Sunday, May 14, 2006


We have been busy refinishing our teak on the boat. We redid the cabin floor and now we are doing the teak around the 2 main hatches. We took the day off on Friday and went for a sail then on Sat. we sailed up to the dock at Barry's Mom's house and spent Mother's Day with her. When asked what she would like for Mother's Day she said she wanted some cupboards she had bought for her garage assembled so we spent the afternoon putting three large cupboards together. They all stand up, but the first on has an unexplained venting space at the top of the cupboard, it will aid in air transfer.

Last week we went into Victoria to see the Clipper boats that are in a round the world race. Victoria is their only Canadian port of call and it was very interesting to see the boats and here some of the crews stories. This one guy said on the trip across the Pacific it was really cold, they went up near the Aleutions. When there six crew on a watch it was so cold that there were only 2 on deck at a time and they could only stand to be on deck for 20 minutes at a time. There was no heat on the boats so they had to warm their hands up on a tea kettle when they got below. The boats are all the same, they are 68 feet long and they have between 16 to 18 crew members. The only paid member is the captain, all the other crew pay for the priveledge of going on a round the world yacht race. You can go for the whole race or one leg or a number of legs. If you are interested in more you can go to
http://www.tourismvictoria.com/Content/EN/1530.asp
and read all about it. Most of the crews seemed to be from Britain and there were a few Aussies and Canadians thrown in. When we walked by the boats, all their lines were in their dinghys which had been filled with fresh water, to get all the salt off the lines. It would be a truly remarkable experience to participate in something like this.