Avontuur

On Tuesday I was reminded about one of my very favorite things about the Netherlands. Granted, there’s some stiff competition: cool weather, clean air (crystal clear, relative to Taiwan), daffodils (no, not tulips – you see daffodils in vast swathes beside the road, but only a few tulips here and there. They’re either less hardy or more expensive.), restaurant menus I can (mostly) read….

There are some unfavorite things as well, like having someone tell you he can’t come to a meeting because 4:30 is too late in the day, or having someone reargue all sides of an issue you thought was finally closed, or having all the shops closed by the time I leave work every day (which, come to think of it, makes sense of people wanting to leave early!!).

But back to favorites: I think my very favorite thing of all is the part where people ask me to come row and race with them. You have no idea how gratifying this is, after many years of “Who else can we get to fill our quad? Not Paula, she’s too little.” It’s funny; you’d think that would be more of a problem here int he Netherlands where people are taller, but it really isn’t. Maybe people just take height more for granted here and don’t think much about it.

So I’ve been asked to race in a quad in November; stroke is L, who won the Skiffhead (very big race!) in the Master A category this year, R in three is extremely powerful, M in two seat is stroke’s doubles part (they did well this year in the Tweehead and the Skøll Cup). And me. Yikes!

Generally, stroke seat sets the pace that everyone else follows, so you want a strong rowing with good technique and good timing there. The middle seats are the ‘engine room’ of the boat, and since the frontmost rowers have most effect on the set, you want a good technical rower there to keep the boat level. So no one expects me to be the powerhouse of the boat, but on the other hand those are only minor distinctions – every rower in the boat needs to be contributing to the overall power, timing and thus speed of the boat. So I have from now to November to build up my strength and endurance to where I can keep up with the other three, and to get my technique back to where it used to be (or better, of course).

I went out in a single yesterday, with M & L, also in singles, and a coach (the wife of Ted’s Dutch rowing partner). It was great! Nice weather – the worst problem was the setting sun in our eyes. I’d never worked with this woman as a coach before, and she was even better than I expected; I knew she was very knowledgeable, but there’s a difference between knowing what the problems are and being able to communicate them in a way that will help the rower to fix them. Also, for an adult rower, or at least this particular one, it’s important to pay attention to what the rower knows and can feel herself, and she did that. So now I have a couple of things to work on myself (being on the water about 10 times in two years is not particularly good for your technique, though at least I had the erg to train on) and I’ll meeet with her again in a week or two.

I think Australia is probably the most comfortable place for US travelers, except for Canada – and even that’s mostly because of the lack of the jet lag and the driving on the wrong side of the road. There’s just something about the open country and the attitudes there that make us feel at home. (The slang’s more colorful though – you really do hear “G’day” and “mate” and “fair dinkum.”) One flaw, though: internet in all of our hotels (all 5 of them) was running about $25AUS a day. There was free internet at the McDonalds and Krispy Kreme near our hotel in Penrith, but I didn’t have a ton of time there and didn’t have any access thereafter except for 15 minutes one day in Tasmania – hence the radio silence for the last couple of weeks. I’ll try to get the whole trip written up and photos posted over this weekend, probably in three entries (one each for the race, Sydney, and Tasmania parts of the trip).

Starting at the very beginning, we flew out on a Wednesday afternoon, which was nice – no rushing out of work and no getting up early. However, the trip had a terrible beginning – Tuesday night I got home late from work to the news that my Uncle Larry had died. I really wasn’t expecting it, since he’d rallied every other time he’d gone off chemo for a break, but the last time I spoke to him he was barely able to talk, so I guess I should have realized. I spoke to both parents, though, and given the difficulty of changing the flights to get to the US, the uncertainty of when the funeral and any other memorials would be, and most especially my uncle’s own love of travel, they told us to go ahead with the trip as planned. That made the whole thing pretty melancholy, but also right in a way – not only would he have loved the trip, but we were meeting up with two friends who had actually met Uncle Larry when he came out to see us race in Oak Ridge, TN, at the World Masters Games a few years ago. I informed everyone we would be having a memorial dinner at some point, since it seemed much more appropriate than dedicating a race or whatever to someone not at all interested in sports.

