This is us passing the rock. You can see why it's such a surprise. It's tiny.
The yacht passing us is much bigger than us.And we saw the whales on the way back.
It was another lay day on Thursday but we all decided to forgo the Whitehaven Beach drink-a-thon. The day saw the Julie/a's flat out horizontally, Terina and I did effluent duty in the afternoon after a pleasant lunch and Mal and Haith went shopping.
Friday was not a good day for us. The start was plagued by the tide sweeping boats towards the line an 3 knots. We had a small collision with a guy who refused to give us water in spite of us calling for it repeatedly. As he was the windward boat and also the overtaking boat he was in the wrong on three counts but it didn't help morale.
The course took us round the bottom of Pine and Long Islands at the height of the tidal rip. It looked like rapids. Luckily we had tacked up the side of Pine Island out of the current and when we saw boats moving sideways and backwards at the rate on knots (sic) we were able to keep in shore until we could get across the flow at its narrowest point. It still took several tacks to clear the island as each time we thought we had gone far enough - or even too far- we were pushed back towards the island. Then we ran down the far side of Long Island, which is well named as it took forever. With no pole to hold out the jib the crew took turns to hold it out with the boat hook. Finally there was a reach back to Hamilton and another seemingly endless beat up the channel to the finish line. The only consolation was that a number of boats in our division pulled out because they didn't think they could finish on time. So we were pretty proud of ourselves. But it was a long day (6 hours).
The final icing on the cake was the race jury foreman waiting to tell me there was a protest against us for the collision. As the other boat had not done anything to indicate they were going to protest and as we believed we were in the right I was outraged. I also banged my head and crunched my shin getting off the boat so was not a bit happy. Eventually the protest was thrown out but it wasted valuable drinking time. And we were all desperate for a drink.
Saturday looked like being another very long race but the course was changed to a very short one at the last minute. But it did mean another rounding of Pine Island. In great trepidation we headed out but it was much earlier so the tide was, if anything pushing us away from the start line. This time we decided to tack back towards Hamilton rather than cross straight away to Pine, then we were able to sail right across the bottom of the Island in one tack. Luckily the tide was just starting to seriously rush north so we didn't have the angst or the multiple tacks. Then a much shorter run between Pine and Long Islands and a fast tack back after a short becalming at the northern end of Pine. Again we passed lots of boats in other divisions.
The best bit was the finish when we did a couple of really long tacks right to the edge of the safe water and managed to cross the line without too much effort. Boats behind us being more cautious took about 10 tacks to get there. As I had failed to alert John in Mathilde of the course change it was only near the end that Mal rang them and they sped back from where we were supposed to be at South Molle to watch us finish. Absolutely the best support team in the race!! Then we motored around at the finish to watch those behind us and the big boats on other courses cross the line - and to gloat a little at how clever we were!
And so it was all over. We put the boat back together, dismantled the down haul we had rigged up, took down the rainbow flag and went drinking.
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