Day 29 – Saturday

Prize Giving! What an evening we had! The spirit of team work, the success of the challenge and personal reflection one gets from achieving ones dream. For some it’s
the race, for others it’s the time that it was done in and for others it’s crossing the ocean for the first and last time but more importantly all part of the small
band of sailors and people that have crossed an ocean in a small sailing yacht. Yes we shared in this and we are still out here! Our prize giving was spent 370nm from
Rio aboard Hot Ice. A beautiful starry night, great company and completely out of control. The weather gods will decide when we arrive. It now looks like Tuesday
night or Wednesday morning! We are now officially retired from the race and can start our engine, if only we had one! We have completed 4655 nm which is 8621km. 8
trips from Johannesburg to Cape Town in a rickshaw at 12km per hour.
I and the crew of Hot Ice personally thank all our supporters and the generous contributions to Imagine! Let’s get that target of R30000, after all we did destroy our
spinnaker so that you would have more time to pledgeJ Gaamon…! Gaamon…! We even missed the prizing giving and gave up that cold beer…ouch!
We had steady wind today varying between 4 and 5 kts. We are at least heading in the right direction (west) even though it’s slow. It’s such a relief to not have the
baking heat and it makes the sitting around a lot easier. Most of us are in better moods today, and the banter is not as strained. We are still managing to get along
quite well as a team although I am sure some people have used restraint.
Mike did try and wake up Neptune with some bio-plus but it did not work. The sea is not as flat as the previous days but it is certainly not anything to do your
washing in. Talking about washing, I am amazed that we have tons of washing hanging off the back of our boat daily. Sometimes we look like a refugee boat it’s so
much. I have only 2 pair of shorts I have worn the whole trip so far and wash them as required. I think when some crew get bored they go and do there washing!
Jean and Mark made chicken and roast potatoes for dinner and T-Rex was played again. Metal Guru was written by Marc Bolan and is a festival of life song. One of the
verse describes being “all alone without a telephone” i.e. no one to call for help. This aptly describes our situation at present. We just have to keep going and we
will get there.
The evening was filled with idle chatter as we waited for an increase in the wind speed which did not materialize. Mike, as you will recall, after day 4 was not going
to sail again, and after day 10 was going to buy a Catamaran, on day 29 is now buying a 30 foot mono hull to do the Cape to Rio 2017. This time he wants to win on
handicap. It’s amazing how the human mind works. Well let’s see Mike!
Imagine and you shall achieve .. till tomorrow.

Position [22 18 S 36 56 W]

Help Rob and the crew raise funds for IMAGINE. Donate here