Rocks and Waves - Take 2

So these are the promised scribbling's to add to last weeks lengthy blog.  The better half is off riding a horse, the weather is less than favourable (gale force winds and horizontal rain) so I shall take the opportunity of being stuck indoors to write.  I apologise in advance to those of you who don't rock climb or sail.  Most of what follows is shameless glorification of two minority pastimes. 

Last weekend the weather was much better and on Saturday I got to head outdoors to go bouldering again.  Mike (my new climbing buddy) and I headed out to Baring Head (again).  This time we avoided fording the river but took a slightly longer walk in that didn't involve the chance of getting wet from the waist down - see previous blog Rocks And Waves.  We made it to Baring Head and found a bouldering playground.

I won't bore you with details of everything we climbing.  Suffice to say, a lot of it was quite highball and slabby which I enjoyed but Mike not quite so much.  The area had been battered by the recent storms and some of the boulders close to sea were caked in sand and salt.  There were still plenty to climb on though and we spent nearly 3 hours playing.  We walked back out a different way over the top of Baring Head and were treated to some great views of the Rimutaka Mountains and the mouth of Wellington Harbour.

On Sunday I took to the water again for the second race in the winter series.  The results from the first race had been written off due to how slow the race was and a number of technical challenges to the placing's.  This meant we were starting on a clean sheet.  The weather was perfect;  10-15 knots of northerly breeze, a light swell and bright sunshine.  We had a brilliant race.  We need to work on our start as we once again mistimed our arrival at the start line and crossed near the back of flotilla of 30 boats on the wrong tack.   I had been given the bow position for the race in charge of the hoist and drop of the spinnaker during the downwind legs and mainly tidying up and balancing the boat during upwind legs.  Having only rigged a symmetric spinnaker once before (I have sailed with asymmetrics) this was hard work and required all my concentration.  As all my attention was on the sails, until the last downwind leg I didn't notice the progress we had made through the field. We battled up the last leg neck and neck with another boat and eventually crossed the line in 7th half a boat length short of 6th.  The fine weather and fast paced racing was a great change from the drizzle of the previous fortnight.

There is not a great deal more to tell for this week.  I looks like this weekend might be a but of a washout.  Hopefully we will get out for a short walk somewhere and I think we have plans for a meal out.  Once again, until next time...