This was our first time to fly Singapore airlines, and I recommend it highly – the food wasn’t bad as airline food goes (meaning, it wasn’t great either – it’s a relative thing) and the entertainment system was the best I’ve seen on any airplanes ever, both on the 777s to and from Singapore and on the A380 we took from Singapore to Sydney and back. Which leads to the next thing – we got to fly on the new A380s. Verdict: meh. The kneeroom isn’t bad but that’s a decision made by the airline, not by Airbus. It was very quiet, but there are not enough restrooms (it didn’t help having two out of order on the way to Sydney) and Ted complained about the size of the overhead bins. I like the 777s better.

Our big advantage, coming from Taiwan, was being off Sydney time by only three hours, much less than the other Outlaws coming from Arizona. Nonetheless, after all the trouble Ted and Kathy had going to the last World Masters, we’d decided to get there a day early, which turned out to be a good decision.

After flying in, we did the paperwork for the rental car, but left it at the airport while we took a train to the Olympic Park to register – the train was *not* a good decision, as it cost extra money and took forever because we ended up on a local train that stopped at every station. We’d thought finding the venue in the car would have been difficult, but judging by all the signage we saw later, probably not. But registering that first day definitely was a good idea – it took us under two hours, much less than it took on later days. By the next day it was taking 5 hours – after that they sped things up by not putting photos on the badges, so people had to go back later if they wanted that fixed. We also picked up our World Masters Games backpacks, which were black and turquoise and proved to be a great way to recognize other Games participants – with some 28000 athletes competing, 2500 in the rowing alone, we were everywhere you looked in Sydney.

After that, we got the car, drove to the venue, had a practice row, were lucky enough to run into Ted’s partner for the men’s doubles, and checked into the hotel. It was part of this complex, which was kind of weird – apparently it’s The Place To Go in Penrith so there were always young’uns walking around in 1980s flashback clothing – notably, long shirts and no pants – and older people wandering around with tanned skin and bleached hair. It was handy having the restaurants next door, except that since it’s technically a private club we had to sign in for “guest passes” whenever we ate there.

The next day we picked up two of the other Arizona Outlaws at the airport (technically, one rower and our Oar Wench), met the other two at the venue, and practiced more. The wind kicked up enough to cut our practices a bit short, though – a foretaste of what was to come.

More later!!

It got the boats there, but the leased car we have here just doesn’t compare to Ted’s faithful H2:
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Here’s the venue. The boathouse is impressive to – four floors including offices and dorm rooms. And flush toilets! (Though all but the handicapped one are squat-types.)
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Ted during his race and me bfore mine:

Ted after his first race – this should show how hot it was!
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And a not-so-little guy we found hanging out by the boats:
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The short version:

By invitation, we participated yesterday in the Taiwan National Team Selection regatta. Ted came in first in his final; I came in third in mine. The other competitors were about half our age, the elite Taiwan rowers, who train at least twice every day and live at the boathouse in summer. If you want to stay impressed, stop reading now.

The full version:

Moving boats is a lot more difficult when you’re not using a system you’ve finetuned over the years. It went fairly smoothly, though, as we were able to settle on fairly simple methods. We put the rack on the car Wednesday night, loaded up Ted’s boat (which had been staying in our company warehouse) Thursday night, loaded my boat and headed out to Ilan Friday morning with our usual overpacked car. (More overpacked than usual, in fact; we had to take two computers because we had both had to work from the hotel, and we took extra food since we didn’t know what would be available.)

After unloading the boats by the Dongshan River boathouse (where the national team trains) we had our first adventure of the weekend, when we found ourselves with no idea where our hotel was. It wasn’t the one near the boathouse that we’d thought it might be, and our GPS refused to recognize either the hotel name or the name of the street it was on. I tried calling, but no one at the hotel spoke English well enough to give us directions. So we threw ourselves on the legendary Taiwanese kindness: we went into the nearby hotel and asked for directions. They couldn’t give us those either, but they called our hotel, who sent someone out on a scooter to show us the way there. Only in Taiwan.

Our hotel turned out to be ten minutes’ drive from the park where the boathouse is; we actually had anice view of the boathouse from our balcony and it would have been ten minutes walk but for the water in the way. They’d clearly called in a skilled designer in setting up the hotel; beautiful landscaping and interesting layer – each room had a balcony and bathroom on the outside of the room, with sliding glass doors and curtains for both, to let lots of light in during the day. My only complaint was that all lighting in the room was indirect and it was a bit dark at night.

