NOHUHU, I read this whole thread last night, and my hat's off to you for the great reports. I was following the race on the watertribe forum, facebook, and a couple of other forums and decided not to even look here until it was over, lest I get sucked into one more. I certainly would have.
Here is my annual pre-start walk along the beach. It took 8 minutes just to walk down the starting line and point my camera at almost all of the boats!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_BziSJfKPIAnd here is the start of the race.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CirZJTjMyoMKeith, I think you make a brief appearance in one of those, but I did not recognize you and I was bundled up like an Eskimo so it's no surprise you did not notice me.
I went to checkpoint one that afternoon and sailed in the channel outside the marina, getting pictures of Sew Sew, Lugan & Heathen, and JustAnotherSailor as they came in before I got too cold and tired and went home for hot chocolate and a fire. I returned the next morning and took a bunch of pictures of departures and later arrivals. I am going to put the pics on my blog site.
My favorite boat this time around was "Bob" which is a heavily modified O'day Javelin with an extremely strange rig and an ama. He did the UM and I caught his arrival on Sunday. Nice guy, won the weirdest boat award from me, and did not appreciate being compared to Phil Bolger. I meant it as a compliment!