Message From nicole

Fnally on the way to Santa Cruz (though the delay in Hawaii was great). We got off to a good start, after pulling a 360 just before the start line so that we didn't cross too early. It was then a beautiful sail for the first 10 mins, til we passed Diamond Head on the corner of Oahu and it got a little choppy. The new bucket then got well used as seasickness began to hit! But after 24 hrs of beating into strong winds, it has eased off & we are sailing along nicely in the sunshine. As the wind swung around for a while we tried to launch one of our repaired kites. It flew beautifully for about 10 secs, until in true Qingdao style the strop at the head of the sail (which the halyard holding up the sail was attached to) broke, & suddenly the sail was in the sea. So we dragged it back on board, & packed it back in the bag to rehoist, by which time the wind had moved back round on the nose.... c'est la vie<