Pretty amazing documentry check out the largest boat evacuation in history even larger than Dunkirk.

I am back home without my seabag as American Airlines sent it to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific and lost it.. with my expensive sailing kit in it. They just called to say they would deliver it to JFK which of course is a fat lot of good. Then they said they would deliver to SFO I told them they would deliver it to my house NOT the airport!!

So why the picture above? Well that is to do with my USCG Masters License.

Basically long story short USCG won’t accept my MCA 200 ton license and when I did the exams in 2008 for USCG the paperwork was messed up so I have to do the process all over. It has now taken 2.5 months to get to the stage where hopefully in the next week I will have a letter allowing me to take 7 exams and get my license before it is too late to take the job on the Baylis. I have had to have drugs test, fill out multiple sea service forms and have people that I sailed with in 1991 to sign them (so I had to track them down!), I have had a full medical, had to get a Transport Workers ID card and last but not least do a CPR First Aid course. The last is where the towels come in….

No disrespect to Emergency University but an online course that takes 25 minutes and then a skype video with an instructor is a bit worrying. That is all the training that a captain needs apparently! The towels are meant to simulate a maniquin so I can show the instructor on video skype that I know how to do CPR. The instructor was quite cool and figured out quickly that I didn’t need the training as BAS medical unit does a far better job and instead we chatted about the new methods of teaching CPR and about AED’s and their usefulness on a boat in the middle of the ocean etc.

My book that I have been reading continuously for the past month and half. Do you think if I sleep with it under my pillow the knowledge will seep in 🙂 I am at a disadvantage as the questions are all multiple choice which having been educated in the UK is a new thing for me. I have to get 90% in the COLREG exams and 70 in the rest so I am a busy bee for next three weeks.

Not only am I busy with that book but I am happily busy writing permit applications to return ‘home’ to the south onboard a 27m yacht. Getting excited about sailing into KEP and then down to Rothera and Ryder Bay in Dec – Feb.

We attempted to go out on the Extreme 40 this morning but came across a few problems that made it impossible to go out, despite getting out to the turning basin and hoisting the main. After an hour of working on the boat so it would be prepared for going out next weekend, I went off to the mountain play.

I jumped on the shuttle but it turned out to be the wrong one so I ended up at Muir Woods instead of the top of the mountain with only 15 minutes before the play started – oops. So I hitchhiked with some very nice people from Boston with two kids in their car who drove me to the top of the mountain- very kind of them as it was a 15 minute drive. I arrived only 10 minutes late.

Tara and myself at the play! I enjoyed hanging out with the Davis and their son Tyler.

This years play is The musicman and it was a beautiful day for it with a stunning view of the bay. The musical was as well done as usual. This evening I watched the eclipse of the sun and it is time to do some more studying for my coastguard exams. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mum who shares my love of travel despite the rain in Peru we had a great time!

And supports my brothers and I in all our sailing capers around the world.

Love you mum you are the greatest… xx

Impressive salvage of LSC off the island and amazing how intact the boat is after lying on the rocks for just over a week.

I am going through a mound of twenty months worth of mail at the moment – not fun believe me. However, today I met my friends 9 month old baby Tristan so that was a great distraction. Another funny thing was walking through Mill Valley square and being stopped by a gentleman who asked if I had lived on base in South Georgia! He had been on a cruise over a year ago and remember me. What are the odds.

So one of the many items in my mail was a clipping my mother saved from the newspaper entitled ‘Penguin returns to closet’… See below

A gay male penguin has caused uproar in San Francisco by leaving his long-term mate for a female. For six years, two male birds, Harry and Pepper. lived happily together at the city zoo, raising chicks from eggs that had been abandoned by other birds. Now, however, Harry has moved into a neighbouring nest with a female called Linda.

Harry Edell, curator of birds, revealed that he had received outraged message of protest from supporters of gay penguins rights. “People think we seperated them on purpose, but whenever there’s a single bird on the island, there’s always a dash to find another mate or lose their burrow,’ he said. ‘There’s no explaining love.’

All I can say is only in San Francisco!

And right across from this is another short entitled ‘Fatal Attraction’

Let this be a lesson to you, chaps; a randy sea lion has died from exhaustion after a lengthy mating session. Mike, from the animal park in Nuremberg, enjoyed such an exhausting time with his three mates – Farah, Tiffy and Soda – that staff had to help him out of the pool. Three hours later he died from heart failure.

Mike wouldn’t have lasted long in SG where the fur seal harems are normally considerably larger than three females and the bulls have to defend their territory!

I got home on Tuesday and it has been several days of moving boxes, doing chores and two dinner parties so far. The weekend seems to be set to be more boxes a birthday party and hopefully some hiking to take advantage of the beautiful weather we are having.

I am definantly going to head to Muir Woods to breath in the smell and listen to the quiet amoungst the redwood trees. Have a great Easter weekend everyone.

Just after I came down to South Georgia I learnt that Joel Verutti one of the Moore 24 fleet ‘elders’ died from a brain tumour. My brother and I have raced in the Moore fleet for the five plus years on our boat Flashman (the blue boat in my blog header). We have not been that competitive and unfortunately with my work schedule and Daniels growing family we have not been sailing with the fleet in the last two years however, the Moore ‘family’ is a pretty tight knit group. Joel was always more than willing to give Daniel and I advice about how to get more out of our boat and really was a truely corinthian sailor a pleasure to race against and get beaten by!

In an attempt to help Joel’s wife and young daughter to build a new life without him the fleet have got an auction going at http://www.moore24.org/auction. Many of the items are Moore 24 specific however, there are quite a few fun things whether you are a sailor or not including diamond earrings, travel luggage, dinner at a fire station, beach houses to stay in, tech support services etc. I scratched my head for a while to think about what I could possibly put up for auction and the end result is a talk about living and working in South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula. So go to the site and see if there is anything that appeals to you it really is for a great cause. Thanks for reading.