MIA

Super eventful week, so no posting for a while... shall attempt to claw my back into the present, though am struggling to keep brain in gear at the moment as all my clients have woken up and remembered that the biggest trade show in the region (which just got bigger) is about three weeks away, which really isn't much time at all! Joy.

Did my very first offshore race last week - took off on the Dubai - Muscat race, sailing with Toby et al in Yo!, and beat the pants off the competition. I need to sit down and fully digest to really relay the adventures of the three and a bit days - the start was Monday morning at 11am, and we reached Muscat at 4am on Thursday - having been becalmed, spent more time mid-ocean out of sight of land than I'd expected, realized I had no job as we had ringers on board so nominated myself galley slave, learnt the game of imaginary hide and seek (basically, you think of a place, and people guess, excellent!) and taught animal vegetable mineral. Learnt how to sleep on the rail, and had to be hoisted up a near vertical deck on the last evening as i hadn't scrambled across the slippery surface quick enough during the tack. Had a visit from a phospherescent beastie at 4am, which was about 2m long, which I am certain was a whale, though the others claimed it was a dolphin, and got visited by a pod of dolphins on the last evening, who messed about meters from the boat for a good twenty minutes, though I was cooking at the time so only saw them for about two minutes. Says a lot about how serious the crew was when they started wanting the dolphins to piss off for messing with water pressure under the bow after about two minutes, as apparently they can slow you down by knocking the boat with water pressure. Or something.
Our nearest competitor arrived into Muscat at 2pm - we'd celebrated mildly from about 4am to 8am, with beers that mum ordered from room service in the Sheraton at 4.30am, as well as some bottles of bubbly that we brought with us, then tucked into large fried breakfasts and went to sleep on deckchairs (as we weren't allowed to leave the marina till we got our passports, which happened, finally, at about 4pm) We got back into the celebrations in earnest when ArtMarine docked the Stomp at 2pm. Then it really kicked off, they can seriously party. I think we finished at the club at about midnight, went on a tour of the hotel bars and their hooker-infested nightclub (not for very long) before crashing at 2am. The next boats came in the next day, loads had retired in the dead air before hitting the tip at Musandam, one had an exploded engine, all terribly serious stuff, no fun at all. Apart from the becalming, which got a bit boring and rather uncomfy when the boat was slapping up and down on the swell, it was a pretty damn good trip really.
Shall find some pics - which aren't of pissed people - and get them uploaded asap