Monday, April 19, 2004

Subject: Keamia does Europe... again!

Hello everyone!

well, its that time of year again. I am in europe sailing my europe dinghy, travelling around to all the big events improving my sailing on the way. I have been in europe for 2 weeks already. I spent the first week I was out here in Italy at Lake Garda where I sailed with the Danish team in a training camp they had set up there... only 65 danish europes showed up for that camp! 65!! unbelievable. It was great sailing there. Good training to get back into the swing of things before the pressure builds up at the big events. By the way... Lake Garda is absolutely gorgeous!!! if any of you have a chance to go there, I highly recommend it. it is a lake surrounded by beautiful mountains and there is always wind there. a perfect training place! while I was there, an opti regatta was on too... I have never ever seen so many optis in my life!! 800 little optis out there racing every day. it w! as pretty cool to see.

Right now I am writing to you from Hyéres, France. I arrived here a week ago and I have been sailing practically every day (we missed one day because of a HUGE storm that came through... it was difficult to even stand outside the wind just blew you over.) The training here has been great. Being able to sail with many of the girls who have already been selected to go to the olympics, and several other strong sailors who are still trying to qualify, really makes one fight hard to keep up! my speed has been going well, and I hope to keep that up during the regatta.

This regatta (Semaine Olympique Francais) is our last chance to get a spot for Canada at the Olympics in the Europe Class. For Canada to qualify, one of us has to finish in the top 12 overall. I have my fingers crossed that we can do it. If this does happen for us, then we will be using SPA Regatta as our qualifiers to decide who takes the spot to go to the games in Athens this summer.

Racing starts later this week with registration on the 22nd.

My time on the computer here is almost up! I do hope that you are all well and I hope to write to you again soon. Please if you know of anyone who would like to be on this list, please forward their email address to me. Also, if anyone knows how to make a email list that doesnt show all the addresses, if you could let me know that would be great... Im sure it must be annoying to have to scroll down through all these addresses before getting to the rest of it!

Take care

Keamia