I will post more soon about my amazing last week at home but for now I am off to sleep as I am up in 6 hours to finish off my last little jobs and then it is off to the airport. My nephew is coming with me to the UK and he is all jazzed up. I have lots of Thomas videos on my new Ipod Touch courtesy of some very generous friends. The party last night was loads of fun with 55 people showing up to say good bye.

Good bye California…

I am rushing around trying to finish packing for my 7 months away which I leave for in 48 hours and I got a wake up phone call from my little brother this morning. He is 22 with no drivers license but he just passed his Boatman’s License in the UK which qualifies him to Captain a ferry boat anywhere in the UK inland waters and limited coastal areas with up to 250 passengers.

He passed with flair the examiner gave him the highest tier level that you can get and passed him after only 15 minutes on his boat handling after a flashy docking maneouvre. Myles didn’t know he was picking the examiner up from that pier and moved 10 foot sideways while turning and reversing to dock.

Nothing exciting to report this weekend. Last week I was running around like my head cut off trying to finish up peoples boats before I leave CA for 8 months. This weekend I started packing my house and organising the garage to take all my furniture from the house I have rented out while I am gone. I did have some fun at a friends pool party which I took my newphew to and also at a neighborhood BBQ. This week is more of the same finish up all those jobs, last wednesday night of match racing and last friday night race then a weekend of moving. It was odd to pack up all my sailing gear and put it in deep storage usually I am packing it in my bags to take with me. Have a great week.

This summer when I was at home I had a really great time going match racing at the Lanes house in Paradise Cay. We had many top match racers coming in as guests including Dave Perry the rules genius. Thank you so much to the Lanes for creating such an amazing forum for practicing match racing in such a fun environment. The J22’s are great boats and many thanks to the Maritime Academy at Vallejo for providing 4 of their boats for our use as well as the Lanes boats. Check out the Lanes team brickhouse.

I had a busy week last week with the 505 North Americans happening at StFYC. I did a few overnight repairs – relaminate a rudder, fix cracked bulkheads, build a new mast! etc. The fun continues next week as it is the Worlds at the same venue.


On thursday night I took my nephew Henry camping to Angel Island which was a lot of fun. We went over on the ferry next time we will take the boat.

We walked around the immigration station after putting up the tent on East Bay site 3 which happened to have a great view of all the 505’s racing in the Olympic Circle.


He needed me to carry him on my shoulders 1.5 miles up the hill in the afternoon as I picked the time to go to the island that he would normally be napping – bad idea! It was quite a load with two sleeping bags, two sleeping mats, a tent, campstove, food, Henry’s cloths etc and Henry on my back. It was all worth it though when his eyes were the size of saucers when I offered him a Smore! I don’t think it quite believed his luck – marshmallows, chocolate and graham cracker all at once it was at least a weeks worth of desserts all in one! He was fully sugared up and bounced off the tent walls for two hours before finally falling asleep.

Today was my last sent of exams for divemasters and I am now officially done with the course and am a PADI Divemaster. It took quite a lot of work. My instructor Bruce from Aquarius Dive Shop in Monterey is really a very good teacher and I am now all ready for my next lot of training next month in Scotland.

Instead of going racing this weekend I spent two days putting in 26 fence posts at my brothers house. The auger did a great job digging the 2 foot + deep holes however, in some holes it would hit bedrock and then it was time for the jack hammer. My nephew supervised and helped Aunty Ashley and Dad mix concrete. Very tired and sore for the start of a busy week!

Picture above is me going diving in SF looking for a boat part my friend dropped over the side of his boat.

I am almost done with my divemaster cert after spending three days in Monterey I have only a day left to complete the course. So by the end of August I will be ready to go to Scotland for my commercial course. It has been quite a long haul. There are a lot of requirements and aspects to the certificate with 8 exams and an internship component. The internship has been really interesting and I have learnt a lot by guiding experienced divers and assisting in teaching complete beginners. Back in Mill Valley now to get my boats up to perfect condition for the fall and winter while I will be away. Only 7 weeks before I leave for the UK.

My July has been all about working on my boats trying to get them back into racing trim after being away for so long at the beginning of the year. It has also been about sorting out issues at my parents rental. I have spent quite a few days down in Monterey trying to complete my divemasters which is time consuming to say the least. I am starting to offload items onto Craigs list to try and clear out the garage for my departure in September to the UK for training. Spending as much time as possible with my nephew and nieces. So basically just boring daily life stuff 🙂

Henry in his fort at Blackies Pasture

Last night I had a great treat as a friend was able to get a reservation for camping at Kirby Cove which is in the Marin Headlands basically 5 minutes from the city but a totally different world. We had appetizers looking out over the enterance to the bay watching the pelicans fishing and a double rainbow over the city. There was no fog and it was a beautiful sunset. The company was great and the food delicous. This morning I woke up to the fog horns on the bridge – everyone was still sound asleep so I went to the beach and sat on a log. Since no one else was stirring I went back to sleep and was woken up at 9:30am to a great campfire breakfast. What a great night and morning. The only thing to have made it perfect would have been to have my nephew and the dog with me….

The pelicans sit on the rock to the left in the photo, you can’t see the double rainbow in the picture..

My tent on the hill over the beach at Kirby Cove.

A rainbow over the Presidio

Early morning fog over the Golden Gate

I took thursday off work and took my nephew (aka RYM poster child) to the county fair with my mother. It was really great fun. Henry made it all worthwhile by turning to me and saying ”Aunty Ashley I am having so much fun – followed by a hug – several times I might add! My nephew will break a lot of hearts if he keeps that up 🙂

The fair was great fun with ferris wheels, children performing, merry go rounds, lots of animals on show being judged including cows, goats, pigs, kangeroos, chickens, ducks, rabbits perfect for a 2 1/2 year old.

Have a great 4th July weekend.

After spending 8 hours in the swimming pool on tuesday and a few hours on wednesday my hands were very wrinkly! What was I doing you ask..

Well as part of the divemaster exams you have to be able to demonstrate 21 key scuba skills so that you can be called upon by an instructor to demonstrate them to students. You have to have 68 points to pass and each skill demonstration is graded out of 5. My instructor Bruce insists on at least a 4 on each skill and will continue drilling you until you get 4. I ended up with 98 out of a possible 105 points it was hard work and tiring for myself, the other divemaster student and my instructor but it was also very rewarding.

There is also one more test which is called gear exchange. You and your buddy who you basically haven’t worked with before have to sit on the bottom of the pool and exchange your fins, weight belt, BCD and mask. That in itself takes some team work but here is the kicker you are doing this while buddy breathing. Which for non scuba divers is when you have one tank and one 2nd stage and you take two deep breaths of air and then pass the octopus to your partner to take two breaths. While you don’t have the octopus you must breath out. So basically you are task loaded in the extreme. I must admit it took us two goes. The first time we got all the way to the last article to exchange – the mask – before we decided between us we couldn’t hack it anymore. The second time we were smarter and did the mask first as it is the hardest I think. We also took more time the second time and kept a better rythm of handing off the air.

I did a few hours of boat work wednesday afternoon and was on the water match racing for a few hours in the evening. A good match racing practice with some lively discussion afterwards. It was blowing pretty hard up to 30 knots which is hard work in a J22 so we didn’t fly kites.