A Short Pause in London

I'm here between adventures, preparing for my last one (upcoming) before I return to the States. More on that later.

For now, I'm just enjoying where I am. I do love this city, London. It's probably the only city in the world I've visited where I think I could be happy actually living in the city itself. Below was a part of my experience two nights ago strolling along the south bank of the River Thames.

My Favorite Places on Earth

After we'd flown back to the mainland and most had gone separate ways in Barcelona, Nicole and I returned by bus with German to his home just outside of Bilbao, Spain. After we arrived, we discussed what to do with our few remaining hours of daylight.

I said that I had just one request. I wanted to visit the bar I'd frequented so often two years ago in Bilbao's port town, Getxo while part of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston's shore team preparing his boat for his solo round the world race.

Once we arrived and I sat sipping my beer at El Patron (The Skipper), I was overcome with the sense that this was one of my favorite places on earth. It was here that my adventure with Sir Robin blossomed into such a collection of new friends. Not twenty feet from where I sat that evening was the table where I met German, Rafa, and Saioa, who I have come to value so much and through whom I've gained a whole new world of friends and experiences in Spain (and elsewhere).

It was here that I'd slump into a chair with a beer at the end of each day in October of 2006, exhausted but glowing with supreme satisfaction in my soul from the combination of productive hard work and a sense of being an enviable part of something grand.

I've already commited to support another remarkable human being in the next edition of the Velux 5 Oceans in 2010.

When I'd first met German at that bar in 2006, he'd asked me what else I'd seen of the region in the two weeks we'd been docked in Getxo. "This bar is as far as I've got," I told him. "We don't have the time or energy to venture any further."

Sipping my beer again in Getxo today, long removed from Sir Robin's voyage around the world and my own that followed, it was clear to me that the joy of a location isn't really about the location itself but what's associated with it. Getxo and the region of Northern Spain is beautiful, no doubt, but all my strongest joys seemed to end up coming from the people and the experiences we share, such as those I've found in the Spanish port of Getxo.

The Balearic Islands

Last year's week of sailing around with Croatia with German (at the wheel here last week) and others was so enjoyable that Jamie and German started planning another trip while I was away at sea. I was the host of last year's adventure. This time around, German was the host and the location was the Balearic Islands.

I had a lot of empathy for him, knowing the weight of responsibility I felt I needed to bear last year for not only everyone's enjoyment, but their safety as well.

We had nine people on a boat designed for seven. No matter. German and I slept on the deck each night.


Clockwise around the table starting with me: Jamie, Mike, Nicole, Ander, Odei, Narea (partially obscured), Donna, and German. The tenth, Cristina, lives in Palma and joined us only on land at the beginning and end of our week.

We visited the coasts of both Mallorca and Menorca, employing a night sail to cross the channel between the two islands.

I'm extremely grateful to German for undertaking the organization of this trip. Next year's is already in the planning, only this time it will be Jamie's turn to work out all the details. German and I, the only sailors, will just be laborers...quite happily.

Laragne, France

I've spent this last week in the south of France...


...with Dutch friends Daphne and Koos...


...supporting them as they compete in yet another hang gliding competition.




When not flying, we enjoy the simple pleasures of the region...


...and the goodness of each other.


They've just left the camp this evening to begin the journey back home to the Netherlands. Tomorrow I'm off to Barcelona to meet up with Jamie, German, and others for our week of sailing among the Balearic Islands off the Mediterranean coast of eastern Spain.

Italy Wrap Up

An enchanting land...


...full of hidden beauty.


Furthermore, two people dear to my heart achieved their dreams: Corinna her 4th World Championship (Women, Flexwing); Alex his 2nd (Men, Rigidwing).

An explanation of just what the difference is between a flex and a rigid wing, as well as the compilation of all the video I shot, will have to wait until October, when I plan to be back in the States and have the time to write the tale.

For now, I'll leave it with just these photos of my friends' moments of triumph, as well as a 42 second video of Alex discussing his coming in 20 minutes behind that day's winner; Christian (Alex's good friend and neighbor in Italy, also two time (2002, 2004) world hang gliding champion in the rigid wing class).

