(SJ on the left, taken last week)It's not every day you turn 11, you know [grins happily].
Happy Birthday SJ! Love ya!
I'm all sailed out, after a weekend Regatta at Wallerawang's Lake Wallace. I'm still blissfully happy about the whole weekend. Sure, my best result was a third over the line, but that's not why I went.
I camped both Friday and Saturday nights. Things didn't look to bright on Friday arvo, with rain, showers, wind, mist, gloom and heavy overcast... still I managed to get my little tent up fine, complete with a temporary tarp as a fly over the top. It rained most of Friday night... not a good start, weather-wise. But I was still positive... even managing to sit around a campfire until late, just strumming my old guitar with a few other people. Well, happily... until people came back full of the atmosphere of the nearest pub, and demanding I play requests... I politely declined... I hate when people do that...
I got them back tho (albeit subconsciously, I later realised)... on Sunday morning I'd moved the tarp from over my tent down onto the shoreline, where we could sit in the shade from the up-coming hot sunny day. I pulled out my chair, drank a cuppa, and played away quietly on my guitar. A few blokes gave me a bit of a razz as I sat there... I must have looked like a bit of an eccentric twit or something, but who cares? Anyways... within like 30 seconds, they were all quiet, stopped their ragged ramblings together, and started to quietly listen to what I was doing! Me, being me, got lost in the moment of happily plucking away some old jazzy-type stuff, my right cheek resting against the top of the old battered guitar (perfect for camping), enjoying being outdoors beside a still-morning lake. Only after about 5-or-so minutes did I realise they were all quietly listening to me! Gagh! I was so embarrassed... but they begged me to keep going doing what I was doing, rather than yelling out karaoke requests this time. Whew! I must have lost my nerve by then, for I ended up heading back upto the tent to start slowly packing up. That was a nice moment... at least i can still 'play' when I don't consciously force myself to. That probably doesn't make sense, huh? Oh well... such is life. Hey, I play because I love to play, that's all. I just don't enjoy "playing the 'hits'" these days! [grins sarcastically]
Saturdays two races saw two different seasons in one day! The morning was like the night before, and the people who managed to come out thought it'd be a bit of a fizzer... but we were all wrong! The skies cleared, the wind dropped nicely, and by after-lunch the sun was out. Twas a glorious day to be out sitting on the water!
I ended-up retiring from the second race, as I was coming down with severe leg cramps! Just not having much sailing fitness nor time on the water so far this season, that's all. Of course, as soon as I made the decision to pull out - they stopped, didn't they? So I went for a free sail around the lake for about an hour before I went back ashore... until the cramps came back again about every 10 minutes! heh heh
Here's the Photo Gallery of the weekend. There's more photos to come as well! Yay!
The wind on Sunday morning was non-existent... some of the larger boats were considering not even going out for the 3rd race! But the wind picked up juuust enough - even tho, we just managed one lap in an hour! heh heh. But it was GLORIOUSLY sunny and beautiful being out on the water, and the time simply flew by - I needed convincing we'd been out there an hour when we got back to the beach. The sky was the deepest blue, the water was so calm and cooling, the hills surrounding were glowing deep varying shades of green, the sounds of gurgling water underneath your hull and quiet sailors' chatter carrying softly over the still water... who'd want to be anywhere else?
Even the local TV news crew came down and shot some footage. Our Club Commodore (I still get a giggle at these formal titles at what in reality is such a small friendly informal club) was interviewed, sitting on her laser in the morning sunshine. I think it'll be on tonight.
One of the funny little things that happened... the shore on the beach where we were all rigged-up on was covered with a thick mat of weed, washed-up over the preceding week. It was just messy, but apart from that wasn't so bad. When I came ashore after my third placing on the Sunday morning (third) race, a duck sat resolutely upon my dolly-trailer, parked in the weeds! Needless to say, I didn't disturb it... and it wasn't at all flustered with people walking about taking photos and taking a close look. About twenty minutes later, after quietly nesting happily amongst the weeds, the duck shook itself and swam off! That was bizarre... luckily it wasn't injured or anything like that. Ms Duck was simply happy being where it was, and that was that. Yay - more power to ya!
I felt I sailed really well this weekend, despite not bringing home any 'silverware'. But that's not the point. I really appreciated being able to observe some very talented sailors working their boats through the water in the calm conditions, and I learnt a whole lot about my own fairly-limited techniques. I know I'm not a hard-core racer - and I'm content being that way. I end up getting too distracted just being out on the water, simply enjoying the whole experience, to concentrate 100% of the time at a racing level. For me, that's quite acceptable. I simply love it.
Here's a good example... I'm sitting out about 100 meters from the wing mark... I'm about 7 boat-lengths behind the next boat... there's still a few trailing behind me... the wind is almost calm, and I'm sitting happily in the shade of the sail on the light-cream-coloured deck, with just enough boat speed to have me actually moving through the water. I'm looking around, firstly for any wind gusts or shifts, then just looking around in general... the shoreline... trees... listening to the birds... sailor's chatter carrying across the water... then for whatever reason I start thinking about SJ turning 11 the next day. My mind quickly and vividly recalls the day he was born, the whole situation, the birth, the first time I saw him... and I simply burst into tears! hahahahaa! I guess it was just a case of... oh golly, where have those 11 years gone to? He's so grown-up now! We could have lost him at 4 months old too (bacterial meningitis), so he's a precious young man.
So, here I am, bobbing away on a flat lake, sobbing away for about 15 seconds... then bursting out loud laughing, thinking to myself, "Where on earth did that come from?" Looking about, realising where I was, and what I supposed to be doing, I realised I'd dropped about one boat-length off the line to the mark I was supposed to be rounding! hahahahaaa
But, that's me... I enjoy the experience of just being out there, than the actual task of competitive racing. I mean, for goodness sakes - I usually give other people buoy-room (clearance) at marks! That doesn't sound outrageously competitive to you now, does it? hahahahaa. I LOVE the flexibility of everyones' needs, talents, abilities and focus of rural club racing!
One of the nice side of the actual Regatta was the fact that, thanks to a gracious handicap system, a 10-yo boy won his division overall! That is seriously fanTAStic. What's better than encouraging young people to get into sailing? Yay!
That was an interesting post... I started off just making notes, and then dissipated into my happy chatter-banter style I'm more happy with! I guess I kinda subconsciously stop myself from just chatter-banter a lot, otherwise my posts would go on forever! [shrugs]
Ahh, the joys of it all... I turned on the laptop yesterday arvo... that's the laptop with all my recent updated info on it... the laptop that I was going to back-up a whole heap of files and photos and stuff from it this week (that was one of my main agenda items this week... BUT, it's died, hasn't it? hohohohahahaaa! Power supply problems its been having on-and-off ever since I got it second-hand about 18 months ago have finally kicked-in for good, I think. I'm currently using my old desktop, but after it crashed a few months ago (and was supposedly 'fixed' as a result), this beast is so slow and clunky and... and... and... grrr! So, we'll just wait and see what I'm gonna do. I managed to edit and upload the first batch of sailing photos, but it took me at least twice as long as it should, thanks to the desktop puter... don't you love a machine that works twice as SLOW after it's been repaired? Gagh! Not to worry. I'm not stressed about it.
Peas be with ewe
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Man, that's the best post you've ever written. It even made me cry. Let's have more in that vein, pleeeeease.
ReplyDeleteAwww, now *I'M* blushing. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteCyalayta
Mal :)