Carrie arrived in England on July 30th, having finished the laborious task of closing down her life in the States. Before she began her final two weeks of training (which she's doing consecutively), we took a long weekend trip to Vienna, Austria to visit two of her closest friends, Sylvia and Thomas.
Back in Gosport, we spent this last weekend taking three days of classes. First aid came first:
Sea Survival came next. After a bit on dry land where we worked with emergency flares...
...most of the day was spent in a pool. One quarter of us practiced teamwork while bobbing in the pool while the remaining three-quarters did their best to make the pool simulate true storm conditions by splashing, kicking, and pouring buckets of water on top of us from the pool's edge.
We inflated liferafts...
...flipped them over and practiced flipping them back upright again...
...as well as liferaft ingress and egress.
We spent the following full day with radios wired to transmit only within the room, working on May Day procedures and how to effectively communicate in an emergency.
Yesterday Carrie moved on to her boat, Qingdao (home of the 2008 Beijing Olympics sailing venue).
Having already done one of the two final weeks of training, I won't move onto my boat until August 20th.
At that point, the race will have essentially begun for all of us. I won't get off the boat until mid July of 2008, after the race finish in Liverpool and after the boats have been sailed back down to Gosport.
That gives me seven days, then, to do everything I need to do while I've still got a home, time, and internet access. Right now, my once comfortable and cozy apartment is a pile of boxes, bags, and piles of things to be sorted: take (not much), store (not much more), or give away (quite a bit).
It's a melancholy feeling, actually, which is why I've made the excuse to take the time I don't really have to make this blog entry. It's been so grand this year, living here. The upcoming year will be grand, too, but in a different way.
I can't wait for it to begin but I'm sad to see this year end.
Back to the boxes for me right now.
Sunrise from my balcony one morning earlier this summer
