Today has been greyer, windier, colder and much wetter than the past few days. Let's hope that wasn't our summer.This morning I cleared away the last of our things from the trip. Luckily Peter had been at home on Tuesday when it was nice and sunny and he got the tent and sleeping bags aired then. I was teaching in the afternoon and then, in the pouring rain, went to the tattoo parlour to have my rose tattoo retouched. I also took in 2 designs that I had drawn for an open bracelet. I can't make up my mind which design to go for but I will have one of them done in a couple of weeks.
I.O.S. Saturday.
When you are camping having fleece sleeping bag liners is wonderful but a slowly deflating air-bed is not. The tent was no more than 100 yards from the sea so all night long there was the soothing roar of the waves and the wind in the shelter belt of pine trees. It took some effort to crawl out of my warm sleeping bed into the damp of the morning which rapidly turned into a steady soft drizzle.
I sheltered from the elements by dropping into the (expensive) shops and then a well stocked temporary charity shop in the church hall. I got a few books to read and tried to find a bench that wasn't too wet.
Before long the weather had changed and it was time for the ladies to race. I went up onto the cliffs below the camp site to watch the start and main part of the race.
For the first race all the gigs form an impressive line up and row the long course back to the harbour. That gives everyone a ranking and for the shorter (by 0.2 miles) sprints they race in bunches of 12. The top 2 then move up a group and the bottom 2 move down a group for the next set of sprints. The 3rd and final set of sprints takes place on the Sunday afternoon and gives you your final places. There are also trophies for the winners in each group.
You can pay to go out in the spectator boats which travel alongside the race.
It's a lot of fun and after watching the ladies' long race from the cliffs I went in a spectator boat to watch the men's long race.
The sea was quite rough at the start of the race which made it more exciting as the boat bounced up and down and from side to side. Everyone yells for their teams and things get even more frantic as you near the finish line.
Peter was rowing in the men's B crew and here they are having valiantly crossed the finish line in 2nd place which meant they moved up a group. They had a dreadful start to the long race when just before the start one of the pins (the little sticks that hold the oars in place) had broken. They are designed to do so but the pin snapped off leaving the end jammed in the boat. By the time they got it sorted they were 100m behind but even so they overtook a few gigs. They were also hampered by rowing in a borrowed gig. Rival was very heavy and the stretchers (bits of wood that you brace your feet against) were different to the club's gigs. And they had a new cox because we didn't have a second lady who could cox the men's B team. I watched the afternoon sprints from the end of the quay so got to see the gigs crossing the finish line. Lots of cheering for the winners of each group but also encouragement for those coming in last. One crew got extra applause as they struggled in with an oar broken in half. Later on there was a lot of talk about a gig that had been disqualified. Their cox is known for rough tactics and he often steers his gig across rival gigs so that they have to slow down to avoid a collision. This time a collision did happen, the offending boat was damaged and a crew member injured but it was all seen by one of the race officials and they were disqualified. Serve him right.
More to follow.
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