Tuesday 4^th December

Yes another accolade!

This time it is Chris Harmsen, Pete’s* and my younger brother, sailor par excellence.  The weekend before last he was inducted into the Yachting Tasmania Hall of Fame at the Sandy Bay Yacht Club. 

If I were to write a list of Chris’s achievements in the sporting world I would need many MANY pages… He has won trophies and accolades, especially in sailing, since he was eleven.  At this tender age he won, I think a junior cadet championship and had to go to Peru for an international event.  Oh good, he said cheerily, I always wanted to go to Africa!

We are all very proud of him and look forward to seeing him (and the rest of the crew…) powering into Hobart on Wild Oats 11 not many hours after the start of the Sydney-Hobart race this year.

*Pete Harmsen not Pete Headlam…one is my brother, the other is NOT.

India #35

Pete and I were very brave, swimming in the Arabian Sea.  I think he would have been quite happy confining himself to the pool, but I was all gung-ho.  In Colva we had gone down to the beach and had tried to dip into the sea, only to have tempestuous waves swirling around our ankles and threatening to pull us out and under.  We walked along the edge of the sea in our bathers.  Now my bathers are VERY modest.  Shorts and a tank-top.  By Australian standards, virtually a SHROUD.  Also, remember, I was 56!  (57 a few days later but who’s counting…)  Some young men were posing for photos on the waters edge so I said to Pete, “Quick, we’re in the way, let’s move.”  He sighed deeply and said, “I think you will find that they are taking photos of you.  White female flesh!  These photos will probably go onto the internet!” he added, helpfully.  And indeed they were!  (Taking photos, I mean, NOT putting them on the internet – or so I devoutly hope…)  The camera was pointing nowhere near the young man kneeling winningly at the edge of the waves!  I was horrified.  Then we looked up and all along the beach on the steeply sloping sand, there was a whole line-up of Indians, fully clothed from neck to knee, all staring avidly – at me!  A lovely woman in a yellow sari waved and smiled at me, and I waved back happily - human contact, not a sleazy man with a camera!  But oh no – there was her turbaned husband stepping out from behind her to take a photo of me waving!  I had been set up.  “Let’s go straight back to Colmar Beach Resort and the pool!” I said, trying to move as swiftly and inconspicuously away from my unwanted audience. 

At Baga Beach I thought we could try swimming in the sea again.  We thought it might be calmer a bit further down the beach, where a small river ran into the sea.  This time I was prepared, and as well as my bathers I wore a sarong wrapped excessively modestly from neck to ankle.  I was a bit less of a target for cameraboys this way.  We got down to the end of the beach where we had fondly imagined the water would be calmer, to find that - it wasn’t.  But there were others in, leaping in the waves, not swimming – swimming is impossible in such turbulent water.  So we jumped around a bit too, all very pleasant, the sea was warm but refreshing.  I was very amused to see the others in the water – all young men, some in bathers, some in Y-fronts – not such a good look.  A few teenage girls got in to frolic with the boys, all shrieking and giggling.  They behaved exactly the same way as teenage girls would in similar circumstances in Australia, but these girls were all fully dressed.  I mean FULLY!  Two were wearing complicated saris, and one was in thick jeans with a long-sleeved red skivvy!

We got a bit tired of leaping and trying not to get sucked out to sea so we got out of the water and it started pouring.  Absolutely bucketing, full monsoon.  We were wetter than wet.  So strange; in Tasmania this would mean cold cold cold as well as wet wet wet, but we weren’t cold at all, we were just drenched and in danger of drowning in the heavy rain!