Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Subject: Windy weather in France!

Hey everybody!!

Well, since I last wrote to you all, I was still home in Canada. Now I am at the midway point at the Semaine Olypique Francaise here in the south of France. I arrived in Amsterdam just fine and got the car and boats without any problems. My jet lag made for some interesting driving times on my way to Hyeres, but whats important is that I made it safely. When I first got here it was pretty quiet and only some polish and russian people were here training, but that quickly changed with heaps of people arriving all the way until the last minute before the regatta.

The training here before the regatta was good. My first day out was very short and I was literally giggling when I was on the water because I was so happy to be here again. The next few days I trained with a bunch of different people inluding the teams from Sweden, Norway, the UK, Belarus and Israel... by the time it was only a few days before the event everyone was practicing together so it was nice. It was strange at first to not have a coah, but I quickly learned how to manage!

The regatta has been going very well for me so far: It has been windy as hell for us here until today, which was a nice change. With winds from 20 to 30knots everyday, it was really a struggle to get around the course at times. I was hiking hard and I know now that I still need a lot of conditioning to be able to play the sheet for the whole race and keep in the game. that considered, I managed well during the qualifying round and was 15th overall coming into today. Today was the first day of finals with winds at about 5-10 knots. I thought I would be dead slow in these conditions, but I managed to pull off a 3rd place in the first race and then a 13th in the second race today. (the second race was a bit of a crapper as the wind kept shifting to the right and the race committee didnt move any of the marks until the last beat...) I dont know where I stand right now overall; butI am happy with the way things are going for s! ure!!! Two more days to go and I dont know what the weather will bring, but I am ready for it!!

After this regatta, there has been a change in plans as Mike and I are going to head to Italy to do a regatta at Lake Garda and then we will go back up to Holland for training and some more racing. I will be sure to keep you all posted as things unfold!

To see the results and pictures from this regatta, go to http://sof.ffvoile.net/gbr/news/home.asp?intitule=informations

I hope all is well with you and you will hear from me again in a little while!!! take care!!!

~~Keamia~~