Hey there Everyone!

Whoa!….what an amazing time we’ve had. We finished the race yesterday late morning, or maybe it was early afternoon…..seems to not matter much when the last 14 days all ran together. It was necessary for us to have a tow after the finish because of a questionable engine seal, so once we finished, they towed us to a mooring where we left the boat for 7 hours and came ashore to celebrate our finish. We were met by the other competitors and enjoyed a couple of beers with them before heading to grab burgers and showers. I’m sure we were a smelly bunch of sailors!!

The experience is beginning to set in now. What a beautiful place the St. Lawrence portion of the race is. The wildlife was amazing. Whales everywhere, dolphins, birds…. especially the lonely call of the Northern Loon. If you ever wanted to see that area of the continent, be sure to make time to do it. I certainly hope I’ll get a chance someday to do it at a more leisurely pace. And the trip across the “pond” as the regulars call it, was a blast sail. We hit speeds of 26 knots and can’t begin to describe the intensity of the ocean when the wind is up as it was……it seems to me there is enough energy in a couple of waves and the wind to power the world for months!!

We’re enjoying the town of St. Malo, this quaint village is surround by protective walls — as if it were a fortress. It was totally destroyed during World War II, but has been rebuilt much like original with the small cobble stone streets, little shops and restaurants and all the charm you’d expect from a French town. It seems I’ve been here before…..maybe a few lives ago as a ship’s captain……

We spent a few hours today undoing the boat and readying her for a wash out. We have to wait our turn for a hose to clean out the inside. Seems like that will be tomorrow and then we can relax some and figure out our next move. Until then, we’ll just hang out, enjoy the stories with the others, enjoy a BBQ party tonight and rest and restore our bodies.

Hope you all have enjoyed the trip with us. We certainly wished we’d done better in the end finish, but given this was our first trans-oceanic race and we lost a couple of sails, had some gear problem and had to nurse the boat some, we think we did well to keep the power on and pick off other competitors right up to the end.

Stay tuned for more stories!!

– Dave