Entering the Pacific

Yesteday we passed Cape Leeuwin, about 500 miles to our north and have
now, geographically speaking, entered the Pacific Ocean… we have just
under 2500 miles left to sail in this second leg of the Global Ocean Race
and after all the nasty weather we had to endure for over a week today we
are blessed with sunshine in what feels as a hot summer day, relatively
speaking, but 20C is the most we’ve seen since leaveing Cape Town.

We are gently sufing with our A5 spinnaker and really appreciating the
break from heavy weather.

Christmas has come early on board Financial Crisis, donations to
the race funds have come in hard and fast through the web page
www.marconannini.com/help after mentioning the extent of the damage caused
by the bad weather and my eternal struggle to keep this project going,
there is a definite and real risk that i will have to pull the plug in
Wellington, but i’m still hoping to find a solution in time for the
restart of leg 3 on the 29th of January. I have received also many
messages of encouragement and moral support as we sailed thorough force 10
winds yesterday and wished to thank each of you for the kind words and
wanted to apologise for not finding the time to answer to all messages.

One person in particular donated a staggering one thousand pounds, I was
left confused for a long time trying to understand how and why of this
incredibly generous gesture. A brief message added that his wife has MS,
multiple sclerosis, and wished we could remind the world of this terrible
disease. So if anyone in Wellington knows people working in this field,
perhaps working for a charity either researching MS or assisting people
affected by this disease, we’d like to meet them and see how we can
generate some informative interest on the subject during the stopover
using this race as a loud speaker to the rest of the world. Please contact
myself or my partner Ella at either of these email addresses to discuss:
marco.nannini@yahoo.co.uk or connolly_ella@yahoo.com

As we dry our clothes and bones in the sunshine and dream of hot showers
steaks and beers we hope you are all gearing up for Christmas, i never was
a fan but all it takes is a few southern ocean storms to realise that
eating good food surrounded by your family and loved ones is actually a
damn nice thing to do… so, i think i’ll really miss this one.

Posted by: firstclass