In Pursuit of the Hooley Male

We set off for Furadouro in torrential rain, a proper Porto monsoon, which continued until we had parked and remained in the cars for a minute or so, decidedly reluctant to venture out.  Once it stopped, though, it remained clear until we were in the restaurant, most conveniently.
 
This was, of course, a pursuit hash, hared by Master Baker and Mark Hooley.  They set off five minnutes before us and headed through the town.  It was easy to follow them at first, but we contrived to miss the fourth or fifth checkpoint and delayed ourselves for a good five minutes, thereby pretty well ensuring that they would not be caught. 

There was a good deal of running to be done as we wound round the town and its sandy wooded margins and we were quite a stretched line of hashers in the second half.  As we headed into the woods, Snorter was the surprising back marker.  He loped along, occasionally coming into view if you were hanging back to look for him (which, to be fair, nobody was, except me; Big Stick's claim that he was at the back simply in order to wait for Snorter should be taken with a healthy dose of salt).  Once in sight, he would raise an arm and give a limp wave in the manner of a legionairre in the desert saying go on without me, I'll just slow you down.  So we did. 

Somehow, though, he caught us up, probably helped by the inevitable slowness of some of the checking - a pursuit hash can be like that unless someone gets on a lucky roll or really snifs out the direction.  That did eventually happen, with Pimp My Dongle finding the route so successfully that most of the hashers did not experience another checkpoint for the final half hour or so.  Perhaps that explains why two thirds chose to shortcut the ending.  No, I think that it was more in line with Snorter's sentiment beside a sign taking us away from home near the end:  F*** that, I'm going this way.

At down downs, Miguel Mendes was named Cock Plucker, in reference to a hobby he is known to have, then it was off to the bash at a seafront cafe.  It was a good hash, quite demanding, especially on the sand of the forest, but we have yet to catch a hare on a pusuit hash.

On, on.