The fact that I'm still listed on jibeset as entered in the race confuses me to no end. I requested that my registration be withdrawn weeks ago. I announced on the forum that I was going to have to withdraw, weeks ago. Finally I e-mailed the race chairman about it, about three weeks ago, and heard back. Yet I'm still listed on jibeset.
It's not a huge old deal but it's a symptom of why I got so stressed and so upset that my blood pressure skyrocketed to the point where I was seeing numbers like 171/94... where I was so stressed and upset that I was having difficulty breathing and couldn't get to sleep for a couple of hours after going to bed. So stressed that I was having dizzy spells multiple times a day. In fact, before I withdrew I DID have a haulout scheduled for the current week, in which I was going to install the through-hull transducer for the *I assumed would be required* depth sounder. That work would be done, now, and the Wildcat would be back in the water at the Berkeley Marine Center in time for this coming weekends race. I haven't checked the SER's. Is the knotmeter now required to be "Permanently installed" too? I was going to use a knotstick, the manual towed knotmeter for my "knotmeter". Maybe I couldn't do that now? If not, then I'd have to pay for ANOTHER haulout in order to install it.
All the skippers meetings and seminars are via zoom. That's nobody's "fault", it's just how it has to be, but the SHTP's that I remember and loved revolved around a community of sailors, friends and family. The cold hard truth would have been that aside from a couple of the sailors that I already knew, we'd all get to the Start and would have only met each other the day before at the in-person skippers meeting IF...IF.... the RYC even lets us have one. This is not the SHTP community/event that I wanted to be a part of, one more time. It's nobody's ~FAULT~...COVID has messed up everything.
Will we be able to anchor for more than 3 days in Hanalei Bay? Don't know. Will I have to have Hawaii insurance before I leave? Don't know. Will Joan, fully vaccinated, still have to quarantine for X number of days when she gets to Kauai? Don't know....and as of a month ago, Joan was saying "I don't think I'll go to Kauai, this time.". We'll probably know the answer to those things as the start gets closer, but then it's all that more of a panic to get even more things done at the last minute.
A month and a little more, ago...in the middle of what was "just" stress, with dizzy spells and insane blood pressure numbers, scared that I was going to go out into the middle of the Pacific and have an aneurism, I looked at how this race was developing. I looked at the budget and realized that sure, I'd spend almost $5K so far, I'd worked my butt off, but there was another $7K to spend before the gun went off, and that didn't include flights, hotels, meals in Kauai and so on. Despite all my preparation, it was going to be a huge rush, and the reality was that even so, it was entirely possible that the whole thing would be cancelled.....And Joan wasn't even going to go!
So I made the decision that made sense to me. My worst blood pressure spikes dropped 10 points in three days. A week later, the dizzy spells stopped, except for after I take a hot shower. My blood pressure is down to a 5-day average of 141/78 and the current 5-day averaging period might be lower than that and back to normal. I'm sleeping, I'm breathing. I did the right thing.
But why on earth I am still listed on the Jibeset site, I can't fathom. Six weeks ago I would have gotten really upset about it. Now? Whatever. Not my problem any more.
