Wrapping up, and just getting started

Bam! Just like that, our six weeks in sunny and warm South Carolina are nearly over. On a calm morning, rowing here offers the best of both worlds: a fully buoyed race course for pieces and seemingly endless water in four directions for adventure rows. That’s been the trend: calm-ish mornings and breezy afternoons, good for a little of everything. The winds don’t always cooperate, as we’ve had our fair share of whitecaps and direct crosswinds. Less fun, for sure, but valuable nonetheless.

This weekend we’ll be part of the workforce for the Clemson Invite, one of the few regattas that with which we’ve helped in exchange for the phenomenal hospitality from the Clemson rowing team and weight room staff. This doesn’t seem like enough to thank everyone, so we’ve supplemented with some Green Mountain Coffee, VT Maple Syrup, a little dinner party (burger night!), and GRP gear. Then Monday it’s back north to Princeton to set up shop for NSR I.

I’ve been taking some small-plane flying lessons here, which has been a cool diversion and parallels small-boat rowing in lots of ways. Complete focus, attention to detail, acting with conviction, mutual loathing of crosswinds, and a good mix of adrenaline and fun. Today I went up and flew a vintage 1942 Stearman biplane, one of the Navy’s first trainer planes for WWII. It’s an open-cockpit that can be flown from either seat, so I took my camera up and snapped some pictures while my instructor took the controls.

From bottom left, the boathouse and the second 1000. From middle left, half of the football stadium and lots of South Carolina.

Through the wing, the long straight stretch of water is the buoyed course in its entirety. Stake boats on left, finish line in front of the boathouse on the right. Looking west.