The Last Day (well, nearly!)

Let me see, how did today start? Oh yes, early! Didn't sleep too well, woke about 2.30 with my mind racing, trying to process the sailing done so far, and things I should do next time. My eye was also pretty painful, more news on the stye to come later.

So a bit of a lazy morning, apart from the energetic video watching, which was a bit helpful - seeing oneself makes a big difference, especially if we get told what to do next time. Cribby of course wanted to do something - so we organised a 100m sprint race to see how much slower the "average" person is than Usain Bolt. I found a 100yd tape in the toolshed - obviously being an American shed, it would contain every tool known to man - which saved Cribby measuring it out with a mast bottom section (which turned out to be more than the 2m long he'd guessed it was!). So we ran 110 yds, on the basis that's pretty close, in a win time of 15.7 secs (approx!) and I came last a bit later. Not too bad really. Oh yes, this was on the runway, so the stones didn't help.

The previous evening's forfeit was replanned during the video session - Andy had to dance a ballet choreographed by Chikoka the Japanese dancer, dressed in a very short skirt, coconut bra and black wig. He performed marvellously, accompanied by Koka, to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy! Very well carried off, and probably the highlight of the forfeit season.

Then the Cribby Duracell bunny had another idea - try to surf the Bombora by walking out across Pelican Island, causing them all to take flight so we could photograph them. It all worked fine, the birds were an astounding sight wheeling in a huge circle, waiting for things to settle down before they returned. I got a shot of Cribby on the wave with the pelicans surrounding him.

A huge lunch, how fortunate that I've been working fairly hard to offset the intake! Then time for us to get out there, the wind had come up considerably on previous days - rigged a 4.5m and 85l Quatro FSW. Guy was taking pictures on the hill, and has a good one of one of my best attempts! Nice... The wind came up some more and the 4.5 got a bit much on the wave, turning downwind, and then I pulled my elbow really hard on a gybe out the back, which was a bit of a shock. I'd already paused a few times for a drink and a think, and to clean up my popped stye (yuck!! But at least that's sorted for now), so had another. Pretty tired though, so stopped about 6.15 - Guy sailed on until it was dark...