17 June 2001 Sunday, LIAN HE ZAO BAO (Chinese newspapers) featured my picture beach-starting and mentioned about the SEA Games. We've also had the PA Windsurfing C'ships over the weekends and it was very successfully organized. Personally, it was a wake-up call to my unpreparedness for the upcoming SEA Games as well as a reality-check. This race was almost like a mini SEA Games where Thailand, Malaysia & Singapore sailors raced. I had lost to a 15 year-old Thai girl while our top male sailor lost to a 12 year-old Thai boy. It was a wake-up call to Singapore windsurfing. Despite having trained in 20 knots wind for the last 2 mths and lost in touch with light wind pumping were excuses not good enough for me. We were also blunt from racing, our last race being last held in March. I was absolutely far from being near my peak, or even where I was in March. I just am not pumping-fit right now and I know how much I need to do to catch up. We are 83 days away from SEA Games and I cannot begin to explain how engrossed I am in this endeavour. I literally think, sleep, eat, breathe SEA Games...I'm very excited and I hope I can have an underdog's chance at the Gold medal.

31 May 2001, Thursday It was blowing up to 28 knots today!! Most of us were overpowered and I saw vertical figures on the water and they were not masts, but sailors uphauling. Aha!! I managed for about almost an hr until disaster fell. My sail was already flat, mast extension No. 6 and fully tight. Upwind was ok as I was trying hard to use my body weight to hold down the sail. I wasn’t powered up but I was moving. DW planning was another disaster as the power on the sail was tremendous. I could not hold it at all and kept getting hauled up into a catapult. It was literally ‘Bumps & Jumps’ the whole stretch. I guess I was one of the worst victims, having ripped my sail apart just below the boom in a Broadreach planning catapult. I fell hooked into the harness and as I pressed the boom down, the sudden pressure slit my sail left to right. It didn’t help that my 2 year-old sail was already crisp and torn in many places. Today was the day it had to go…I tried desperately to sail the long distance back to shore but sailing upwind to shore (off-shore wind) is no mean feat with a torn sail. The wind couldn’t catch any wind at all…finally I moved a little and started to wave my hand for assistance. Finally, the Zhejiang coach saw me, anchored a buoy and came over to help me. Express-derigging on the boat and we went off to rescue another Hainan girl in distress too. We then went back to shore. Coach was also back and he went out again to look for the boys. Both of them came back early, totally exhausted by the strong wind. I was not to think that I was gonna have holidays the next 2 days as Coach instructed me to use Andrew’s training sail while he will rig up his competition sail. 2 June 2001, Saturday I’ve heard that there has been storms in Singapore about once a week, a 20-knotter. We’ve had the Force 5s here too, about 5 times a week J…yesterday (1 June, Friday) we had 22-23 kts wind & today the 15-18 kts wind. Yesterday’s wind was ok…but I got too tired after 2 and a half hrs of training so I left for shore 20 mins earlier than the rest of them. Today e had no choice but to press on through the whole session because it is a centralized training (‘he lian’) with all the other provinces. Coach QH had specifically told us to persevere thru’ all the races. We had 4 races, a huge triangle-sausage course. We went out at 1:30 p.m. and came back at 5 p.m. Oh dear, all my strength spent!!! The waves were mast-high near the upwind mark. I didn’t sail well at all…I was ok only in the first race but punctured early. Sighz…the wind got stronger in the 3rd & 4th races, prob 18 to 20 kts. On the port tack, I was hooking on my toes to the foot-straps with all my might as the huge waves would always threaten to overturn your board and bear you down as you crash down. When going down a wave, I would put pressure on my feet, railing the board even more and close the gap so I can climb up every wave. The more you can carry out the actions over as many waves as you can will determine your board speed. Nearing the upwind mark, the waves were mast-high and always impossible to rail the board. In such cases, I will use my toes to press down the rail of the board to prevent flipping over. Loosen outhaul a little to gain speed to climb the waves. This is because when you are on the crest of the wave, there’s less wind and more wind when you are riding down the wave. I don’t want to lose any board speed at all. On the starboard tack, it’s disastrous as you are sailing at right angles to the waves. I got flipped over once and it’s totally painful to be wiped down by the huge waves. On the downwind legs, everyone is pumping in the 20 kts wind…where do they get so much bull-strength? QH said we probably won’t sail tomolo since it’s a Sunday but who knows…I don’t mind sailing since we have nothing to do. We will be packing up on Monday & then leave on Tuesday morning. Btw, we will definitely be bringing our equipment back to Singapore. Loads of stuff to carry again. I had a small adventure this evening. The boys & me went to eat Mutton & Beef steamboat. After a short but intense dinner with a live gas stove sitting on our table, we walked over to the internet shop but it was packed. Only Andrew had a PC but after waiting for half an hr and seeing the queue and feeling bored, I was the first to leave. I bought a pack of ‘gua zi’ (melon seeds) along the way and decided to take a 15-20 min stroll back. I would go to the BBQ stall to look for my fren. ¾-way to my hotel, a scooter passed me and it was that BBQ girl riding pillion. She shouted at me, stopped and she told me to hop on behind her. So I did, china-style, I was the 3rd passenger on the tiny scooter. Aha!! The guy riding the scooter sent us to the BBQ stall outside our ‘club’. I hung out there a while and business was pretty brisk, being a Saturday. As I dazed at the sea, she poked more chicken wings into sticks, with her bare hands. Ahem! I’ve never agreed to her kind offer of a treat even though she would always offer. Thank God!! They certainly don’t look clean to me…typical road-side stall hygiene is zilch! Aha! Then we got the wheels moving and shifted the stall to Mystify Island Hotel (beside ours). I don’t know why…maybe the tourists staying in the hotels would bring them more business. Then I got on the scooter to go ‘dou feng’ (sight-seeing) with them. They said they were going to this Dongzhou place…very fun. “Zhuo wen” (sit tight) & off we went…riding thru’ rocky roads etc…when we were halfway thru’ an empty patch of land, rather, sand, it started to drizzle. Oh dear!! Scooter woes…got rain no go..ahaha!! so we turned back and before we reached their stall, it was already raining. They had to ‘shou dang’ (close shop) and go home as a result of the rain. I went back to my hotel. So I’m sitting here watching TV, eating gua zi (melon seeds) and typing.