Sailing

I signed a few forms yesterday so I am now officially a volunteer crew member on board the Alma. It’s the same boat as I was on last week, and I had a good time and even learned a bit about sailing so I thought I may as well sign up. It’s a pretty good deal - just turn up for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, do a bit of work on the boat then just keep an eye on the tourists and enjoy the view. Yesterday we had a three hour sail around the Golden Gate; the weather was beautiful and the passengers were for the most part easy going people.
My neighbour Gaelle’s boyfriend is visiting from France at the moment, so they rented a car for the weekend so they gave Valerie and me a ride up to Hyde St Pier to begin the day’s sailing. Captain Al was pleased to see us, and First Mate Alice was happy to have us on board too. There wasn’t too much to do, just raising the fore, staysail and other words I’m pretending to know. Usually the first 15 minutes of the voyage is everyone on board lending a hand, but a good proportion of the 27 tourists on board were seniors so they weren’t much help. In fact, I spent most of my time keeping them away from dangerous areas on the boat and dealing with an awkward French woman. I never noticed but the French can be very rude…
So once we got sailing, it was pretty easy going and the sun was out. I learned my lesson from last week and wore sunscreen. I actually felt a little cold at one point and had to put a jumper on. Perhaps I’m beginning to adjust to the warmer climate?! I got some cracking photos too. Definately the worst part was when we went under the bridge - the water got pretty rough and, to my delight, the auld French doll got a soaking.

My boat. Not bad eh?

Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge

Valerie insisted on a picture with me. Spot the Damien Rice Irish hair.

I’m actually quite impressed with this picture, given the usual quality of my camera.
The sailing was fun, but afterwards we were all pretty tired, and Gaelle was moving to Berkeley so I gave them a hand to get their stuff packed into the car and had a doze for a few hours. Valerie and I headed out to the Metreon later to see The Nightmare Before Christmas, in 3D at the IMAX theater. It wasn’t pretty, you get those nerdy specs and the 3d was quite impressive in places.

Ice Skating

I took Valerie ice-skating on Friday night. I told her I was crap. She told me she was probably even more crap, so it sounded like it would be a blast. I was slightly dissappointed that they gave me rubbish skates that were a horrible pigeon sick colour. My disdain is evident in this pic:

Horrible skates, and solely to blame for my poor performance
In total I only fell once, and in my defence it’s because she pulled me down with her. In total Valerie fell 6 times I think. She was right, she was worse than me. Even worse I had to listen to her guerning about her sore arm for the rest of the night. After the skating, we went to the top of the Hilton Towers hotel where they have their ‘nightclub’. It wasn’t the best place for talent, mostly old people so we didn’t stay long.

Today was much more boring. I went to work and am considering going to the gym then getting to bed early. I start work at 7am again tomorrow. Starting next week I’ll be doing a 60-hour week to make up for the days I take off for my Grand Canyon trip. Stupid America.

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