Halfway, baby! From Graeme

Wow, what a day.  Spent the night doing terrifying drops off of large waves in the pitch blackness of a cloudy, squally night with winds 25-35 knots.  Definitely some hero driving, Alex being the real hero of the day.  He put together three straight hours of surfs, cliff jumps, and non-stop acts of boat preservation.  Al and I got the rest of it done until it got light, but the whole crew battled the night through trimming and grinding frantically just to keep the boat from rounding up or rolling down as we flew through the darkness.  We were exhausted by the time the sun finally showed up.  But we were past the halfway point, and still in first place.  Matt then served up smoked salmon benedict and we opened the half way boxes.  A civilized ending to an otherwise brutal night. And what fun were they!  We played the wonderful CD prepared by Talia and Savai (and sung beautifully, it brought a tear to my eye!)  We fired off the poppers and the Canadian breath spray.  We admired the bacon salt, hung the aloha sign, the Hafway Kotuku picture with the smiling sun, and the Coconut air freshener in the head.  Then we ate the smoked herring, read our mail (Emily isn't sure what to do about the utility bill!) and generally had a great party which I later bragged about on the radio to the fleet during the evening check-in.  The image of Emily driving with the white boa streaming behind her in 25 knots of breeze will stick with me awhile.  Thank you so much friends and family for all the thoughtful gifts!  Not sure what do do with the reindeer, but we taped it to the steering pedestal with the Smile bracelet around its neck.  On Dasher, to Kaneohe!