24th June 2008 - The Final Day
Bali Hai
Neal Stow
Tue 24 Jun 2008 05:17
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The final day of the Rally dawned in pretty much
the same manner as many as the others. I, having taken the sensible option
of going to bed early, was up at dawn doing my Swedish exercises. Whereas
the boys, who had crawled into bed in the early hours, emerged bleary eyed
looking like death. I gather that dinner in a local Chinese
restaurant had turned into an impromptu dance party. Although from the
photographs I saw later Rob, clearly no John Travolta, appears to
be fast asleep while dancing with Jackie.
Also consistent with previous days, Andrew turns
fairly swiftly from groggy hung-over mode into a whirlwind of activity and sets
about cleaning the boat. Rob, again consistent with other days, is more of
a small puff of activity. He heads off to the shower block but makes it no
further than one of the marina restaurants on the way, where he meets the crew
of Vision and stops for coffee and croissant.
Eventually Rob returns and the cleaning begins in
earnest. It is a sterling job - washing down the teak, cleaning the hull
and the whitework, polishing the chrome, cleaning the windows and a full clean
down below including the galley and the heads. With only a short break for
lunch we were at it until six in the evening. An excellent job, I
only hope that future crews can match that effort. The only things that
were not cleaned were the brass instruments which had become pitted and the
metal polish did not work.
The Final Prize Winning Dinner was held in the
evening. A slightly grander event than the others, everyone was supposed
to be "dressed to impress" and so we donned our grass skirts and lays for the
last time. John even made an appearance, or rather a version of him did
(see the photos). In addition to the normal prizes (where we won the
Smiley Miley for the last leg - getting the distance spot on) every
boat was awarded a special prize - ours, based on activities
before and after the Rally was for the cleanest and most
polished boat!! Even better, we won a can of Duraglit, which has done
wonders for the brass work.
The party finished just after midnight. I, of
course, went to bed (after polishing the clock) whereas the boys headed into
town and did not return until four in the morning. This was a somewhat
dubious strategy, particularly on Rob's part, as the taxi to take them to the
airport was due to arrive at 7:30. As I write this at 7:15 Rob has just
woken up and he has not yet packed......
So the Rally is over. It has been
tremendous fun and I would highly recommend it to anyone contemplating sailing
from the UK to the Med or further as a great, sociable way to start their
trip. Many thanks to the World Cruising Club and Andrew and Kieran in
particular.
Although the Rally Portugal log is now coming to an
end, the Bali Hai log will continue on the MailASail website (where there are
also logs of several of the other boats on the Rally Portugal). So if
you want to follow the fortunes of Bali Hai - or just discover whether Rob made
it to the airport on time, that is where to look.
Neal
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