Last night after the 2.5 hour drive back from diving I was very sore and feeling my 30 years of age. No longer am I 20 my body won’t take the abuse! It was a long day (8am-2:30pm) of rescue scenarios which meant lots of getting in and out of the water including towing and dragging únconcios divers up the beach. Karl, Guy and I aced the last scenario so much so that Bruce out instructor said it was the best demonstration he had seen of teamwork etc.

The sceario is you are sitting on the beach getting ready for a dive and a diver comes out of the water missing his buddy. You have to question the diver to find out where he thinks he last saw the diver. They are not meant to volunteer information you have to ask the necessary questions. Then you have to kit up as a team, give specific instructions to ”people” who are ashore i.e. call 911, get oxygen and a first aid kit, post lookouts and look for bubbles, send someone to check the diver didn’t go off for lunch without telling anyone etc. You then enter the water and go down to the bottom where the diver was last seen and then start an expanding box search this was hard as the visibility was only 4 feet. We had one person navigating with a compass and one person looking to each side searching the bottom and amongst the kelp. We found the diver ”non responsive and not breathing’ and brought him to the surface. Between the three of us we did rescue breathing, took off the divers and our equipment while towing the diver to the shore. We than pulled him up on the beach and started CPR and administered O2.

The whole thing to 28 minutes from when the diver exited the water telling us he was missing his buddy to putting him on O2 and doing chest compressions. This was very fast for the conditions but in real life unless the person was in respiratory arrest for more than 6 minutes of that period the would be dead or have serious brain damage. It just goes to show how important it is to stay with your buddy when you are diving and not lose each other.

I am in Monterey staying at the Monterey Youth Hostel which is a very comfortable place that welcomes divers and costs less than a campsite per night! There are tons of Germans staying here for some reason they have all congregated here.

Class finished early today so I made the matinee show of The Duchess at the theater a very unusual thing for me to do. It was a really good movie and is based on an actual affair between the Duchess of Devonshire and Charles Grey (7 years her junior who became prime minister in the 1830’s).

Yesterday we spent the day in the classroom going through over 200 pages of the Rescue Diver manual and then a multiple choice exam afterwards. Having been brought up in the UK where we don’t have multiple choice exams I learnt it is important to read all the possible answers. If I had read properly it would have been 100% but for the two silly mistakes! I hasten to add that they weren’t life threatening ones. After the day in the classroom I burnt up my credit card at the dive shop – there is another sport that has kit that is more expensive then sailing.

Today we spent 5 hours in the swimming pool going over in practice what we had learnt in theory. Towing a diver to safety, what to do with a unresponsive, responsive, panicked diver, breathing for a non breathing diver and carrying people to safety. Of course I was given the 220lb guy (who was deceptively small looking) to firemen carry out of the pool not so easy when sliding around on the pool with fins that have no traction.

Tomorrow we are in the water at the Breakwater dive site doing it in the ocean. Hopefully I will get better at the multitasking neccessary to tow an unconcious non breathing diver to the shore through a kelp bed while giving rescue breaths every 5 seconds and removing their mask, regs, weights and BCDs and then yours without missing a breath. There is always hope…

Hope you are having a great weekend.

I picked up my nephew yesterday for a morning with Aunty Ashley. We went to the toy store as it is his 2nd birthday this weekend and picked out an Elmo toy which will drive my brother and sister in law crazy! Then we went to Blackies Pasture where we used to go as kids.

”This pasture land was where Blackie was “retired” at the age of 12 from his illustrious career as both a Cavalry Horse in Yosemite and a Rodeo Cutting Horse. He lived here happily for another 28 years. Children and adults stopped by to pet him and to feed him apples & carrots. He was a beloved part of this community. Blackie was deeply missed when he passed away at the age of 40. He was buried in this pasture and from then on it was known as “BLACKIES PASTURE.” A simple cross & small plack, plus a life-size bronze statue, commemorate Blackie as the town’s mascot. ”

Draeger the dog and Henry had great fun on the shore. It really is beautiful where I get to live. Maltese Falcon was anchored over in Sausalito you may be able to make it out in the photo.

I spent the day cleaning out my garage as it is full of useless items that I don’t use. My aim is to get to the point where I can in a day pack my belongings into it in an organised fashion and take off. So I went through one box of my beautiful creations that my mother had painstakingly and lovingly filed by year or subject. This box was age 3 to 9 including my school reports, every mothers and fathers day card I had written, the notes to the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. Even the congratulations cards from everyone on my birth and the girls names list that they had put together! Funnily enough what they called me wasn’t on the list – thank god they didn’t call me some of those names :-).

Anyways the point of this entry is that I came across my a page about what I was going to do when I was 27! I wrote it at age 8 and it made the boring depressing job of cleaning out the garage a little less dreary. Things were a bit different in reality – the summer of my 27th birthday I was racing across the atlantic in the Rolex Transatlantic Challenge – life turned out better than I could have dreamed of 🙂

I took my nephew to the local pumpkin patch and we picked out a little pumpkin to carve for Halloween. It was a fun morning on the bouncy castle/slide and then we went over to horse hill for a hike and to pet the horses. We were both tired out after all that fun. I love being an aunt!

On Saturday I had a bunch of friends over for a BBQ at the house. After getting up a 6am and dealing with clients in the morning and pushing them off the dock I finally got stuck into building the retaining wall around the patio and just made it to the dump in time for 4pm. Then off to costco and back to clean up the patio before the BBQ. Everyone brought really nice salads, appetizers and desserts. I threw some marinaded lamb, cooked salmon on a cedar plank, put a dry rub on beef short ribs and grilled some bell peppers, asparagus, portabellos and cherry toms. For a California party it went on late which means everyone had fun.

