Title:Zealous Zephyr Log, Race 2 : () : traveler of Rome: 7/29/2001,8:29:21< prev next >

After a good night rest at the Harpie's cage...HEY! WHO SNEAKED INTO THE LOG? HELENA? WHY, YOU....! -ahem- After a good night rest at the Harpie's cage we set sails again on the signal from MDidia's gang. Having won the first race, we felt really good, although we couldn't help the feeling that we had now had our share with luck. But this time we were actually prepared. Rhiannon found out that there excisted a race map, with obstacles plotted in. "Wow! This must be easy!" we thought. We soon found out that it wasn't….. Just as we left the harbour, we heard a strange noise from under deck. I went to check, and I found…(You're not going to believe this)…an ostrich! A huge, ugly ostrich! "What's this!" I cried. "Oh! That's an ostrich" Helena said. "She's called Ostia, and she's my pet. I brought her because I thought she would give us good luck" "Good luck?!? An ostrich?!?" Anyway, the ostrich was on board, and I couldn't do anything about it. As we approached the horrid symplegades, Rhiannon said: "I think I remember reading about these clashing rocks. They were passed by the Argonauts  They used a bird for passing the rocks. They sent a dove flying between them. When they saw the bird passing safely they waited till the rocks repositioned and then hurried through the same course. "Well, too bad we only have an orchid. As far as I know they can't fly!!" But the ostrich seemed to be a luck carrier after all, cause as we faced the rocks, a dove came flying above us and it flew straight past the rocks. Only its tail was hurt as they clashed together. So we took the chance and speeded on after the bird. The wind was blowing strong in our sail, but we barely made it; our ship's rear was slightly damaged. Terrified from the first obstacle we now had to pass the Charybdis. This shouldn't be very hard, because Scylla was not nearby. (She had probably gone home to Sicily to rest). Again I was wrong. For the Charybdis didn't rise thrice a day as usual. Somebody, the judges, I guess, had payed her off to raise ten times. So the time intervals in between were very short. But we used the shield, the basket, the mirror, the amphoras and the ostrich for extra sails (we tied them to the sides of the boat) and once again speeded through. Now the labyrinth really wasn't hard. Helena just suggested we laid out a string, like that guy in the myth did. "Well, how are you going to lay out a string in the water?" Rhiannon asked. "We'll make a floating anchor! Let's cork the empty olive oil amphora and tie one end of the string to that. It will float!" We did as Helena suggested, and it worked! We spent some time finding our way to the middle of the labyrinth, but after a while we found the bronze minotaur and followed the string back. Now there were the cyclopes. Now that was a hard one! We fired all our arrows at them, we threw everthing we had at them, we tried to blind them with the mirrors (until we discovered that there was no sun) and we tried to simply outsail them. Nothing worked. Rhiannon cried out in dispear: ”AAARGH, WE ARE DOOMED!! EVEN IF ULYSSES WAS HERE TO SAVE US!!!” Well, the Cyclops have never been good at understanding. They thought Ulysses was coming to save us! And they dissappeared!!! Can you believe it? Anyway, in our happiness we got drunk on the wine and sailed into port. (Spending maybe a little more time than if we were all sober…) - Maecenas, captain on the Zealous Zephyr, with HelenaDavisDidius and RhiannonDeveraux)