2 weeks in Perth

There are 10 days left to the opening of the Asian Games. Where has all the time gone?

The last two weeks in Perth gusted by (with many 20 knot days!) and we’re down to the last three days in Singapore before we leave on Friday. There are plenty of stories from Perth to share, and I’m sorry there wasn’t that much time to tell it as it happened. I’ll try to use these three days in Singapore to recap the fun, though!

Today I popped into Sports Council to make sure the sports medicine side of things was covered. I guess the rest of the team had similar ideas, because it was Sailor Central there – poor Dr Cormac, inundated by sailors this morning!

Last week in Singapore

We packed up our gear today because in less than a week, we’re heading to Perth for the next phase of our training leading up to the Asian Games. Today concludes the third week of intensive training in Singapore. We’ve been really lucky to have the opportunity to work with Mark Plummer this past month; he is an excellent coach! Thanks, Mark!

And have I mentioned yet that Mark is probably one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. My favourite comment from him has to be when he suggested that humans should lay eggs.

‘I mean, it’s okay for me, but for the girls, having to carry the baby around for nine months? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could just pop out an egg and put it in the oven, and there’s the baby!’

I’m going to miss that, hee hee.

Plus, he takes videos. And so for the first time, we can actually show you guys what we really do out there. For those of you who haven’t actually seen sailing in action … enjoy! (This is about as good as it gets in Singapore.)

less than a week and we’ll be in china

I had to send my brother to the airport this morning; he’s part of the team going to ASC, which leaves in two ‘installments’: the first today, the second on Saturday, which is when we go.

Anyway, sending the first wave of sailors off reminded me that it’s FIVE DAYS to China!

The Asian Sailing Championship will be held from 20-29 March (actual race days 23-29) in Shanwei, Guangzhou, China. That’s the same venue as the Asian Games later this year.

SingaporeSailing is fielding a fairly big team – 3 470s, 4 420s, 1 Laser, 1 Radial, 1 Hobie, 1 keelboat team, 4 Optis, 3 RSXs. (That’s 30 sailors!)

from yoguru@kallang leisure park

Kallang Leisure Park is the new shopping mall just down the road from Sports Council, where we do gym. Well, it’s not quite new by now, but when we first started coming here, it had just opened.

Anyway, I’m eating yoghurt before gym, yum! All the eating is quite expensive, but like I said last post, at least I’m saving a bit on transport. Still … anyone want to sponsor Athlete Fuel?

We’ve just learned that more people know of this blog that we thought. *waves to all readers* We’re glad you’re following!

This weekend, we were asked to join a contest where the first prize is a free trip to the FIFA World Cup 2010! Well, the football world cup occurring at the same time as Kieler Woche this year, so there’s no point for us to win anything. If anyone is interested, here’s the link: http://www.sonyericsson.com/ExtraTime

The contest basically asks for a blog post on our football experience. Now, we don’t have much, but interestingly, the last FIFA World Cup happened to take place in Germany, right when I was at Kieler Woche. Talk about football mania – although we were there for a sailing regatta, they were playing matches on the big screen at the sailing centre. I remember we used to joke

And the most memorable incident – the Australia vs Italy match was playing on TV when we were at the airport gate and being called to board the plane. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to leave. The poor flight attendants were getting quite exasperated, until finally someone scored (don’t remember which team). And at last, we meekly filed through the boarding gates.

Ah, football. There used to be times when sailing management put their foot now and banned some sailors from playing because of their annoying tendency to sustain injuries from pick-up soccer matches when there was no wind! (The grass patch where they played is pretty bumpy with lots of tree roots, hence the propensity to trip and fall.)

The Case for Cycling

My experience today is testament to one of the things Siobhan and I do regularly: use cycling as our normal mode of transportation.

I took the bus home from school today, and it was torturous. Case in point: a massive traffic jam along Bukit Timah Road. The bus stopped at the traffic light for 5 cycles of the light. The total time it took travelling by bus: 1h 30min.

When you consider that biking home takes me 30-35min, 40 in a real bad jam … well, think of the time saved!