Because we were grateful and because a buffet seemed like a good pre-race dinner idea, we went back to the much fancier hotel for dinner. I think it was meant to be a Mediterranean restaurant – a very Chinese view of Mediterranean food! It was pretty good, though, and buffet for two people for about $30 is a deal any rower would take.

We weren’t sure when our races were, but fortunately Coach Lin called to tell us Ted was in the first race, at 8:00. It was only after we got there that we learned that this was a National Selection regatta. We also learned that the two-day race was being compressed into one day because of an expected typhoon Sunday (it ended up swerving into the China Strait instead). We’d been told about it by Henry, a high-school rowing coach here in Taipei, who had only said it was a “regatta for adults”. Most of the other competitors are college-aged. One woman we’d met before had been an Olympic hopeful last year; we have a hunch one of the guys in Ted’s race was Wang Ming-Hui, who competed n the Athens and Beijing Olympics (he came in 23/31 in Beijing). The competition was tough, and the humid heat was hard on us; Ted came in 4th of 4 in his heat, close in the pack. He then advanced to a repechage where he was 2nd of 2; since 2 other rowers in that race wimped out and did not start. In the Final B, Ted came in first, way ahead of the other guy. He was happy about that, given the combination of circumstances: heat to which we’re not as acclimatized as the Taiwanese rowers, three races in one day; 2000 meter races, twice the distance that masters rowers usually race, being twice as old as most of the competitors, and most of all, not having been in a racing single since our last race in Taipei.

I was even more out of practice, not having been in a boat at all since the Taipei race (dragonboating is a whole different skill). Also, I was rowing in Ted’s boat, since my boat here isn’t a racing one; fortunately we finally seem to have figured out how to adjust it so it’s not too bad for me. Luckily for me, there are far fewer women racing than men; there were only two other rowers in my race, meaning it was a Final and we only had to race once. I came in third, not surprisingly, the rower who was first was the Olympic hopeful, and I lost sight of her early on except as a distant blur in my mirror. The other woman had a terrible start and I was ahead for a bit, but she pulled in front by the 500 meter mark. According to Ted I at least finished closer to her than she did to the winner!

After our race, we found a place for our boats in the boathouse there; we hope they will sustain less damage than in the park in Taipei, where they get moved (and dented) every time a typhoon rolls in. Even though it’s more than an hour away, we’re also hoping to be able to row more often, since the dock facilities there are great and conditions are more sheltered.

At night we went to the Su-ao port area for dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find parking near the restaurant the hotel recommended to us, so we ended up eating at another place. There was no menu; they just took us outside and had us point to the (raw or live) fish we wanted. It tasted all right, but we probably won’t be going back soon as Ted was queasy all night (of course, three races in extremely hot and humid weather could possibly also have had something to do with it.)

In the morning, we got up, had breakfast at the hotel, and got home by 10:30AM. That was a treat – living in Arizona, a race out of town always meant a drive home of at least six hours – even more fun when you have a two-day race and have to drive home after racing, to get to work the next day. Sometimes it’s nice being on a small island!

With a little effort I was able to schedule my last business trip to the Netherlands when it allowed me to row the Elfsteden Roeimarathon. This race is a race that covers approximately 200 km and goes through each of the 11 cities within the Netherlands province of Friesland. It takes 18-24 hours to complete. The Elfsteden race is most famous not for rowing, but for ice skating. During the winter all the water ways along this path can freeze under very cold conditions; when this happens the Dutch initiate the Elfsteden ice skating race, which is not only a race but a truly Dutch cultural event. The last time it was cold enough to run this race was in 1997.

The rowing version of the race is done in Class C Doubles with coxswain (stuurman, in Dutch). They are larger than a racing double and much heaver. Since some of the waterways have large boats that produce big wakes and there can be some rough water the boats need to be modified. The modifications include creating stern and bow decking, adding a very large splash-guard, mounting a GPS for navigation, adding electric pumps for bailing, and inserting extra floatation compartments and wave protectors over the riggers. The most important addition is mounting the traditional oil-burning lamp on the bow and stern. All of these alterations were made the week before the race but had to be installed at the race site on the day of the event since the boat modifications could not survive the trailer trip to the race.

