I Found It!

News at Eleven!

Er... Make that 5 O'clock somewhere!


Thanks to Carol Anne for her post,

Serendipity Shopping:
Luck + Creativity = Success

Her account takes me back decades to my Laser days. I don't know why I found myself in an inland sporting good store. Was it a Big-5? Anyway, I saw this inconspicuous digital watch, Casio-like, in a locked case. The salesperson told me he didn't know what it was for and that he would sell it to me for whatever I thought it was worth. A nano-second's examination informed me that it was a count-downing yacht-timer. I snatched it up for $20! Over the years it has stood me in good stead, out-performing and outlasting multiple-function watches priced in $100's, gifted to me by friends and family.

Once, at a two-day regatta when I was racing Shields in Newport Beach, I was sure I had lost it overboard when its band separated. But on the morning of the second day, I found it a few inches from the edge of the deck: apparently it had fallen out of the sail cover! I attached its remaining band to a lanyard with duct tape and I've had it ever since. It's perfect: no bells n' whistles. It just recycles 5-minute countdowns, endlessly. (Actually, it does beep, but only my crew hears it now!)

Until the last ten days it has been with me. I have misplaced it. Without it last night, uncertain of the seconds before the start, I fouled two boats. I'm thinking/hoping that little green noisy thingy is stuck in some pocket. Annoyed by repetitive beeping, my crew is not entirely above suspicion: any one of them, seeing it on the edge of the deck as I did 15 years ago, could have given it a nudge without looking over their shoulder!