Surfski Knowledge Base

Reivers Dustin
05/30/16 #19393

I rode with Duncan on rescue boat duty. I brought a book to read in case of boredom. Duncan comes over to the dock to pick me up. So I had been given two of these high visibility vests. After 15 minutes of trying to put it on I started to feel like one of those lab monkeys that never got a treat for figuring out the puzzle. Meanwhile Duncan decides that we need to be somewhere in the boat and we make the jump to warp drive.

He says to me, “you should probably hold onto something”. Then we arrive and return to earth time zone.

I start looking more carefully at the vessel. It looks normal, like a boat. Outboard looks largish. There's a “300” printed on it. Smallish cockpit area where I cowered - uh, held on out of the 60 mph wind force. Major rackage system with space for four surfskis. I got this weird double-vision thing where Duncan looked like Mel Gibson and the boat was a water version of a mad max machine.

We are at the last turn buoy talking to the safety crew out there. Duncan looks over at the outfall buoy, says, “That's not right”. We jump over there. The balloon is tied to the back of this safety boat and it is moored quite a distance from the outfall buoy. Confusing. Is the turn mark the boat or the buoy? We talk, they don't know. There's another safety boat - a guy and his daughter I know from work. They don't know either. Duncan is on the phone, on the radio, talks to command center, talks to LB, we get it sorted out. But not after the first five racers go longer around the boat. My rough guess is it cost these guys an extra 30 seconds. Because of the large gap when the correction is done there is no change in team finishes. But those guys split times will be effected. I don't know how this could have been fixed differently. The best I can offer: race officials need to know that the course line is super critical and should refer any doubts to the leg chair - no judgement calls.

There were lots more rippin rides across the bay. It was a buzz lightyear day for me: “to the universe and beyond”. Some guy jumped off the railroad tracks for a swim. So we looked at that first little trestle, then make the jump to the Mud Bay trestle. Coming back we spot the guy back at the first one: baseball hat on, shoes and socks on, halfway to the Post Point Buoy. Sherriff boat picks him up and hand him over to the BPD. Turns out that's why he went for the swim in the first place, on the run.

We see a guy paddling off towards Governors' point and jump down there. It's Austin getting some more Bellingham Bay chop. He's in a super skinny boat waving hands and paddle around so high on being back here. Duncan and I got a contact high just talking to him.

We hang out watching over the hundreds of kayakers going at the end of the day. I see that they are killing themselves trying their best. I remember what it was like in the beginning. I had just as much fun then. I hope I remember that better when I look at new paddlers. We are all seeds in the same watermelon.