Boat Preparation

There is a huge amount of organization required to prepare for this race. First, the race course itself is very long and complicated. In the Netherlands the canals and waterways form an extensive network and are nearly as common as streets; thus, you really need to have a good set of directions to prevent getting lost (on our legs we took 2 wrong turns). The race package provides an extensive set of maps and way-points that needed to be programmed in the GPSs used in the boats. In addition these points had to be programmed into the GPSs used in the chase cars so the spare rowers could find the locations to change crews. Since this is a very long race lasting nearly 24 hours people needed a place to sleep, so a convenient “campsite” was found. Camping in the Netherlands is a lot different than I am used to in rural Oregon. In the Netherlands you sleep in a nicely manicured field in the middle of a working farm, with a portion of the barn converted into a bathroom with showers, and a nice patio for cooking and sharing meals together. Since we had 27 people the preparations for the campsite were rather extensive, requiring 6 tents and lots of food. The most difficult coordination was of the cars and people. First we had to get all the people and equipment from Eindhoven to the race, about a 3 hour drive. In the Netherlands this is more complicated than I am used to – the cars are smaller and many people do not have cars, plus 3 hours is considered a long trip. Once everyone is at the race we needed a chase car and a campsite car for each team, each equipped with the preprogramed GPS, food, and drinks.

With the plans in place, we began the actual execution starting at 8:00 AM in Eindhoven. For the race preparations all the people were divided in 2 groups. Group 1 departed first, traveled with the boats to the race course and mounted all the modifications on both boats (I was in this group). Group 2 left a little later with all the camping gear and set up the campsite. Once the campsite was set up, they joined us at the race site; unfortunately they had all the food and we had to wait a few hours for them to arrive. With the full group of 24 rowers assembled we had a big pasta dinner next to the boats and canal. At the appropriate time 2 rowers and a cox for each of the 2 Beatrix crews launched for a leisurely 5k warm up row to the start. The rest of us drove to watch the start – even this simple drive highlighted how important the GPS was because none of the people in my car knew where the start was. All 94 boats were log-jammed in the small start area. At 8:00 PM the boats were started one by one at about 30 second intervals. Each team of 12 was divided into 4 crews of 3 (A-D). Each individual crew of 3 would row approximately 10 km (about 40-60 minutes) then change out with another crew. The intended sequence was: A,B,A,B,A,B > C,D,C,D,C,D > A,B,A,B,A,B > C,D,C,D,C,D. For example, the starting crew A raced while crew B was in a car frantically driving through Friesland trying to find the next exchange point. In the beginning this dash between exchange points was more like a convoy since the crews were closely grouped, but by the end we were on your own. While crews A&B were rowing crews C&D were at the campsite and trying to get some sleep.

Rowing

I was in crew D so after the start of the race we went to the campsite and tried to get settled. Since it was still relatively early and still light I got very little sleep. At around 11:00 PM, we had to get up and drive to the exchange point. Some people on our team slept well and were not so eager to get up delaying our departure. It was very strange being crammed into a car with mostly strangers, driving through the very dark countryside, toward some way-point on a GPS. Upon arrival at an extremely dark, remote patch of weeds under a brilliant starry sky, we waited with a number of other crazy people for our crew to arrive. This was actually a lot like pit crew in a NASCAR race. The more experienced crews had long poles holding unique combinations of lights, or actually internally lit signs to show their crews where to pull in (we had to shout since we did not have a sign). As the crews arrived the pit crews had large poles with hooks to help pull the boats in and the crew members were exchanged. The more experienced crews had very long poles, pulled in very accurately, and exchanged crews quickly. Being less experienced we had to chase our bout down the cannel a few meters, the exiting crew did not know you had to let the oars go parallel to the boat to so they had difficulty pulling in far enough, and we were cumbersome during the rower exchange (with more practice we got quicker). When I finally got my chance to start rowing around 1:00 am it was truly peaceful, even though we were rowing very hard. The water was glass, there was no wind, no sound other than that of the boat; and the only lights were far-off oil lamps behind us, a small glow from the GPS on the coxswains face, and the beautiful sky speckled with stars. All of our nighttime rows were like this and for some reason not being able to see much made the time go by much quicker. During the last segment of our first rowing shift we watched the sun rise while we rowed across a glassy lake. Our shift ended around 6:00 am and we headed back to the camp site to try to get some sleep

Crew Exchange

At the campsite I tried to get some sleep but it was difficult since it was very bright day and it was very warm by Dutch standards. So after maybe 1.5 hours of sleep we raced to the exchange point to start another 6 hour adventure, 3 hours rowing & 3 hours of driving. The weather was absolutely awesome for rowing: clear, sunny, and absolutely no wind, which is unheard of in an area covered in power-generating wind mills. The problem with this was that it brought out all the pleasure boats, which produced big wakes that were amplified in the small hard sided canals. Even with this, only about two different stretches, of 2K each, were uncomfortable to row in. Our team decided to change the order of the C & D crews for the last group so after our last segment we rushed to the finish line to watch our team finish 28th out of 94 in 18 hours and 30+ minutes. As with any rowing regatta the race had finished but the work was not done. We had to remove all the modifications and load the boats on to the trailer.

