It's off to the boat races at Lake Poli today! Raguna tries to get his chores done as quickly as possible so that he can participate. Caring for his own field and the crops he's grown underground takes him all of two hours to complete, and he spends an extra hour looking around town to see who all is going. Eunice, Selphy and Uzuki have declined to participate. Other likely candidates sucha s Mist, Rosetta and Cinnamon are nowhere to be found...probably with other business to attend to, no doubt.
Down at the lake, Anette, Lara, Ganesha, Danny, Erik and Sister Stella are ready to get the festivities started. Ganesha explains the rules of the Boat Cup to our hero. The idea is to gather balloons and hearts to score as many points as possible within one minute. Blue balloons are worth one points, yellows worth five, and hearts worth ten (plus a speed boost if you've got a riding partner) The winner will receive some sort of prize that would be good for impressing girls. If the winner is a girl, then, uh...who knows?
Before the competition can begin, Turner stumbles drunkenly onto the field, wanting to race with Raguna, because he doesn't want to see him row alone. Rita eventually catches up to Turner and puts him in his place to allow the young'uns to enjoy their competition.
When Raguna's turn comes up, he finds that rowing the boat is easy for him, but keeping it in line with the trails of balloons and hearts isn't so simple (especially going south, since the camera stays at a fixed angle all the time). He tries to focus mainly on the yellow balloons and the hearts, which are plentiful on the middle path from the starting point. Just as he's starting to get the hang of it, his time runs out, but he still pulls off a good enough performance to finish second with 95 points. He beats out Erik, who scored 87, but they both lose big time to mail girl Anette, who scored a whopping 395 points (is that even possible?!). As a consolation prize, Raguna receives a surgical Mask, which offers slightly better protection than his Katusha, and looks only slightly less ridiculous on him. Better luck next year...again...
