Musings on a shekel

Musings converted into Shekels….

The last week has been a momentous one;

We finally completed preperations for the younger members to go out and compete with other Optimist sailors. Now these members have been under the demanding eye of the training dept. and worked hard all summer, Out of 43 beginners our three club representatives brought home a 19th place (Nikolas Mavroyiannos), a 12th place (Giorgos Xiouros) and a 2nd place (Costantinos Michael). An amazing set of results at the first attempt and a fantastic beginning!!!

Your muser took part in the Israel – Cyprus race, I wanted to get out of sight of land and on the “deep blue sea” 25kts. winds in a 38ft boat are not for the faint hearted . The “real” sailors amongst the crew assured me there was nothing to worry about, (real, I will expand on later!) I can assure you I was intimidated!

The formation of a new association “ the 1600 club!” now to join this association, you have to bind and torture the founder members for more details…..

Now sailing at night out at sea is a “must do” experience, along with the escorting dolphin (twice, on the voyage home!) and an easy inclusion to anyone’s “Bucket list”. It is not to be compared however with the warm cosy smug feeling of watching all one’s crewmates fall to “Mal de mare” , the feeling of superiority is hard to disguise . This was responsible for a little ill feeling…oops! Still looking after these poor victims in their time of trial falls to the “stern of stomach!”

Now mention was made of a little “ill feeling”, this surfaced ashore when in an “Irish Pub – Fitting”. Now your muser does not cope with alcohol well and so regulates the intake carefully – the risk of headaches is high, an initial order of a round of Guinness passed without incident. So when the next round of drinks is ordered, an order of coffee, milky coffee, hardly qualifies as “Gay” this hurts dear reader!!......

So moving on, racing for 30hrs. is a real test especially with the night sailing and trying to remain tactically aware when you are knackered is equally testing….Dealing with irate Israeli waitresses intent on their 10% tip, now there is a test…..

Fatboy…..