The race organizers had a lot of very unique touches at the post race festivities. They provided each crew with unique Friesland desserts composed of a graham cracker-like base, whipped cream, and chocolate (as with many Dutch deserts it had the slight black licorice flavoring). The post-race meal was a classic Dutch winter meal (I guess since this race commemorates a winter event) of stampot with sausage or sauerkraut, and vla (similar to pudding). They gave each participant a Maltese cross-shaped medal just like those in the ice skating race, and for the winners of each event the medal came with a lanyard in the very uniquely designed Friesland flag.

At the Finish

That night despite being very tired, we all hung around the campsite talking for hours. This was an absolutely wonderful experience with great rowing, true camaraderie, awesome weather, and a fabulous Dutch cultural experience.

I found Friesland noticeably different from the rest of the Netherlands. It appeared to be even flatter then the rest of the country, even though I know that this is not physically possible. I suspect that this is because it is less populated and there is noticeably less tall vegetation. It was amazingly green with numerous very small quaint villages.

Each boat had a tracking device on it that was used to show our exact position and speed on a web site. Paula was able to track our progress and speed real-time from Taiwan, and since I rowed in the middle of the night the time change worked in our favor. At the beginning of the race we were actually able to use the live video cam on the race web site so she could see me while I talked to her on the phone.

Unfortunately I forgot to pack my camera so all pictures here were taken by other members of the team.

If anyone is curious where Ted is right now, he’s back in the Netherlands in the middle of the Elfstedentocht race, a relay that takes 24 hours. (Same course as the famous Dutch skating race.)

You can see his exact location on the live tracker here – Click on start then look for the Beatrix boat. There’s also a webcam here.

Thank goodness that’s over. What a stressmare.

On Wednesday I received the following email from one of the rowing coaches:
“Hello Paula

I have been announced by the government that all the boats have to
move away this week or they will move by themselves, because of
dragonboat festival.They will put it back after that.”

(He meant the city government would move the boats themselves. We have not yet achieved self-propelled rowing shells, unfortunately.)

Now, this is progress, because any of the other times the boats have been moved we were not informed in advance. However, this year we’ve met Henry, another local rowing coach (from a school) who is both very nice and speaks good English, so he was being kind to send this notice along. However, every time the government has moved our boat they’ve come back with new dents and dings – the last time, Ted’s Empacher needed repairs to be even rowable.

My boat was not a problem; One of Henry’s kids borrowed it and scratched the paint, so he’s taking it to an automotive place to get the scratches repainted. He’ll just leave it there during the festival. Also, as an open water boat it’s sturdy as rowing shells go and has an excellent cover that completely surrounds the boat. Ted’s Empacher prima donna, though, is more fragile and has a sucky cover that leaves the top deck exposed. (Boats are usually stored upside down.) Ted reallyreally didn’t want the government to hurt it again.

Ted, may I point out, is also in the Netherlands racing the Elfstedentocht this weekend.

Moving the boats would have been no big deal in AZ, where we had a good rack, a Hummer to mount it to, and a big back yard, though. Here, though, my assets included a rack we’d never used, an SUV wth built in rack whose bars are way too close together to support a 27′ boat well and which are too wide to fit the U-bolts that came with the boat rack, and no yard. There is no way a truck with boat on top could get through the snail-spiral entrance to our apartment garage – I probably couldn’t even carry it down – and nowhere really to put it in the garage. However, I did have one other asset: lots of people willing to help.

I panicked a bit and was tempted to let the government deal with it because no other options seemed really feasible, but Ted was very worried about his boat. Fortunately he has one guy in his group who is both very handy and very familiar with our logistics and warehouse facility, and they’d talked about possible boat moving an storage options. Further, I have to meet a few people in my group at our office this weekend, to give them a ride to a group barbeque, so I’d have extra hands to help unload the boat. I talked to one who agred to help, and later asked another about the legalities of driving with something sticking out over both ends of the car. (He googled around a bit, but didn’t find much.)

