Race day. Two days and a wakie before Chris arrives.

The sailing club here is putting on another race today. These things are worth participating in, even if only for the party afterwards. There is supposed to be a wind but as of 0700 this morning there was square root of zip all! The last race I participate in with Barry was merely a drift. If it's going to be the same I will be encouraging him to put on his 170% Genoa and we'll see if we can do better.

The harbour is almost a living thing, swelling up with boats for a weekend and then emptying out come Monday. It was particularly noticeable over the holiday season where almost all of the moorings were taken, mostly by catamarans which seem to be one of the more popular cruising styles, and now there are about 25% empty and most are occupied by owner crewed monohulls. When the cats arrive it is clear that there are usually more than one couple aboard and also clear that they don't always have a whole lot of experience. Every once in a while a trimaran will come in and as they do they fully occupy the harbour entrance. There are often some major horn honking situations when a cruiser comes in through the narrow passage if it's a multihull, or at low tide for a monohull with more than 5' draft. Our friend Barry suggested to us that it would be a good idea to issue a Securitay message before we came through just to alert any of the barges or ferries. Of course most of the rented day sport fishing runabouts either don't have a radio or don't turn them on or don't know how to work them so they come blundering along anyway. The difference is they are smaller so I really don't care. They can get out of the way. I have seen one older gent get all fussed that he was made to hug over to the side of the channel but no one else listening on the radio or present had any sympathy for him.

We are starting to feel that we need to watch our state of dehydration and body salt with all the perspiration. Barb has begun to have some minor muscle cramps and I am remembering the days that my Dad used to give us all salt pills when the weather got too warm.

Barry was kind enough to invite me along again aboard Troubadour on another of the Sailing Club's race days along with two other fellows, both of whom it became pretty obvious very quickly had more experience banging around the buoys than either Barry or me. I learned a lot from them pertaining to using the rules to your advantage and other tactics. In spite of this the wind went from 2-5 knots to non-existent so on the reaching leg when we were supposed to be booming along we were actually standing still so Barry made the decision to start the engine and head on home. He bought the crew lunch at the marina restaurant to stave off our disappointment at withdrawing from the race (truth be told, he had threatened to do that regardless). Afterwards I had a chance for another dip in the pool followed by another party at the sailing club followed yet again by a much less extravagant do at the boat. We had a great day with Barry and an even more wonderful evening with Barry and Marcia.

As I have heard said, if a mans wealth is measured by his friends then Barb and I would b millionaires.