of San Francisco'. On the Wednesday a group of us took the boat to the island rock of 'Alcatraz' and took a tour round the prison cells, hearing stories of the legendary Al Capone and of the escapes from the island which was very interesting. Thursday, back out on Mission Performance for a 'kite shoot', with our branded spinnaker flying we headed back towards the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the City skyline to have photos taken with these iconic sites. Yesterday, Friday it was back to work on the boat, this included a trip up the mast for me to sort out the blocks where our kite halyards run through and then help stow of all our food for the next leg. However I have just heard some bad news! Claire my fellow Round the World crew member will be leaving us for a short time and re-joining in Panama due to injuring her back, which must be very distressing for her. 

So today we slip lines and make our way south, this leg will be hot with plenty of light winds to play with, hopefully we will arrive for our 'slot' to transit through the Panama canal, this should be fascinating and then it will be on to Jamaica!