Just when it was beginning to look somewhat possible, it turned out that when the Taipei city government said to move the boats this week, they meant THIS WEEK, as in before the weekend. Henry found out Tuesday and the boats were originally supposed to be moved Wednesday (apparently they told his school and the school didn’t tell him). The boats hadn’t been moved by the time Henry left the river Wednesday (he told me in subsequent emails), so he thought they’d actually be moved on Friday.

So now I had one day to get the rack assembled and mounted and the boat moved. Also, it’s really not easy to get a boat on a cartop single-handed; when you’re my size it’s not really possible without the risk of a few more scratches.

That’s where the people asset came in. The guy in Ted’s group, R, took me to talk to the logistics people who own the warehouse. The manager suggested a place for the boat had someone in her group email me the proper “Non-Inventory Storage Form”. (Are you counting? That’s six people helping so far.) R spent a lot of effort (and scrounged a few parts), figuring out how to mount the rack on the car (it had come missing a few bolts – apparently the Chinese (China-Chinese, not Taiwan) company I bought it from concentrates their quality control on the actual boats,
which at least is the right priority). He went off and got things ready, then we spent a sweaty hour or so assembling and mounting the rack. I left work early – with my boss’s permission since we don’t have flex-time here (Seven people) – and drove to where the boats were stored by the river, listening for creaks and watching for motion in the rack.

I was pretty nervous by then, knowing that the trickiest bit of driving would be getting from the river to my apartment – narrow roads, lots of turns, rush hour. On the way home, though, I saw one of the most vivid rainbows I’ve ever seen, and about the first one I’ve seen here. When I first saw it, it ended spectacularly right at the Taipei 101 building. That made me feel a lot better – whether you view rainbows from a purely religious viewpoint (a promise from God that everything will be all right) or a purely secular one (a reminder that there are wonders in this world) they are calming.

The rowing coach (I already counted him) met me there and helped put the boat on the rack, clearly as much of a veteran at this as I am. He showed me a way out of the park that didn’t involve crossing three lanes of traffic and making a U-turn, and followed me home to watch the back end of the boat nad keep anyone from getting too close. We got there to find part of the street closed but fortunately not until after my building. I parked on the street in a spot that’s legal after 8. It was only 6 PM but it’s a tiny steet and the building guard (eight) was there to watch. Henry explained the boat thing to him, and then left.

After all that I erged, so I could get up early and not have to do it this morning. I was on the road before 6:30 – not only less traffic but fewer cops. I parked in back of the office, diagonally across a few spots that are usually empty, then worked until people came in. No one in my group had seen either a rowing shell or the warehouse area, so five people came with me to get the warehouse people (who only speak Chinese) to open the door and help carry the boat in. (Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen – fourteen people helping, counting the warehouse guy.) We got the boat in and the rack dismounted, I returned a wrench I’d borrowed from R, and got back to my desk – just in time to wash my hands, get a drink, and go teach a class to some of Ted’s people. (Never marry a manager, they make you work. Remember that this was not my boat.)

I’m sure this was all tiring to read. You can imagine what it was like to live. Now at least it’s all done for a few weeks – after that we’ll load up both boats and take them out to store in the boathouse at Ilan. It’s an hour’s drive away but there’s a boathouse and a real dock so at least we’ll get on the water sometimes. At least there will be two of us for that operation; somehow this stuff always happens when Ted is away.

Last weekend was an expensive but rewarding one. We’d taken Friday off (we have to use up some vacation time as a corporate cost-cutting measure) so that day we had our little “Seder” dinner.
Ted had decided to try out custom tailoring, so on Saturday we got to go pick up the suit and pants he’d ordered.