Circle of Friends

The entire collection of pilots here spent 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Sunday waiting on the hill for the appropriate weather to fly a task. It never came. The wind was too high to safely launch or to give a significant amount of the pilots a reasonable chance of completing the task.

Though the unsuitable winds and conditions had been anticipated in the weather forecasts for days, the race committee was reluctant to waste a possible competition day. And so everyone waited until it was too late in the day to begin.



On the women's division side of the hill, an impromptu international friendship day ensued. The sense of intense and yet (for the most part) completely amicable competition is one of the aspects of these competitions that brings me to volunteer to work at them time and time again.

I found 3-time and current world champion Corinna among the Japanese. Though Corinna is fluent in four European languages, she's leaning Japanese and delights in using what bit of fluency she's gained in making the shy and reserved Japanese team feel welcome.



Though English is spoken most of all, I always delight in walking around the pre-launch preparations, listening to the sound of so many different languages, many of them spoken by a non-native: Italians speaking German and French, Argentines speaking Italian, Dutch speaking almost anything at all, and the Americans doubted if they speak English at all.

In the photo above, left to right: Russian Natalia, American Jamie, the other Russian Natalia, German Regina, English Kathleen, Swedish Birgit, German Corinna, French Francoise, and Dutch Hadewych.

The Russians have five women here, including new comers 24 year old Zhenya (l.) and 21 year old Yulia (r.).


Yulia is exceptionally comfortable in English and therefore enjoys a particularly close friendship with seemingly everyone. Bright, energetic, playful and spirited, she is everyone's delight.








All the Russians are kindly amused with my efforts to speak Russian. I've been trying to add two new Russian words each day to a notebook I carry with me. They're happy to help while they giggle and laugh beside me, though always with patience and support.

A few days ago I used the internet to translate what I thought was "I'll see you down below," a phrase I could use when they take off. When I showed them the phrase written out in my version of a hand-written Cyrillic alphabet and told them what I thought it was saying, one of the Natalias smiled with amusement and said, "Tee-mo-thee, you have written,'You go up, I go down.'"

Close enough for now.

Keeping up with me until September

I'm not sure I'll be posting much here until I'm reunited with my own laptop sometime towards the end of September. It's being shipped to the USA along with my two bikes and other various items I gathered in my years in England.

I don't have any photo editing ability on this ASUS Eee PC laptop that I bought for $300 to use while I'm while puttering around Europe. It has a Linux operating system, not Windows. Finally getting around to learning Linux (something I've always wanted to do) is one reason I bought this PC. I'm still learning the ins and outs of it so working out the kinks in downloading and installing a Linux-based photo editor might take a while.

Being such a visually oriented person, I can't even begin to imagine trying to tell any tale without photos, and putting them on this blog requires perusing the multitude of hi resolution I take each day, selecting and cropping a few, then reducing them to a lower resolution image suitable for a website.

At the moment, I don't have the software on this pint-sized "subnotebook PC to do that. The photo above was usable only because I shot it just now in a low resolution mode on my camera, something I wouldn't want to do with with all the other images I capture during the day.

Jamie, however, is religious about updating her blog. Since we're traveling together and doing essentially the same thing from now until all the way to August 25th or so, you can look on her blog to see what I'm doing. Since the World Championships began a few days ago, she's been so busy during the day getting ready to compete that she uses many of the photos I've taken for myself to flesh out her blog (particularly ones of her).

You might even get a glimpse of now and then (such as my elbow on the left here from this blog entry).

Italy: First Glimpse

Practice day here on Monte Cucco, above the small village of Sigillo.

What's Next?

• World Hang Gliding Championships in Sigillo, Italy until August 2nd, supporting Corinna (video here) and Jamie as Corinna defends her World Champion title and Jamie competes as well.
  

• Sailing among the Balearic Islands off the Mediterranean coast of Spain in mid August with German, Jamie, and others.
  

• Heading back to the States in September?