OLYMPICS - The agony of defeat

The competition started at 1:00 PM this afternoon. First up was the synchronized swimming. Our team consisted of five men (including brother Dick and Dave Bender.) Inasmuch as our banner reads “SEA SALTS a comedic relief team” you can understand why we picked them to represent us in swimming. They wore life jackets and decorated shower caps along with a towel cape with the letter S on them. Prior to getting into the water they removed their shorts and their swim suits were underneath with the exception of 86 year old Boyd who went with the tidy whitey look. Unfortunately this great team was disqualified as they went over their allotted four minute performance time, otherwise they would have been a shoo in for the gold!

Then it was on to the tug of war with another five old ladies carrying their canes as our representatives. We were sure they would intimidate the opposition but we were faced with the Lunacy Team comprised of staff and their families (some with young children) and they pulled our girls right over!

Some other categories were wheel barrel racing, three legged race, crab soccer, dodge ball, basketball and volleyball.

I participated in the build a structure of cards competition and failed miserably. My next endeavor was the spoon and ping pong ball relay. There was a team of six of us and we were eliminated in the first round!

There was a trivia competition and finally our team was in the lead with 29,000 points and it was down to the last question, when they throw in the option of betting on this last question. So with much confidence we bet it all!! The question was what TV show had a family living on a certain street in Brooklyn? Our answer the Bunkers! Wrong - we were the only ones betting and the others did not know the correct answer either so they won because they did not bet! And the answer was the Huxtables.

The last competition was dressing our leader in a costume from a slip of paper pulled from a hat. Our paper was 80’s theme. We chose to dress our leader Barbara as an 80 year old women from the 80’s. The other teams had a clown, an American tourist, a superhero, a cowboy, a pirate, Lady GaGa and a few other that I could not figure out what they were. They all came up with some clever costumes and the winner was the pirate.

The closing ceremonies were rather anti-climatic after the opening spectacle. They announced the winners and it was over. The Red Sea had the most points and took first place, which means they will be the first group to leave the ship when we dock in San Diego on April 24th.