Puma Leg 3 Day 8
The Malacca Straits are doing what they were meant to do, narrowing the fleet down into a funnel and slowing us down, generally making life as frustrating and unpredictable as possible. Done deal.
The leg has progressed and I have to admit that I’m really pleased with how we have chipped back after an average (at best) first half of our Bay of Bengal trip. Coming into the corner of Sumatra we created a plan and followed E3 around the corner in fourth. As day broke we were greeted with a very wide tide line and as much bizarre stuff in the water as I have ever seen. One black cloud came through and I am not sure if it was the cloud that got E3 or stuff in the water but we put them back pretty nicely to move into third. Chipping away. We kept working hard to get to the north and paid for that mileage early, but later in the day the strategy paid as well. Telefonica Blue tacked out of their southern position to come all the way out to us and tacked on our line only three miles away. Again, we were pretty pleased since about three days earlier they were about 60 miles away.
The team pressed hard through last night and the expected breeze built and big right shift finally came through. We squeaked past T-Blue into second and put some serious miles on the rest of the fleet. Let’s go get E4!
And that is where the fairy tail came to a (hopefully temporary) screeching halt. We have parked about 30 miles off the Malaysian coast and watched the boats sail up behind us including E3 who is about a mile away. T-Blue got back around us and we are completely drifting as we speak. Amazingly, E4 never has really gotten reeled in by their own personal "glass off" of no wind, not yet anyway. My guess is that all of our times will come at some point...
So now we roll some craps. Who will get the little zephyr first to launch them away from the pack? Who can sustain just a hair more wind-pressure then the others? Many times it is in the hands of the wind gods. But you have to make your own luck and it is time that "il mostro" made some light air luck.
On board spirits are generally good. The "Great Plastic Fork Ordeal" has run its course and we are down to our last four and even they are in dire straights. But somehow we will survive.
We keep getting great notes from our families who have arrived in Singapore, all saying that we will love it there. A bit of a break for weary bones I can tell you that. My daughter Tory already sent me a "to do" list that is supposedly "partial". Big plans for us she said. Well I can speak for the entire team that we can't wait to get to shore, hopefully with a hard earned solid result in our pocket as well. That would make for a much more enjoyable Christmas that’s for sure.
- Kenny
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