July catch-up

 Not sure what happened with blogging this month. There were no major events to trigger a blog post but lots of lovely summer activities to keep me busy. So this is just a round up of those and a catch up on what Chris and Mike are up to.

For our birthdays this year Chris and I went out to dinner (great Thai restaurant in the theatre district) and to see Wicked.

First balcony, a few rows back....good seats and a fun show.

 As I was in Toronto I took Rasta to introduce him to Chris, Jason and Cigi's new kittens. The intro did not go well. He hissed and puffed up and gave every indication he was terrified. Chris and the family were going to Europe and their cat sitter cancelled so the kittens are at my place. Hoping, again, to get Rasta to accept them. They are in a bedroom in the basement and I bring them up, every day, to the sun room where he can see and smell them but doesn't need to interact. He still occasionally hisses at them but tends to eat his snacks (hoping for a positive association there) and watches them.

Introducing Donny (they wrestle a lot)

and Marie.

Rick sent me this when they arrived....."to the crazy cat lady"

We have been racing Spellbound in the Spinnaker fleet for the month of July. Not doing as well as we do in the JaM fleet but only came dead last once. We broke the spinnaker pole in one race and this picture is of the repair job. Rick bought another (used) pole, cut off the clasp at the end and replaced the broken one with it. Quite a process involving cutting metal, a lot of hammering things into place, screwing through metal, re-attaching lines and crimping them into place. Then the gas hose sprung a leak............

Sometimes the only solution is an ice cream. While there I had to take a picture of this little girl with an ice cream the size of her head (asked her and her mum for permission first)

Meanwhile Chris, Jason, Cigi and Jason's nephew, Luke are in Barcelona. Swimming in the Med every day as it is very hot there right now.

Luke is a fan of the football club so they did a tour of the stadium. Chris said the best souvenirs were the cups the drinks came in.

Cigi likes to chase the Pigeons but sometimes the flocks contain Parakeets. George and I and Aimee and I also saw them in Barcelona, nesting in the Palm trees.

One of the Florida Panthers comes from St Albert and held his Stanley Cup party at the restaurant Mike manages. Mike got to drink from the cup.

Mike and the family are currently camping in B.C. According to Mike, the 8 person tent is as big as their original condo.

Lots of hiking

and water activities (they have the paddle board and kayak with them)

Uh Oh.....Bear track.

Hewson Regatta on Spellbound

 The Hewson Regatta is held every year, named after a family that helped found the yacht club and start racing in Port Dover. We had a good turnout of boats and some fabulous racing weather. Rick, his daughter, Jen, and I sailed Spellbound in the Jib and Main (JaM) class.

Saturday was a race around Long Point Bay and was quite windy. Rick vacillated on which head sail to put up but in the end we were glad he chose the smaller one, as even that was sometimes difficult to control

Redhead overtaking us as she was in the Spinnaker fleet.

Islay in hot pursuit

and she managed to overtake us on the second leg. We ended up finishing just behind her but beat her in the standings due to the handicap system.

"The Witch" passing us.

We took turns helming (5 hours on the water is too long to stay as focused as you need to be to helm)

while the other 2 spent time trimming sails, commenting on other competitors progress and, of course, taking pictures.

I got to test out the drink holder that I had picked up at the Sailing School Garage Sale.

The wind built during the course of the day

and the last leg was a wild ride.

After tidying up the boat we went to the Yacht Club for a meal, drinks and a live band. We were wind blown, sun burnt but invigorated. Even more so when we learned that we had come first in our fleet of 6.

Sunday was totally different. There was little wind when we first motored out and Rick had no trouble deciding to use the biggest head sail. 

We started racing at 10am, just around the race marks in the Bay, that we race around every Wednesday night.

As soon as one race ended the next would start. Very little time between to recover, snack, strategize, take pictures.....

We got 3 races in before the event ended at 2pm.

There was a lot of close racing. We are pretty evenly matched with Nexus and Islay and jockeyed with them frequently, but sometimes we were racing beside, and doing well against, much bigger boats. According to the handicapping system, Spellbound is the slowest boat in the fleet, but she was consistently proving that wrong. We haven't seen the results for Sunday yet as there were various protests between boats that need to be heard, and judged, by the protest committee, before they will be posted, but we think we won all 3 races on Sunday.

Belated Canada Day post

Rick and I were invited to participate in the Port Dover Canada Day Boat Parade on Zatarra. Here's Rick and Zatarra in their CD finery.

 

Paul and Bucky the Beaver hanging on for dear life.

We were representing the Long Point Bay Yacht Club whose membership are in the Harbour Marina.

Out of the marina and heading towards the lighthouse and entrance to the river.

We had to negotiate through the spectator boats clustered around the entrance.

It's an unofficial and therefor unorganized event so I don't know how they decided who would go first but there she is.

Commercial tugs,

pleasure tugs,

power boats and

sailboats

entertained the on water spectators.

Smallest boat but he made up for it with flags and enthusiasm.

Paul spotted a break in the queue and headed in

past the coast guard boat coming out.

Crowds lined both sides

and cheered as we pulled our "doughnut" and blew the horn, as is the tradition.

Exchanging "Happy Canada Day" with people on the pier, slaloming through the spectator boats and milling participant boats and heading back to the marina.

Paul did some victory laps up and down the various docks and then had a difficult time docking as the prop was restricted by masses of weeds. The marina cannot treat the weeds until a certain date. I believe it is something to do with fish spawning, but the weeds are terrible this year (warm, wet spring)

Rick and I helped "undress" Zatarra and then took Spellbound out for a lovely sail.

The following day I kayaked on a much calmer river.

Out for a couple of hours and all I saw was 2 people in a canoe and one family with a paddle board and kayaks....

and lots

and lots

of turtles.

I didn't go out to the harbour this time but turned at the Yacht Club and went up the Lynn River to the dam at Silver Lake, then turned back.

Remnants of the day before.