Friday, Saturday, Sunday..low wind and races

On Friday there wasn't much wind as you can see from the graph

But at the end of the day I did catch a shot of one kiter walking to his car.

I think the best thing about the day was catching the sun behind a cloud.

The next morning I got up early to see the start of the Catalina Water Ski race.

The race was suppose to start at 8 A.M. but because of the fog it was postponed.

The Coast Guard and the L.B. Lifeguards set up a command post on Cherry Ave. They were not going to start the race until they had at least a mile and a half visibility.

Finally at about 9:15 they let the boats and skiers line up at the start line.

The next step was for the skiers to put on their skis.

The starter finally shot off the red flare at 9:30 and off they went.

The race start is amazing because at 80 miles an hour all those boats are going to fit through the breakwater entrance.

The winner was Todd Haig from the USA who finished in a time of 51 minutes and 14.95 seconds. He was pulled by this 43 foot Nordic Racing boat driven by Randy Davis.

Sunday was another race, this time it was just the boats....no skiers. You can check out the race on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ad4MjeOxHY&feature=related. Unfortunately it didn't play very well on my computer.

I was positioned across from the Queen Mary and this is where the boats came out of the holding area and at 11 o'clock they were directed to the start area.

From my vantage point it looked like the boats lined up near Chaffee Island then raced along the beach, in front of the pier and then turned left around White Island and headed for the open ocean. The starting flare went off at about 11:30.

These two boats were the first past us as they headed for the breakwater opening.

The area was lined with a lot of spectators.

The first starter was the first to finish the race. The winner was #7 Mike DeFreese driving the CRC boat. They were over and back in 37 minutes.

The second place finisher was "Lick This" driven by Sean Moore. They were four minutes behind the winner.

I thought this shot was kind of cool since there was a helicopter flying overhead catching shots of the first and second place finishers.

Here is your winner Mike DeFrees taking a well deserved lap around the harbor.