And if you need more convincing that cycling is a great way to go … here are some more points.

+ It costs nothing once you’ve made that initial investment on the bike. Think how else you could spend that $3 a day (assuming ~$1.50 one way) … $15 a week!
+ You go on your own time, unfettered by bus schedules and delays
+ It’s exercise! Even if you aren’t in training, it’s still a good way to get fit and fab.

yummy pasta after training!

True fact: food always tastes better after training! Today is night class day, so we dropped by PastaMania on our way to school. We both finished the biggest combo meals (soup and garlic bread included). 120kg combined weight, here we come!

The interesting thing about sailing is that every time we go out, the conditions are different, even when we’re at the same place. This is the sport that is never boring!

It is large tides season now. Today we launched at 2.30pm in high tide: the sea’s edge came all the way up to the top of the launching slipway. 3 hours later, we came back to shore and the slipway was completely visible, down to the edge where it ends!

(On Sunday, it was even worse – by the time we got back to shore, the tide was out all the way to the end of the breakwater. We jumped out of the boat and realised that the water was only coming to our ankles!)

When the tide is that low, it gets pretty muddy. Craig lost his slippers coming ashore. According to him: ‘My slippers got stuck in the mud so I left them there!’

battling infection

It hasn’t been a good couple of weeks for us. The flu/cold/whatever virus that’s been going around among teammates, classmates, and others, has hit. Siobhan is now fighting off mild bronchitis, while I have a yet-to-be-diagnosed sore throat.

Particularly bad timing considering we have a fitness test on Saturday (I guess we can forget about that!) and the containers for the Asian Sailing Championship in Shanwei need to be packed and shipped off next week (meaning all boat work must be done before the Chinese New Year holidays on Sunday!)

Let’s hope the next couple of days will be good to us and we’ll be able to throw off the germs!

hello world, we’re 500km down south

Well, we’ve arrived in cold, windy Melbourne (all right, I suppose it’s due to heat up soon, but it was certainly cold, wet and windy on the day we rigged up!

There is limited Internet connection here – not because of the signal or anything but because we have to pay per MB of info transferred, so it’s wisest to keep it just for checking the forecast.

(And, of course, a tiny update here.

So, Sail Melbourne starts tomorrow. Wish us luck!

in the harbour

The forecast today was strongest in the morning so we had a morning session. Usually when we sail out of Woollahra Sailing Club, we turn right and head for the ‘Heads’ into open ocean. Today we turned left out of Rose Bay, passed Double Bay, and headed near where Sydney Opera House.

Very gusty stuff there. Lots of shifts as well. We also had to keep playing ‘Siam the Ferry’. (If a big green and yellow ferry comes charging through the water, get as far as you can away from it because those things are worse than sharks!)

*

Our team is complete now, as Sara and Jovina arrived this morning. We’re going to be pampered now because Sara loves to bake and she’s making a quiche for us tonight! I can smell the leeks cooking now already. Mmm!

Speaking of meals, Sean has hit on a tasty lunch solution (for him, anyway.)

Ham (and sometimes egg) sandwich … with jam.

Well, he looks quite happy eating it, doesn’t he?

We have to cook dinner for 8 tonight, so better get started early!

something’s fishy …

1 exam down, and 1 to go, for me. Dawn has 3 more to go. It’s pretty cool the school has allowed us to take it here in Sydney. (They forgot about me and didn’t send the paper here on time. But anyway, I still managed to get it done.)

We finally got our boats from the container depot after we passed the quarantine checks. They’re pretty strict about all this here in Australia. Anyway, we rigged up our own boat today and went for a short sail just to check everything’s working. Yup, everything’s working.

Oh, Sean and Joel are here. Joel brought along his imaginary friend from the plane. His imaginary friend was eating my sandwich this afternoon.

I don’t like the kind of weather where it’s warm when I wear a jacket and cold if I don’t. (aka today’s weather) Once we went out to sea it was nice. Just a wetsuit and lycra. Craig saw whales again!!! AND WE DIDN’T!

Well, I did see a flying fish that hovered above the water surface for a good 15 seconds. It had wings. Seriously.