AFter that we walked over from the tailoring street to the camera street (stores tend to cluster here) where I picked up the macro lens I had been wanting. Here’s a sample of what it can do, with some of my labradorite beads:

On Sunday we went out to the Taiwan Traditional Arts Center. Ted had been wanting a stone tea tray; we saw some we liked in the local mall, but wanted to see if we could find a few different ones to look at. I thought the Arts Center might have them and he’d never been there (I went on a company outing when he was out of town). We did find one, and then the shop’s owner took us upstairs and served us some twenty-year-old Pu-er tea. This had its own special ceremony; first the tea had to be roasted (in the gourd-shaped roaster you can see on the table) to get rid of any mold or off flavors. From there it was the usual ceremony. First boiling water is poured into and swished around the cups to clean them. This is why you need a tea tray, for any spills – sometimes the water is poured all over the cups and teapot, so the tray has a vent that goes weither to a tray beneath or through a tube into a bucket. Hot water may be poured into the teapot or over it, to warm it. Then the tiny teapot is filled with tea leaves, then with water. The first potful is poured out (more getting rid of any icky stuff). Then the second potful is made; it steeps only 30 seconds or so, and you pour it into another container so it doesn’t get any stronger. You fill the cups from that. From then there are several rounds; fill the pot, pour into the decanter, fill the cups, drink. The pu-er tea had a strong earthy taste, almost like bark. We bought the tray Ted liked and got a small pot to go with it, though now we also need a Yixing (traditional red clay) teapot if we want to make Oolong properly, because of course we really needed more tea cups to add to the ones from my grandmother, the ones from Rudder’s great-grandmother, the ones from our good china, the ones from his grandparents’ extra china set that they gave us, and the set we bought in Seoul.

We also got recruited to paddle in the Dutch community’s dragon boat this year – apparently too many Dutch people will be out of town that weekend, so we’re ringers. Last year not enough people showed up at the midweek 6AM practices (actually I think this year’s captain was one of those) so the team captain has decided that well-attended dry-land practices are better than half a team or less on the water. So they are holding practice on Wednesday nights at a local bar, using broomsticks for paddles – sorry this picture is blurry, but it’s the only one that really shows what’s going on:

The bar is very happy about it, because not only do they get all these people in, but now they have very clean floors.

Meanwhile, the dragonboats won’t be on the water until May, so it will be dry-land practice only until then. However, they’ve already put the docks in, so we actually got to take our boats out this morning for the first time in months – yay! Blisters’r'us.

This weekend’s regatta was not one of our most enjoyable, actually. The weather was a large part of that; both Saturday and Sunday were glorious fall days … for sailing. Or possibly flying kites; there were lots out there in the park. They were not, however good days for rowing. The first half of each day was worst; there were tailwinds, but the tide was flowing the other way, which both made it hard to row into and created some really big waves.

The race turned out not to be for juniors, as we’d been informed, but for anyone 16 and up, which explains why it was such a big one. Apparently there were also some monetary prizes for top finishers (!). It was set up pretty much like the Olympics; race winners go to finals, second place to semifinals, other finishers to repechages. Basically, everyone ends up in the finals somewhere; there were four lanes, so if there were sixteen entrants, there were A, B, C and D finals.

The first unpleasant surprise was to find that Ted’s Empacher has been damaged to an extent that may not be fixable, with lots of dents and breaks in its honeycomb skin. (They take the boats away to protect them during typhoons; while we appreciate that they include ours too, the movers are apparently not people who know how to handle boats; it seems like they sustain nearly as much damage in the moving as they would in the typhoon. He decided to race it in anyway, but not wanting to put any more stress on the cracks, I opted to borrow a boat.

I stayed pretty much with the pack to the halfway point, but by then I had so much water inthe boat that I could feel it sloshing back and forth, and I think there was more water in the supposedly sealed compartments, because the boat weighed a ton. I don’t know if the other two rowers in my heat had less water in their boats or were just better in rough conditions, but from there they steadily pulled away from me. Ted fared better, but not much; he’s still getting over the cold or whatever that had kept him in bed and dozing most of last weekend (you all know his usual energy level, so you know that really means it hit him hard!). He came in third in his heat, with even more water in his boat – apparently it was up to his seat.

Some of the friends I’d made at the last race in Ilan were there, and this time one of them, Cary, was rowing in a pair with a very good Taiwanese rower, so we hung out and cheered them on. Unfortunately, because the races were a bit late due to the conditions, I didn’t know when I was supposed to race next and was startled to be told I was supposed to get out there right now! At that point I made a command decision; conditions were still terrible, I wasn’t ready, and I decided to opt out of the repechage and thus the rest of the races. That gave Ted some notice that his was coming up, so he was able to be prepared; the gap before his race meant that the tide had turned and conditions weren’t quite so terrible. This time he came in with much less water in the boat, and with a time of about 8:16 – not bad for 2000m, especially in still-rough water and still with the remnants of a cold, and two full minutes better than his time in the morning, which illustrates how bad those conditions were.

