In complete contrast to Christmas Day we woke on Boxing Day to rain and much cooler temperatures. Jules and I headed down to CYC at 8am and it was perfectly miserable with people huddled under umbrellas or below decks in an attempt to stay dry. Needless to say I didn't stick around for very long giving Jules and the crew plenty of time for last minute preparations. I got home to find Ali making cars with Tom, Jess painting finger nails with Tess, Julia making a dinosaur for Ryan and Michael playing on the iPad with Maggie - what a calm and peaceful household! After a light lunch we headed up to Dobroyd Head to watch the start of the race. The rain had abated so there were the usual crowds up there. I was armed with my tripod and tele-photo lens so unashamedly pushed myself into a good vantage spot explaining to all around that my husband was on one of the boats. This year the kids had done their melt-down "I don't want Daddy to go" the night before so it was easier for me to concentrate on getting some good pics. I had a bit of a panic to start with as there was no sign of spinnakers and even with the zoom lens and binoculars I was unable to read the sail or boat numbers so I took vast numbers of photos of every blue-hulled boat I could see. Fortunately as the fleet were heading out through the heads the spinnakers were put up so I could be certain I was photographing the right boat - St Jude is the one with the bright blue spinnaker with 2 horizontal yellow stripes. We bumped into Rob, Claire and their friends at Dobroyd so they came home with us for a swim (the temperatures had risen considerably during the day) and once home the Reids also popped in so it was the perfect time to crack Julia's amazing cherry pavlova which we hadn't had room for on Christmas Day.
I think Jules was rather economical with the details of what the weather forecast was really like (or I choose not to register it!) as once I was back home following the details online I kept reading all sorts of reports about gale force winds, huge waves, the most challenging weather conditions in over a decade etc! It's been a very tense time in my household and I've been glad to have Ali and Jess here.
To take my mind off the race we all went to the zoo which was a brave decision given that Ali is on crutches and the zoo is built on a very steep hill!! Fortunately it's possible to hire wheelchairs and after a few false starts and Ali almost being thrown out of the chair into the koala enclosure we became quite adept at pushing her around.
No comments:
Post a Comment