Still a BlonDuh at the end of the day

Back in Terengganu after a whirlwind trip to the other side of the planet, aided by drugs given to me by one of the international race officers before I split Malaysia – essential for inducing an artificial night at 1100 hrs Greenwich standard time. Woke up in London at 0600, breakfast with Rosie adjacent the Baron’s Court underground, then off to Heathrow, of course not knowing what terminal, and of course the “number to text” was invalid, so of course spent an extra HOUR transferring between terminals – I can’t tell you enough IT WAS SO AWESOME! But no worries, twas a Malaysian Air flight. Punctuality is practically a crime. Not to mention, any time you can cut back hanging around in airports is money saved because somehow that plastic is easier to swipe when you are tired and disoriented.

The drugs would have worked brilliantly if the flight attendant hadn’t wrestled me into consciousness, “Would you like breakfast?” I appreciate the offer, but what was it exactly about the eye-mask+blanket over my head that said, “Sure! I’d love some!”? [most excellent sequence of punctuation, sending Word’s spelling into fits!] I managed to fall asleep somewhere over Berlin and wake up over Phuket. Desperately hoping that after landing in KL at 0900, jetlag wouldn’t slap me in the face when I started work at 1030…

My job at the Monsoon Cup (World Match Racing Tour Championship) is “on the water reporter” or the “eyes and ears” of the Race Office. The RO conveniently has absolutely no viewing whatsoever of the racing, so I perch at the top of the building, with laptop and a trilogy of radios so I can see and hear everything and translate it into a live Skype-update that gets sent to on-the-ground and off-shore press, Twitter-update on the website, and the live TV broadcasters of the event. Umpire calls, racing “stats” such as results and wind direction, a play-by-play of the racing, and most importantly a translation from “sailing” into “lubber” of what the hell this is all about anyway.

And while I love swimming in a bath-ful of professional sailor boys, and may or may not have made fun of veteran Olympic medalists for sailing “slow boring boats”, the inner perfectionist in me (devastatingly latent for the past 13 years) can’t withstand any more setbacks. The harder I try, and the more I accomplish, WITHOUT FAIL any minor slip-up I (mis)manage land on the director’s feet. Perfect bulls eye every time. Low point score wins, right? Why do you think I’m any good at this sport?

BlonDuh.

Nothing a long run on the beach can’t fix. And perhaps a mango-vodka cocktail and a few beats from my favourite Mexican reggae band du jour.