Sailing away

Blue Runner, my first sailing experience here

The whole of Sunday, after a small sleep in, was spent at the sailing club. The wind was fine so we went on a training run with Simon helping with the finer points, well in my case all the points. I know so little and when I'm asked to work on the fore deck, I'm a little lost at times. Simon helped that showing me some useful ways that this small person with limited upper body strength could set the pole and hoist the spinnaker with minimum strain. I'm slow but getting there. It just takes a bit of practice, well lots of practice.

The bonus with Sunday is that I got to do something I am okay at. Jo, Didge and I went out on the Zodiac with Matt. He gave me a camera, a small happy snappy kind of camera. It was okay, there's a better one at the club said Matt. Let's get that. The better one was Nikon SLR, a much, much better one with a lovely long lens. I had fun, Matt drove us up to the good places to take pics and I, well, I took pics. Right in my element hanging off the side of the Zodiac making sure this special camera kept dry in all the spray.

It was such fun, and I'm pleased with many of the photos. Photos of the Lasers racing. The crews are all experienced with two Olympic level sailors so it was fun to watch. The kids joined in, very much part of this group of adults who support their sport. The post race discussions were interesting, no one waved the rule book all good fun. We shared a couple of pans of baked potatoes with sour cream and hot dogs, much needed after a long day on the water.

Close racing in the Laser fleet

I got a little burnt by that hot sun, just on the places where the sun screen missed. I now have an interesting mix of tan lines, brown legs and stripey bits everywhere else. I'm not one to lie in the sun, all my tan is from action so is not so even. I'm not bothered, my friends at work did comment on the really red bits. I promised to take more care next time. And next time is next weekend. I'm on Yahoo again in the winter series. It's also a long weekend here and Pirates Week so lots of fun. Dancing in the streets, parades and fireworks, I'll be there and I'll take my camera so watch this space.

A hectic start