The sail from Freo to Singapore offered the mildest conditions we've experienced so far. Mostly downwind, we flew our spinnakers much of the time and therefore had a relatively flat boat with little wind across the deck. Leaving Freo in their summer time and heading north, we wore a jacket at night, then only a shirt once the equator neared. By day, we wore as little as possible, slopped on sunscreen by the jug on all the skin left exposed, and still wilted in the heat.
This segment also carried the most people possible: 19. It's the homecoming voyage to Singapore for the Uniquely Singapore boat, and so there was no shortage of people from the region who wanted to experience this voyage. In fact, Anna, one of our Round-The-Worlders had to do this segment on another boat because she signed up too late. We six remaining RTWs and the skipper had to take a new crew of 11 leggers and one videophotographer. It sounded daunting but in fact the boat felt anything but crowded. It was a delightful crew to sail with.
This one leg is one that I'd been looking forward to the most, as it would include the two people I'd most enjoyed meeting in the final training: Chee Yuh and Diana, both from Singapore.
Chee Yuh is one of those spirits to whom everything is good, everything is doable, everything is positive, and everything is fun. The first day I saw him back with us in Freo, I must have grabbed his shoulders on five separate occasions and exclaimed to him how glad I was to finally have him on board.
Diana (shown here trimming a headsail sheet while Skipper Mark gets a pre-arrival haircut in the background) has a warmth and inner strength running deeper than her 25 years would imply. Also, she's the kind of person who will plop down next to you on deck in the middle of a pitch black night and, apropos of nothing, ask you, "So, what do you think the hardest thing in life is?"
I do so enjoy those kind of people.
Any group of people will always have their defining personalities. We lost one of our brightest personalities, John, at the end of leg 3 when he returned to work back in Englad. For me, Chee Yuh and Diana became the new essence of our personality.
I hadn't met Lih Shuin (above, taking a shower in the rain) during the training but soon realized that his ebullient personality would soon come to dominate our boat as well.
Put the three of them together? You can begin to imagine how much laughter echoed throughout out boat those 16 days at sea.
It was work, no doubt, but quite enjoyable work when you have these kind of people all around you.
Next up, our penultimate stopover half way through Leg 4: Singapore.
