So, where you from?

May 10 2006
Training Day

Now, I am really getting into the layed back culture of Victoria. Not only is the scenery great here, but not many people look stressed out. This morning we walked around downtown Victoria and along the Inner Harbour. The Clippers are in Victoria right now and we spent a good chunk of time checking them out. The Clippers are 10 identical boats owned by Sir Robert Knox-Johnson that race around the world, stopping for a week or so at 10 Cities (Each boat is named after each City that the race stops at). The picture shown is the Victoria boat. There are people that pay $5000 to sail a leg of the race, crazy eh?

After Lunch we went back to CFSA, and when we got there we met 2 guys from Slovenia who were busy working on their boat getting it ready to sail. Slovenia is becoming a hotbed for Fireball Sailing in Europe, who'd of thunk it. As we were getting ready to go out sailing the 4 guys from Japan arrived and we talked with them for a bit, all of them could speak decent English, show its not too hard to communicate, which is good. Meeting them was cool, and I look forward to meeting more people from different countries while I'm out here.

Sailing this afternoon was great, we had a decent wind and I was able to trapeze when the spinnaker was up, and we got some good training on our tacks and jibes in.

Thats all folks, 3 days worth of posts in a short amount of time, but I got caught up and should be posting regularly from now on. Please leave comments, it be great to hear what you think of this.

A High Pole = Elephants Ass

May 9 2006
Training Day
Arriving in Victoria at 9:45 after taking the first Ferry over, Frank (the guy who steers the boat for me) and I got right to work... Gawking at the females in downtown Victoria. Let me say this, Calgary may have 17th Ave, but Victoria has all of its downtown(Reason #1 to move to Victoria).
Finally after taking our sweet time we get to our boat. Looking at our boat we realized that the trailor is rusting and corroding away as one of the bunks that the boat sits on was crooked and part of it was missing(Thats an oops). Something tells me that we need to get that fixed before we take the boat back to Calgary. Some how we got it to CFSA(Canadian Forces Sailing Association) where the Sailing Regattas will be held. At CFSA when we got there were 2 containers full of boats from Ireland and Europe. Now I hope most of you are thinking the same thing I'm thinking, Irish Sailors = Great Drinking partners!!!
In the evening we went to a sailing lecture put on by, Team UCan2, a 2 boat paralympic campaign who is being coached by the former Alberta Sailing Team coach, Steve McBride. In earlier trips out here in February and April we met one of the skippers of the boats, John McRoberts, who won a Silver Medal in the 1996 Paralympics in Atlanta. John, thinks that Frank and I are crazy, I know, I know, its a common thought, but his reason is different that yours... John thinks we are crazy because we drove out to Victoria 3 weekends in a row, driving all Friday night, sailing all day Saturday and part of Sunday, then driving back all through Sunday night to be able to go to work on Monday. Wait... that was crazy, good call John. John is a really cool guy and I wish him the best in his campaign. Please visit the website www.teamucan2.ca .

Getting There is Hard To Do

May 8 2006
Travel Day
Travelling from Calgary to Victoria is always a trek. This time was no different. Although it can be long and boring some parts can create some interesting times. Driving through the Rockies you are usually and almost guaranteed to have some weird weather. This time we were treated to some great sun flurries, blizzard like flurries with the sunshining at the same time, definatelt constitutes weird. Other than that pretty normal, boring trip, and I won't write anything more on that.

Welcome to my Blog

I hope you can find time to read this on a daily basis, and find some humor in my adventures. I am leaving for Victoria today and will first update my blog on Wednesday morning. Again I hope you enjoy my blog.