Seems like things have been busy for me, I went to an award banquet on Thursday, and exhibition on Monday, and today (Tuesday) I spent the day volunteering for a surf ski competition. I volunteered a little bit late, so it wasn’t for sure that I was going to get the job that I wanted to do, which of course was be on a chase boat. A chase boat monitors the racers, zips around and just makes sure everything is going smoothly. When I got there this morning, I was told that I missed the safety briefing and it was doubtful that I would get to do it. Last week, Julia, a professor at school told me the guys name who I should contact was Gavin… so I was sitting there checking in the racers and I heard someone call out “Gavin” so that was my shot. I introduced myself and told him that I really wanted to be a safety monitor on the boats… so he told me to be down on the docks at 11:15 and if there was a free seat he’d set me up.

He was really nice about it, and when the time came, he told me to follow along with the others, and get in a boat. It was a nice little kodiak type of boat… which actually was a shuttle to a yacht. This boat was beautiful. It was about 50 feet long, two decks, and three bedrooms and bathrooms, and a staff of about 5. It was the boat rented to take the sponsors out to watch the race… kind of like have box seats at a football game. :)

So we get out to the end of the new palm island that they are building (about an hour cruise), where the racers are staging up, and some photographers that were documenting the race jump into one of the kodiak boats, so I try to jump in one, and Gavin tells me to get into the other one, that I am going to assist the head photographer for the race… sweet. :) Anyway, since the photographer is the main one, he’s given complete access to the race and the course, we zig-zag around the racers, and break rules just so we can get the next shot… it was a blast. About the only thing that isn’t so great is that I got sunburned. :) The link to the official race site is  www.dubaishamaal.com