Another Busy Day
Work is never done
This has been a long day, and I am, at the end of it, so tired I hardly remember it all. It started early, with helping Zorro and Dino to launch the boat of many names (currently either Black Rose or Black Swan – Zorro is a fan of old movies, especially the swashbuckling sort, and also looks like Tyrone Power), and then to retrieve Constellation on the same trailer. Those activities were seriously time-consuming, since neither boat had a motor or functioning sails. Dino ended up swimming to help get Constellation onto the trailer.
Pat and I went out on Black Magic, and Zorro followed on the other boat once he’d solved a hardware problem with the boom. Incomprehensibly, Dino, after all of the work he had done, headed back to El Paso without even getting out onto the water. We all wondered what might be eating him.
We had a couple of hours on the lake, with hugely variable and mostly light winds. There were a couple of brief spells of more wind, but mostly it was drifting conditions, and the direction of the wind was almost random – one moment, we were close-hauled, and the next, we were, without changing course, on a broad reach – sometimes on the opposite tack.
When we got back to the marina, we offered to take Zorro out to a late lunch, but he had a lot more that he needed to do with his boat, so we said we’d bring him a doggy bag, and he said he’d appreciate that.
Other matters came up, so that our “late lunch” was really at supper time, and then the restaurant that we were at – under new management, but now we’ve given the new management four tries and they still don’t get it right – took 2 hours to get us a meal that should have taken 20 minutes, brought beer in a pitcher that had petrified food residue in it, were out of cole slaw, so substituted pasta salad without asking me (I hate pasta salad!) – well, let’s just say it was a disaster. At least they did give us a free pitcher of beer and a free dessert. But our “lunch” wasn’t over until nearly 9 p.m. And before the food finally arrived, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t eat much.
As late as it was, we didn’t expect Zorro to still be at the Fleet 141 compound, but we had told him we would bring him a doggy bag, and we did have most of my meal. As it was, when we got there, he was still there, working on the gazillion things the boat of many names needs, and he was very hungry, since he hadn’t gotten any food for himself.
After he had inhaled the food, we phoned Mother in Austin, and we found out that her team had come in second in the Adams Cup semifinals, by just one measly point. One lousy, stinkin’ point. She had three firsts, two seconds, and a third. That means one other team had three firsts and three seconds. But, as Zorro told Mother over the phone, she did good. She came close, very close. She proved that we desert sailors do have skills, and that we can do well in major competitions.
This has been a long day, and I am, at the end of it, so tired I hardly remember it all. It started early, with helping Zorro and Dino to launch the boat of many names (currently either Black Rose or Black Swan – Zorro is a fan of old movies, especially the swashbuckling sort, and also looks like Tyrone Power), and then to retrieve Constellation on the same trailer. Those activities were seriously time-consuming, since neither boat had a motor or functioning sails. Dino ended up swimming to help get Constellation onto the trailer.
Pat and I went out on Black Magic, and Zorro followed on the other boat once he’d solved a hardware problem with the boom. Incomprehensibly, Dino, after all of the work he had done, headed back to El Paso without even getting out onto the water. We all wondered what might be eating him.
We had a couple of hours on the lake, with hugely variable and mostly light winds. There were a couple of brief spells of more wind, but mostly it was drifting conditions, and the direction of the wind was almost random – one moment, we were close-hauled, and the next, we were, without changing course, on a broad reach – sometimes on the opposite tack.
When we got back to the marina, we offered to take Zorro out to a late lunch, but he had a lot more that he needed to do with his boat, so we said we’d bring him a doggy bag, and he said he’d appreciate that.
Other matters came up, so that our “late lunch” was really at supper time, and then the restaurant that we were at – under new management, but now we’ve given the new management four tries and they still don’t get it right – took 2 hours to get us a meal that should have taken 20 minutes, brought beer in a pitcher that had petrified food residue in it, were out of cole slaw, so substituted pasta salad without asking me (I hate pasta salad!) – well, let’s just say it was a disaster. At least they did give us a free pitcher of beer and a free dessert. But our “lunch” wasn’t over until nearly 9 p.m. And before the food finally arrived, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t eat much.
As late as it was, we didn’t expect Zorro to still be at the Fleet 141 compound, but we had told him we would bring him a doggy bag, and we did have most of my meal. As it was, when we got there, he was still there, working on the gazillion things the boat of many names needs, and he was very hungry, since he hadn’t gotten any food for himself.
After he had inhaled the food, we phoned Mother in Austin, and we found out that her team had come in second in the Adams Cup semifinals, by just one measly point. One lousy, stinkin’ point. She had three firsts, two seconds, and a third. That means one other team had three firsts and three seconds. But, as Zorro told Mother over the phone, she did good. She came close, very close. She proved that we desert sailors do have skills, and that we can do well in major competitions.
posted by Carol Anne | 1:15 AM
1 Comments:
You can't get much closer than that to winning. Congrats to 'Mother' and good luck with the rest of the season.
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