Vrijdag

Friday/Vrijdag

 

Last of the long days and surprise surprise 05:50 start, whoop! Like clockwork we got our morning meals sorted and back for prep. The start today was Interesting, again with a turn almost straight away, I got a much better start today and started to draft early on, then did a sprint to gain a few places and back to a good pace draft. The morning was finally in my favour with the wind on my back I made good use of my large frame sail. Today saw us tackle the first and only Lock on the whole tour that we had to deal with mid race (the rest stop was also one i believe) and we were introduced to Klunen, 5 of us came into the lock at the same time and so i realised i would have a few seconds to take on some water and gels before we set off again the other side to pushed on towards the rest stop. There was a section that was a long straight and fairly wide compared to previous days and this provided an epic down-winder with 6 of us in a row all plaining along at the same speed, a Mistral, 2 K-15’s, a fanatic fly race my ace pro and another board that escapes me at this moment in time. The morning kept going from strength to strength with a battle on my own pushing to catch the mistral/Von Orange guys from Spain/NL. I had spent some of the morning section with Ben Swails and we were catching the group in front until we hit a turn that put us directly into a head wind for atleast a mile or so, as Ben slowed i tried to claw us closer, i overtook and began to get low and dig deep to catch up the gap.  I managed to claw away from Ben and catch the pack and was with the Mistral board until he came a cropper on a shallow corner. I carried on the last few miles singing away to myself and generally making the most of it trying to catch Antonio and put a bit of distance between myself and Ben who came in with Mr Mistral at the rest post.

The afternoon started slow but I picked up following a fly race for 2 miles, he couldn’t quite catch Antonio in the distance so I said id give it ago and try and catch him for us, I sprinted off but the guy on the fly race found to too hard to follow the Ace pro with my paddle wash. I eventually caught Antonio and drafted him for a good 6 miles or so before Ben and the fly race caught up. We all Paddled as a group towards the end but when we hit the outskirts of the city (Dokkum) we past under a bridge and someone shouted 5km to go, Ben found a second wind and burst into a sprint, I dug deep to follow and was praying for the end to be in sight to give it my all for the last section. We rounded a corner and I saw yellow to one side, thinking it was the finish line buoy I put the hammer down only to see it was a little yellow boat!!! After 1km the buoys were in sight but I couldn’t quite pip Ben over the line, he finished 3 seconds ahead of me.

There is a good vibe around the camp at the moment as everyone is glad tomorrow is the last day and much shorter. I had a good massage although I wasn’t in much pain, afterwards I went over to speak with Nynke about dan and she said he was due in at any moment so we walked over to the bridge by the finish line and waited for him to cheer him across the line. Ed, Dan and Ali all came through to great applause. Apparently Dan wasn’t feeling well at all at the rest post but again pulled through. We had a walk into the city to look around, I got a few trinklets to take back home and then it happened. Despite being told by Todd I wouldn’t be able to get any till around Christmas my nose found me what id been waiting for since I was last in Holland, I FOUND OLLIEBOLLEN WHOOOP WHOOOP!!!! After we got back Tiffany invited us all up on deck to have some bree and goats cheese, it was a cool chilled out evening and was a welcome change from the usual Pasta which no doubt was on the list for dinner again. At dinner ( yes it was more pasta ) Ali won the fastest female on tour, Coolbeanz an award for team GB which wasn’t bridge hitting. After dinner Dan, Tiffany, Ben, April and myself walked into town to meet up with Paul, Ali and her otherhalf. We saw roger in town, who didn’t beat me today muhahaha and also Erna in the ice cream shop. We went for some drinks and spoke some Frith en flopen fluffen and got some late night ice creams. Dokkum was a quaint little city and well lit at night. As we were walking back we passed some local old people singing what strangely sounded like Spiderman theme tune….. We headed back to the boat a little bit weirded out and went into the kitchen for a chat with everyone. It was refreshing to see how down to earth Bart ze Wart and Casper are despite being great athletes, the last day tomorrow and that beer will taste sweeeet!! I had pollished my board so i was bound to be even faster again the next day, it works, faster every day. 5 hours 18 minutes 28 seconds for me today, 23hrs 40 mins 26 seconds so far.