Christmas brought us hard winds and the need to para-anchor. Fortunately we could get away that afternoon only to repeat that routine again on Newyears’ Eve. We knew the wind would back to NW and that is bad news. No way we could get out, we tried twice before we were successful during a small weather window. Hard work we can tell you now! The second week of January was good, finally winds from the E/NE. It took a few days for the swell and waves to change so that we finally could speed up again.

The race with Valkyrie - a men's 4 - was superb. We had the same speed the first 2 weeks but we seemed to get faster, only to be overtaken once in a while. In January we overtook them again after seeing them for real for the second time, that close! 20 miles difference and hoping that would be enough to stay in that position. Unfortunately they overtook us again. How hard can you chase another boat? Well we tried and rowed and rowed, our arms got 10 cm longer from the hard work! They got faster and faster, we wondered if they had some Popeye food on board but admitted, let’s race our own race and we felt comfortable doing so. Our other competitors, the other Ladies 4, were nowhere near. The NO winds were not as fierce as predicted, we saw our ETA move. But after 43 days we saw land. Finally!