We left Nanaimo on June 28th, had a good crossing, and anchored out in Gerrans bay, our old , trusted harbor.   David had asked us to join the Malaspina Regatta, there would be 23 boats, we would be no;24, and since it is the 14th year of the regatta, we felt this was a good omen.   Now remember, we never sailed in a race with Curtsy before, she is slow, heavy, full of living aboard stuff, so we felt we were very brave.      Bert was praying for wind, so was every one else in the harbor, and it started as a beautiful day, tiny breeze, all the boats gathered just outside the harbor, amazing, how no one touched or hit each other!!!!    The race was a large triangle, basically covering  the width of Malaspina strait, towards Texada island.     We did well….. but then the wind died, Bert put up the spinnaker, and i blew into it, we did move a bit, we werent last though, three boats behind us.    We then did round the first buoy, the boats ahead of us were out of sight, gone, no idea where they found THEIR wind, after the first buoy, a breeze came up, a 3.8 knots wind!!!   The minute we became very excited about this, it stopped, and we started drifting backwards!!! back towards the first buoy, which we passed again, but going backwards because of the tide!!!!!    well, a long story short, every one else , mostly, called in, and said they were going home, quite a few of the faster boats did round the second buoy, and one boat, a trimaran made it through the whole race!!!!        A barbeque was waiting for us all plus cold beer and wine, so we headed home. It was a great day,seeing old friends , and trying out an actual race.