Randal had his camera on the boat yesterday.  Here are some of the photos.  I think they still came in 6th of 8.  That seems to be their position everyday.

. Ray wolfe is on the left in Yellow. 

I think this is when they were just waiting for the race to start.  They have to wait for the wind to be in the correct direction; race rules,  and for there to be any wind at all.

What to do while you wait.  Ray and 2 of the Taiwanese crew members

Performing rap songs to fill the time.

  Oxymoron.  Get it?  One of the other sail boats in the same class.

Just waiting.

Here comes Jon Kerner. 

His Philippine wife had returned to school and Jon had been that morning to her high school graduation ceremony.

I believe Purpose Driven is the other half of the Taiwanese group.

One of the bigger boats racing along

Mandrake is one of the larger boats too.  They are our neighbors in SBYC. 

I don’t know if I would really like that.  I know I don’t like it when Doramac rolls though sailboats are supposed to and we try to avoid it.

Not a great photo, but these are the big boys, the Rolex race group.

Hopefully Randal will write up his racing experience.

This morning I was up at 5:30 because we had to be ready at 7 to move the Nagle’s boat to another boatyard where it would be painted.  Dave and Dorothy are in Hong Kong so Randal was asked to move the boat.  Since I didn’t know if my help would be needed I was ready to go too.  It’s about a half mile walk back from the boatyard, so I needed to be dressed for that kind of adventure.  My help wasn’t needed, but I did do a laundry and then made 6 peanut butter and jam sandwiches for Randal to take on today’s last race.  No food is provided and they are out there from 9am until almost 3pm because of the “no wind” problem that comes up mid-race.  I sent Randal off with a batch of brownies yesterday.  At 9am I loaded my camera, watercolor journal, and some flavored drinking water and went to walk over to the Subic church for some preliminary sketch photos and then on to the Olongapo Cemetery on the hill to see if I could photograph the start of the race.  I took photos at the church, some on the Kalakan Bridge and then realized that my camera batteries were dead! Damn!!!  I actually had charged spares on the boat.  Damn!!!!  I walked back across the bridge and down the road a bit to a convenience store and bought some barely useable batteries and then walked back across the bridge again and up the hill road out of Olongapo.  There are a few places where I could sort of see where the boats were waiting for the race to start, but they were really too far, even with my zoom lens.  By then I was getting hot and out of fuel.  I hadn’t brought Gatorade or a pb and j sandwich,  just flavored water so that wasn’t much help.  My climbs up into the cemetery didn’t take me high enough and I was just really getting too hot.  And from what I could see it would still be a while before any action would take place, either from the boats waiting to start or from any passing back from earlier start times.  I walked across the road from the cemetery and followed the little walk through the brush that takes you to a beach area and a tower.  Since there were families going to the beach I felt comfortable to go too, but a guard stopped me when I started up the tower stairs, like Great Wall steps at this point.  The tower was not open to the public.  Definitely time to go.  I bought a mystery ice cream treat from a man selling them and headed back across the road to the cemetery for one more try.  But I still wasn’t high enough and some of the “living cemetery residents” were starting to wonder what I was doing there.  Time to go. Back across the bridge and through the Kalakan Gate  ( the guards made a comment that I must be having a busy day.)  I was broiling by then so stopped at the convenience store again for water. 

I had planned to stop at the church on my way home to make a sketch in my watercolor journal that I could later paint.  I picked a bench under a tree near the front of the church and sat and sketched for about 30 minutes.  People were working, decorating the church pews with flowers.  They worked and I sketched and no one came to see what I was doing which was great.  I was in the shade and quite enjoyed it.  Then I had to walk the mile back to the boat, ugh!  I am still hot and tired, but at least I am out of the sun.  It is 3:05 pm and Randal still isn’t back.  Luckily he had the pb and j sandwiches.

It is 5:17 pm now and Randal is off to the awards ceremony.  I was just too pooped and far less interested.  I really saw too little of the racing and the ceremony might not start till after 6.  Their is a shuttle bus for the crew members over to the Lighthouse Hotel on the beach.  It is where I watched the boats the first day.  The Hotel is the Race headquarters and one of the sponsors.  Our friend Carol stayed there and said it was quite nice.  The lobby is all glass with a lovely view of the beach. 

Ru