Volvo Ocean Race - Team SCA prepares for the Southern Ocean

by Corinna Halloran on 25 Oct 2014 Volvo Ocean Race 2014-15, Day 13 onboard Team SCA. I’m unsure if I should be nervous, excited, stressed, or thrilled today.

As today I get to have fish guts smeared over me only to then become officially apart of King Neptune’s kingdom. I’m unsure if I should be nervous, excited, stressed, or thrilled that today I get to have fish guts smeared over me only to then become officially apart of King Neptune’s kingdom. I guess that part is thrilling.

For the most part, the girls are excited to get the ceremony over and done with. 'I wonder if I’ll become mad, like properly mad.' Libby said. 'No one has seen me that mad yet. But I know I might get sick, and I really just don’t want to get sick.' Libby said she has a low tolerance for gross things—probably in the same way that I have a low tolerance for spinning circus rides.

Which is why, unlike my friend the navigator, I am pretty nervous about the Southern Ocean. Big waves, cold, fast fast fast sailing—it’s all there.

'I always tell people that if it was twenty degrees warmer, everyone would go sailing in the Southern Ocean.' Carolijn explained. 'It’s some of the best sailing I’ve ever done.'

There’s a reason why people keep going back to the Southern Ocean—why people say ‘okay, I’ll do that again.’ But personally, it scares the hell out of me! Perhaps though, that’s just the unknown factor. I can hear people describe the Southern Ocean over and over, but in this case simply describing doesn’t work. I’m still nervous. In the doldrums I felt tiny and vulnerable; I can only begin to imagine what the Southern Ocean is like once the ocean really comes to life.

But today does correlate with tomorrow—the two almost go hand in hand. We need today’s ceremony, today’s induction, in order to have a safe sail into the waters unknown. The fish guts will wash off but the genuine meaning behind the ceremony will not, and it’s for that reason today is actually an amazing Team SCA website