We were hoping he wouldn’t have to race the next day – and Cary was told he wouldn’t – but at that point we had the system explained to us and found out Ted would have to race after all. At least he was better off than Cary, who only found out via text message late on Saturday night! Fortunately the races didn’t start until noon, so we met Cary and his girlfriend Lee downtown, for an excellent dinner at a newly-opened Gordon Biersch brewpub here. I’ve always liked their food, but both the menu selection and the beer was better than I remember from the one in Tempe.

On Sunday, the conditions were even worse, and we were told Ted would have to race twice more, in semis and finals. The wind and waves were so bad that a regatta in the US would undoubtedly have been canceled, or at least had the small boats moved to late afternoon when the tide had turned. We saw at least four boats having to be towed in without their rowers; either they’d flipped or they’d filled up and swamped. Boats were having gallons of water emptied out when they returned to dock. In those conditions, after Ted’s first race, the cracks in his boat did give up and let some water in; we were able to get some emptied out of the vents, but we could hear more in there. Out of frustration and in fear of damaging the Empacher any more, Ted decided to row his final in my boat. The boat I have here is not made for speed, but it is made to handle rougher conditions; it has higher sides and a cockpit designed to self-bail. (Also a compass, but conditions weren’t quite bad enough to require that!) He said later that it was the most enjoyable race of his four this weekend, because it was the only time he could really row instead of just trying to survive. He came in last, what with the extra 10 lbs of boat, but was able to stay close in the pack the whole way.

So all in all, not one of our favorite regattas. I do have to say that as in Ilan, everyone was very kind to us, helping us decipher the race schedule, loaning me a boat, even feeding us. (We wanted the familiar food of Gordon Biersch before the next day’s races, or else we could have had dinner bought for us at a nearby CHinese restaurant.) Also, though if I’d been safety coordinator I would have stopped Sunday’s races, I do have to say that they had lots and lots of safety boats, and their crews did an excellent job of staying alert for trouble. The race infrastructure was also very good, with an enormous and well-built dock and starting platform. (Now if they’d only leave the dock in so we could row on the weekends … but they won’t, we were told.)

Oh, yeah, and I fell in right at the start. I got all lined up at the starting platform, but while waiting for the others to get set up, I got blown off my line, couldn’t seem to correct, got blown against the starting platform, and ends up going in. Very embarassing, especially as they fished me out, put my boat in behind the platform, and then held the race until I could get around and set up again. I guess I keep blocking that particular memory of the weekend.

Oh well.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a such a good time coming in DFL. (For the record, one difference between last and Dead F***ing Last is this: if you are simply the final person to finish, you’re last. If you hear the the horn for the winner of the race just as you’re entering the final 250 meters – and the others are reasonably close behind her, you’re DFL). But hey, considering I was racing against women 20 years younger who are training at the collegiate level, that I was racing 2000 meters when I’m used to 1km sprint races, and that I’ve been on the water exactly twice in the last three months, that’s OK. And oh yeah, I think this was their national championship or at least a national-level race.

Most importantly, I felt that I was rowing as hard and as strong in the end as in the beginning; there was never a time when I said “Oh, the hell with this, it doesn’t matter and it won’t hurt anyone else, I’ll just row a few light strokes to rest a little.” I kept faith with myself.

My body is tired, I’ve soloed the longest distance that I’ve driven so far in Taiwan, I’m pretty sure I’ll be sore tomorrow and there’s a little sunburn where I sweated off some of my sunscreen. I feel great. I’ve got Sandy Denny playing on Youtube, a bunch of good books to read, and soon I’ll go make some tea and popcorn. Really, the only way things could be better would be if Ted were here, but that will fix itself in less than a week.

Also, he drive was pretty easy and the weather not too obnoxiously hot, and best of all I met three possible new English-speaking friends: a Taiwanese grad student rower-coach (who I think can help us get on the water at the site where the race was) , an American rower who hasn’t been on the water here and wants to get back into it, and his Malay girlfriend who speaks a very Americanized English. I think the latter two are somewhere in our age bracket with similar sorts of job responsibilities; the Taiwanese woman lives in the town where we work and seemed excited at the idea of rowing with us. I’d love to get in a double with her sometime.

(A little later: I was wrong about “the only way things could get any better”: someone was just setting off some pretty good fireworks over by the river, just where I could see them from here.)