Notable results from yesterday:

• Ottawa Regiment 800m
• Jeremy Tuck – 3rd
• Jon Underwood – 4th

Half of the team had a leisurely start to the day with their first shoot not until half past 11. The rest of the team had a bright early morning to get to the range before 7. Steph was particularly pleased to discover, upon her arrival, that the most recent team shopping trip had managed to locate Marmite.

After having breakfast and enjoying a nice relaxing start to the morning, Chris Hockley realised that he had forgotten his rifle and subsequently sped back to the hotel to retrieve it. In the meantime, the Captain went to start preparing his rifle, opened the bag and realised that it wasn’t his. A second return trip to the hotel was narrowly avoided by the return (23 minutes after departure) of Chris Hockley, having retrieved not his, but Fitz’s rifle from the hotel. Somehow they had taken the wrong rifles out of the van the night before and claimed each as their own. They blame each other.

The morning’s shoot was the Gooderham at 900m and the team as a whole did fairly well. Continuing the theme of yesterday, however, Dom managed to cross shoot again, this time onto Steph’s target. He has since enlisted the help of Gary Alexander, the team optician, to examine his eyesight.

Lunch was a relaxed affair, with another multi-hour gap between shoots. Some of the team took the opportunity to pack a few sandwiches into their kit bags, and drive off to a charming picnic spot beside the lake.

The weather got warmer throughout the afternoon, with only a brief period of cloud cover. This was much appreciated by some, but for those of us shooting at the time it meant any hint of mirage disappeared. Combined with the heavy flags, it left us barely able to read the wind, and caused a few dropped points. The unlucky ones consoled themselves that these shoots were all pre-grand, and wouldn’t count towards the main aggregate competition.

For the last shoot of the day, the Army and Navy Veterans match, Dom was very pleased to finally put all of his shots on just one target, and did so in style with a 75.11. (and winning the match – Ed) Close behind was John Deane, with a 75.10 (Second place! – Ed).

Post-shooting there was time for a quick shower and change before a meet and greet on the range hosted by the DCRA. It was a fairly civilised affair even with the red beer cups making it seem as though we were in some American teen party from ‘one of those films’. Dinner itself was an interesting combination of roast meat with pasta, salad and topped off with a healthy dose of gravy. Des Vamplew gave a welcoming speech to the touring teams, and announced that the allocations for the Junior/Senior pairs were available.

After dinner, the team went to find their respective junior partners and introduce themselves. There was one very suspect pairing of Dave Dyson and Mick Silver, with Mick being the junior…presumably by about 40 seconds.