The wake on the lake this morning was horrible, with three coaching launches out.
It was a pity, too, because the water was a perfect smooth mirror before we
riffled it. It was all worth it, though, for the shooting star I saw, complete
with a long white tail. It was in the east, so might have been an impatient
Leonid. (Note: Don't forget to look for the Leonid meteors, which will be peaking
before damn on November 19.)
I was almost tempted to thank the
coaches, for their wake; all that practice in dealing with bounding billows
certainly came in handy during my race in Newport. They'd had t odelay the race
2.5 houra because of dense fog, so by the time we got going, the boat traffic was
heavier than it would have been earlier. I'm still irked at one small boat with a
man and a woman who were acting like race officials, who stayed right in front of
me for at least 500 meters in the middle of the race. I didn't register a protest
because it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the race, but it was unpleasant
being stuck in their wake and I'm still annoyed. I may send an e-mail to the
sponsoring club, to ask them to brief their people better next
year.
I also haven't told the story from the Marina del Rey race
about which I'm still being ribbed. Several of us were out on the edge of the
marina to see the finish of the race, and I went back to get a camp chair. When I
got to the parking lot to get the Cherokee keys out of my pack, my club's coach
hollered over, "Dichroic, you still available to cox?" I told him I was -- it's
more fun to participate than just to watch, and coxing lets you be in a race
without even having to sweat. He directed me to some San Diego guys who were short
not only a cox but one rower. He turned up soon enough and we headed out, with me
frantically trying to figure out how to steer from the bow-coxed position while
getting my boat warmed up and not hitting any other boats or buoys. The rest of
my club, having seen me walk off to fetch a chair, next saw me coming by in a boat
with four good-looking men.
We won too. I think half of them are
giving me shit because they're envious of the medal, and half because they're
envious of my pick-up skills. As for me, I'm enjoying it because not only did
those men come up to say hello at the next day's race, but so did the women from
LARC with whom I rowed to a first-place finish on our lake last spring.