Week 2 - Day 2 - 892 days remaining

Anne's off to Toronto for a few days, so it's just me at home now. Somehow that makes working out more difficult to stay motivated, but I'm still keeping my eye on the end goal and putting in the work. The workout is now more than twice as long and this morning was the first day of the new regimen. I realize the idea is to do them properly, not race through them, but it felt really weird to watch Anne stand up and walk away, done, whilst I'm only about 1/3rd of the way through.

Took her to the airport and dropped her off, then headed home where I started packing up for the three day trip.  And then unpacking.  And thinking about the stuff.  And repacking... and... Yeah, you get the idea.  I'll probably do it all over again tomorrow and Thursday as the weather reports firm up a bit more.

Also today was the dentist, oh joy.  I don't want there to be any problems while sailing, so need to make sure every part of me is in best shape - so that means even the dentist (though, truthfully, the dentist visit was scheduled even before I embarked on getting into the race).  I've also started planning the route around Vancouver Island, though that route is actually going to be selected by the training skipper.  Still, it's good to play the "If I were the skipper, how would I route us..." game and then compare the results of my planning with what is actually done.

I also got the prize bear today - a white bear for the stereotypical "Polar Bear" of the north.  He'll be going sailing with me whenever I go.  Or maybe it's a she.  I haven't figured that out yet.  But meanwhile it's watching guard over me while I exercise.

I'll be bringing a mechanical knot meter with me on this trip (and the circum-navigation one) to see how well calibrated the boat paddle-wheel knot meter is calibrated.  This mechanical one basically a board that you throw overboard.  The board is attached with a string to a scale and it measures how hard the board is being pulled by the water. The faster you go, the harder the pull.  The scale is calibrated to convert that pull force to a speed through the water.

For navigating, you need a few pieces of information.  What direction is the nose of the boat pointing, what speed are you making thruogh the water, what speed are you making over the ground, what direction are you traveling over the ground.  With those pieces of information, you can determine how much the wind and current are moving you off-course and then correct for that movement.  Thus the knot meter for speed in the water, compass for what direction you're pointed, GPS tells you the speed and course over ground.  I'll be working on that set of problems on my next two trips to try to hone my navigation skills a bit better, which have atrophied lately from too much use of the electronic navigation (i.e. chart plotter and GPS).  I have to get back into the discipline of logging position on a regular basis, course, etc.