The Prefectura (Coast Guard) didn't want any boats on the water because of the collision risk but allowed us to get to the race area and they stayed nearby.
We left the dock at 9:30. We drank mate (an herbal tea) and ate biscuits on the way out to the race area. The mate cup gets passed around like a peace pipe and you keep adding hot water from a thermos onto the leaves/herbs and sip it from a silver straw.
There were 5 of us on the boat. It was a little cozy....especially when we got racing.
There were 16 boats all together and the race started at 11:15. The Prefectura announced over Channel 72 that they wanted us off the water as soon as possible but we could race (I didn't know this until after the race - a 'lost in translation thing'). They shortened up the course and off we went. We were in first place for the first 200 m and then the faster boats quickly overtook us.
Our biggest problem is that we sucked at putting up the spinnaker. Only one guy knew how to do it and there was that spanish/english communication problem as well. I ended up being ballast for most of the race. But the rest of the crew was very gracious about the whole thing.
The nearby airport was closed because of the smoke so the really noisy jets were not bugging us but the nearby military firing range was busy with Saturday morning practice. It sounded the firecrackers going off for two hours. I honestly don't know what they were shooting at. With the smoke, you couldn't see more than 75 m.
The regatta/race was all done in 28 minutes.
Here I'm thinking we would have 3 or 4 races (of that length) but no. That was it - we were done. The Prefectura had called it a day for us. Of course everyone on the boat knew this (because they all understood the announcement made earlier).
We then headed back to the dock. Our timing was perfect as we hit the low tide that was complicated by the winds (over a number of days) which had 'pushed' the water out to sea. We all had to lean out to one side of the boat to create enough clearance with the keel to not run aground. We looked pretty funny all hiking out one side of the boat while motoring into the marina.
Then we drove over to another yacht club for the awards and asado.
We ended up 8th out of 16 boats. Cups given out to 1 to 3. Food & wine for the rest of us!
At the asado, we had (another) great meal and I ended up with a GE vest to add to my growing schwag collection.
I took lots of pictures - my contribution to Team Don Vito and I met 4 new friends today.
Note: the last picture is one sent to me by my boss while we were on the water – the view out his back door at home in Calgary. As I told him, you don’t have to shovel smoke.
Cheers
Barney
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