The first Clipper Boat finished the race yesterday morning, but took nearly 24 hours to get through the straits and down the sound to Seattle. Sailing at first, then motoring, the ‘Derry-Londonderry-Doire' pulled into Elliot bay shortly before 7am. Unfortunately for the small group of un-informed supports (myself, another live aboard from D Dock, 2 relatives of one of the crew and a homeless fellow) the boats schedule didn’t call for it to be at the dock until an hour later. And, close to precisely on schedule, it pulled into Bell Street harbor at 8:02am (0802 hours for the nautical sticklers).
By then a dozen or so people from Ireland had arrived, all dressed in purple, to wish their countrymen and women to their first port in over 4,000 nautical miles. They sang happy birthday to one of the crew whose birthday happened to be today.
There was a small contingent on the dock on this cool morning and by the time the vessel had docked a few folks unaware of the race had stopped to look at the goings on.
Fun to watch the arrival....
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