The BBQ was really fun – it was great catching up with everyone. My friend James brought a fire pit which was needed as it was cold and foggy – I managed to have a BBQ on the coldest night in a long time. However, with a jib strung up stopping the dew and the fire pit and patio heater going life wasn’t too bad. What was missing was lighting – it was a bit of a mystery as to what one was eating. The candles wouldn’t stay lit and the latern wasn’t charged enough. So I went to Home Depot today to get the necessary materials for a full lighting system for my next BBQ in a few weeks.

I woke up a little groggy on Sunday morning again early as I had work to do before etchells racing on the bay. I haven’t sailed etchells in a while and was reminded of how wet it gets on a flat day on the circle.

Hope you had a good weekend.

My nephew came over today to play with power tools and help Aunty Ashley mix cement. He had lots of fun being Bob the Builder! I had loads of fun as well feeding him ‘teats’ – cookies and playing train with the wheel barrow.

The rotten wall before demolition.

Last night I got to look after my nephew while my brother and sister in law went out to the movies. He is such great fun and although he can’t speak fully yet he understands a ton. The most important thing to me is that he can say my name and always comes running to give me a hug with a big smile. Believe me I spoil him a lot which is what Aunties are for.

The cutest game to play is what does a cow etc. say. He can do crows, snakes, pigs, donkeys, sheep, horse in fact most animals. This morning I went round and picked him and Draeger the dog up and we went for an hour and half walk in Tennessee Valley picking wildflowers to bring home for Mummy. As usual we were fascinated by rocks, wanted to look down all the holes and fill them with rocks, squashed ants, pointed at spiders, poked cooko spit on the grass and smelt every flower. A great way to spend a holiday monday. Hope you had a relaxing weekend where ever you are.

It is 6am on Monday morning and I am on the airporter headed for SFO and onto LAX for a week on the Saga 409 project then back to Florida for a week. It is a beautiful sunrise as we wind our way up the incline out of Sausalito on 101 we are above the tendril of fog that has extended into Richardson bay. The peak of Angel Island and Belvedere Island peak out from the fog above is a bright blue sky with beautiful orange glow on the con trail from a plane it is straight as an arrow so there is not much wind up high. There are a few cirrus and cirrus stratos clouds. This is why I live here it is such a beautiful place. Less than a mile later we emerge from the tunnel towards the Golden Gate and we are in the fog bank, the sky is gray and you can’t see to the next tower of the bridge. San Francisco really is interesting meteorologically.

 

I was upset yesterday as I worked hard all week trying to get all my work done so I could spend time with my nephew at the yacht club for Opening Day on the bay. I stayed up late working till midnight and back up at 6am but it didn’t pan out for me. Indicative of my life at the moment – I need to stop working weekends there will be another year but I don’t like missing out on a single moment with Henry. I got to the yacht club as my brother was leaving Henry ran over to me proudly holding a whole cookie of his own in a cute summer outfit with little flip flops on – big hugs for Aunty Ashley. So instead of playing with him on the boats on the beach I was up a rig with a hammer swearing under my breath about shitty Catalina 22’s! He is such a cute little guy with white blond hair – I feel sorry for all hearts he is going to break as he grows up.

 

My short stay at home wasn’t all about work though. On Friday night I got to go racing on Flashman which was lots of fun we got fouled at the start (port starboard) but our request for them to do their turns was ignored and it’s a beer can so poor form to throw the flag. On Saturday we took the Quest 33 out to Duxbury off Bolinas unfortunately the wind was very light so we didn’t get a good surf back in. We were late to the start as we needed to change out the main and a few other items needed to get done. Slyvainn from UK Halsey Sails was out with us though so with his awesome tactics and trimming we caught up and blew through the fleet ending up finishing ahead of boats up to 10 feet longer than us on the water. We ended up 2nd in class with the Express 37 getting us by less than a minute – would have been first if we had been there on time 🙂 On Friday I rerigged the vang to come back on both sides of the cockpit to a spinlock PXR swivel cleat with enough tail that the main trimmer can blow it during a broach. This made a difference on the spinnaker reach we had allowing everyone to stay back behind the main hatch and keeping the bow out of the water. Next change is to increase the purchase on it.

 

On Saturday night I went to a beach bonfire at Mile Rock Beach. I had never been down there before it is a short walk from the Legion of Honor in the city. We all marveled at how great San Francisco is that you can be on a beautiful beach literally 5 minutes from the city center. It was a calm evening and we watched the remainder of the Duxship and Singlehanded Farolonnes fleet sail back into the gate. The sunset was very spectacular and the smores we made at the satellite bonfire (a small one further down the beach) were very tasty. I haven’t had smores in years. A women I was talking to who had worked at the Monterey Aquarium had some balls that looked like monkeys fists which she drenched in white spirits and set fire. She spun them round so fast it looked like a circle of flame  – lots of skill involved in that.

 

Looking forward to being back home in two weeks time.

We have had a written exam every morning this week. Tomorrow we don’t have one thank goodness. However, Saturday I have one and Sunday two so I have to keep the pressure up with studying tonight. I would really prefer just to veg out however next to the pool….. So far I haven’t dropped below 90% Saturday’s exam I have to get 90% to pass. The class has lost 3 people so far and 50% have to retake the collision regulation exam on saturday. All a little bit hard core.