We arrive at Alex Head early again. I’m up in the second heat. First the bad news: Noah doesn’t show, which means we start out with 12 points already. I come in last in my men’s HP heat.
When we come around to my IC heat, there is supposed to be a
20 minute break beforehand. I paddle out
in Jim’s IC boat, and find first off it is super-fast. I catch a wave to see how it handles, and
wowie zowie it surfs really nicely!
The rest of the guys in my heat are sitting around feeling
totally confused: the green flag is up, signaling
that the heat has begun, but there we are supposed to be on break. I just hang out, assuming that they’ve
screwed up the flags, and don’t even try to catch another wave. As the 5-minute horn sounds, nobody is
paddling out, which pretty much convinces me that I’m right and everybody else
is wrong. And then the horn sounds
ending the heat, and somebody who has paddled out tells me that, no they did
run the heat, and they are taking a break now. Oh joy.
So we all go in to complain, because we certainly weren’t
giving it our best, but everybody except me agrees to let the heat stand. Then I get to see my score, and find that I’ve
scored the third highest wave. So on the one hand, I’m really disappointed
because had I simply caught a few more waves, I would likely have not been last
in my heat. I'm really bummed with myself. But on the other hand, I really like the IC boat—as Rachael
says, “Carlisle, you look really comfortable in that boat.”
The day ends with us in 4th place, good enough for
us to advance to the second round. We
collect for beers in the Alex Surf Club, and then re-convene at Jimmy and Pirie’s
condo at Twin Waters for a dinner of fresh grilled fish. Yum!
Unfortunately, we are the Green Team.
Red: England
White: Jersey
Pink: Australia
Black: Basque
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