Not that I should be complaining about anything. I was going to sail with Jim Glueck, and I was going to be in a new boat. I got to leave on Tuesday, a day and a half after everyone else. And, I got to fly while they drove through the Southland. (I didn't get to participate in the acquisition of nut sacks as others did, I was bummed about that). After a fairly relaxing flight where I tried to do some homework (Yeah, right), I arrived in Sarasota, FL at about 11 am local time.

After checking-in at the hotel, I was bored so I walked up to the square and looked around. Ever on the lookout for everyone else who was coming, I wandered until I found a good location to get some lunch. Tommy Bahamas' seemed like the perfect place. Outside, second story seating was where it was at. I had a great lunch and a couple island beverages and didn't see anyone. So I wandered until I found the wrong yacht club. Then I backtracked and took the correct turn to find the correct yacht club. Still no sign of anybody. It was now about 4 o'clock. I was alone in a foreign state with friends who were supposed to be there at noon or 1. Perturbed, I walked back to the hotel. At about 5:30 everybody showed.

Once we got situated, the hard-core relaxing began. We didn't do a whole lot for the rest of the week. We set up the boats and everybody kind of went a different direction. Some of us went to the beach, while others went to the West Marine outlet store. Dinners and drinks throughout the week were a blast. That I20 fleet really knows how to have a good time.

We arrived at the yacht club on Saturday morning greeted by a light land breeze. We got out early and got the kinks out before the race. The first race went great. We got off the line in good shape and rocketed up to the first mark. We sailed well for the first four legs of the race. On the final leg, we were out front with Jeff Kirchhoff in "Bushwhacker" coming on strong. As the trailing boat, he forced us into a tacking duel. So we did the only logical thing. We took him out past the port lay-line so far that we ended up sailing back downwind to cross the line. Bullet number one in the bag. On to race two.

After a relaxing jaunt down to the starting line, we got ready for the sequence. While waiting for the race committee to set the line we were greeted by a school of dolphins. A good omen, I've been told. After the first four minutes of the five minute sequence, we noticed the breeze getting a little lighter. Hurrying to the line we were right on it for the start. This didn't matter because the wind completely shut off. The E-Scows who started five minutes before us were only about 150 yards off the line in parade formation. Rather the postponing the race, the race committee began the MC sequence. They were trying to start while we were sitting on the line. I was freaking out since we weren't going anywhere. Jim did a great job calming me down. (Basically, "Shut up, and relax.") We waited for a couple minutes and the wind started filling in from the top-right of the course. Grant Frautschi and Scott Baccus saw this and peeled off onto port and went for the wind. Not a good feeling for us since we were down the line, but worse for Kirchhoff who had raised his spinnaker, and worst of all for everybody else lookin' for some love from the gods. Anyway, we sat and waited for the wind and finally got out of there after being passed by some MCs (no biggie since MCs were passing E-Scows). After heading up the course a little, we decided to take a bite into this breeze that was filling from the right. Once we got in far enough, we decided to go back toward the mark and got lifted the whole way. Oh what a feelin'.