Ok, I really didn’t think I”d write again before October, but since my last posting I’ve had a change of fate. Unfortunately Aaron Scheidies still has a lost wallet and feels that the universe is conspiring against him, but I had a great weekend.

Aaron stayed last night and we went to a Juju party where everyone brings an object that has brought them bad Juju this year and throws in into a fire. I threw a representation of everything bad that’s happened this year: The complete lack of energy from trying to lose weight by fasting on lemon juice last winter, the bruised heel that kept me from racing fast at Alcatraz, the lack of preparation for the heat in Mazatlan, and the condramalasia in my knee. All those things really sucked (and were probably avoidable if I didn’t lack good judgement), so I burned them.

Today Seattle had one of the sunniest fall days I can remember, I had an awesome bike ride with no knee pain, and I had my best long run since… well… It may have been my best long run ever. And with no knee pain. So, one day at a time with injuries, I’m going to keep babying myself to make sure that the progress I’ve made towards recovery is not reversed by bad choices.

Oh, I also went sailing this afternoon with Brian and his wife Marijana (have talked about her enough on here that I can drop the “his wife” introduction?). I got to drive the boat under two draw bridges, and we made the Fremont bridge open for us, which is surprisingly empowering. Sort of like pushing the button at a cross walk and making all the cars stop just for you – only bigger. We only had about an hour of daylight by the time we were on Lake Union, but it was enough time for a casual sail around Lake Union, during which time we saw the sun set behind Queen Anne Hill and the Space Needle.

So basically I worked out a ton and then my friends made me laugh enough to pump my system full of endorphins. So – though I’m still sad about Troy – I’m not quite so depressed about the month of September. It’s nice to have friends around.

Troy is missing!

We got home Sunday night and haven’t seen him at all. His food wasn’t touched while we were gone. He was in the TV room when my parents left on Friday and that’s the last we’ve heard from him. I’m going to go post pictures at the Sheridan Beach Club and hopefully he’s just camping out at a neighbor’s house.

He’s such a friendly cat that most of the neighbor’s know him, but a week ago he lost his collar, so if he’s with somebody that doesn’t know him they won’t know where to bring him! I miss my kitty.

The problem with posters is that I don’t have any regular pictures of Troy, it’s all funny pictures b/c he’s always doing something funny.

[above: Troy at my 4th of July party in 2004. he doesn’t know his limits.]

[left: This is Troy humping my jacket. Yes my room is really that messy, though I have put away my suitcase.]

[lower left: Troy with my brother-in-law, Matthew.]

[lower right: Troy in the bathtub because he likes to be clean.]

Yesterday I moved my sailboat from Tacoma, Washington to Seattle. It’s about a 30 mile trip at most, and I figured worst case scenario was about a 6 hour trip, but with the wind at our backs and a positive mindset I was hoping for much less.

Wrong.  Here’s what Chris Tremonte and I wrote for our blogs while we were stranded in Elliott Bay waiting for Vessel Assist to tow us the last five miles of our 10 hour tour.

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Chris: Rather than just drive back from yesterday’s race in Portland, Ben Collins and I decided to drive to Tacoma and then sail his 27-foot Catalina "yacht" up to its new home in Ballard.  Unfortunately there hasn’t been much wind and the boat only has a 5hp motor.

[Below: Me typing into MS Live Writer on Chris’s laptop. Behind my head is Blake Island.]

Ben: See, a boat’s speed is a direct function of several things, the length of the boat (larger boats can go faster than smaller boats), plus the amount of power that goes into propelling the boat forward. The problem that Chris is introducing is that an absence of wind has forced us to rely on a one cylinder 35 year old diesel engine that I was unable to start until about a week ago. Well, it starts now, but about a half an hour ago smoke started spewing from the cabin of the boat, and Chris started acting a little loony.

Chris: and that’s why we’re stranded here watching the lights come on in downtown Seattle.  But let me go back to how we’ve been underway for seven hours and have only made it to the middle of Elliott Bay.  You see, when we have run the motor today (sadly, most of the time) we were only running it at about half power.  Ben was concerned about gas mileage and we were a bit short on gas.  But even after stopping to refuel at Des Moines, we were still puttering along at maybe 3 or 4 knots.  I made the joke that one of us should get out at Des Moines and walk and we could see who gets to Ballard first.  Sadly it now appears that would have been an easy victory for the walker.

[Left: Blury Seattle skyline. terrible photo]

Ben: I was just explaining to Chris that he should never give up an opportunity for a good story. This, however, is not why we both neglected to charge our cell phones last night, or why I left my GPS in the car, or why around 5pm we decided to say "screw it" and kick this bad boy into gear. No, sadly enough, we set out on our adventure that we would get my new (very used) sailboat from Tacoma to Seattle in under six hours and with as little effort as possible (aside from a few tacks and some sailor lingo). At this point, I’m just thankful it hasn’t been raining yet.

  Chris: the weather has been so nice today that I’m shocked at how few other boats we’ve seen out here.  We saw maybe ten boats on our way up and now we just see each ferry as it almost runs us over.   I suppose that’s what happens when you’re adrift in the middle of the ferry lane.

[Left: this ferry got REALLY close, but Chris’s cell phone died so this was our last photograph of the day.]

Ben: no seriously though, the last ferry to com by was REALLY close. As in museum voice distance. Wait, Seattle Traffic is calling me on the radio (our cells are dead, did I mention that?)…. brb… ok, the vessel assist is on its way, and now Chris and I are taking turns doing a periodic signal toward the boat, and typing in the blog. OK, my turn.

[Below: We’re the tiny black dot in between the freighter and the two other boats. Since out cell phones were dead my parents went to watch us be rescued from the Magnolia Bluff overlooking the bay.]

Chris: neither of has ever gotten Vessel Assist before.  We were wondering whether the Chucklehead Factor of needing Vessel Assist is greater than the comparable factor for roadside assistance.  Vessel Assist is rapidly approaching now.  Gotta go.

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So we made it back safely. Chris got to go through the Ballard Locks for his first time (it’s like a boat elevator that goes from the Puget Sound into the Seattle Ship Canal, which connects to Lake Washington.), but it was with the extra fun of being towed through. We were both very tired and hungry by the time we got in, but honestly, Vessel Assist was WAY faster than that Diesel engine anyway. Oh, and it started raining while we were being towed. So much for lucky weather.

[Above: Chris and I, finally in Seattle and docked.]

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A few months ago I bought a sailboat at a repo auction. It’s like buying a foreclosed house, only a sailboat is way more fun than a house, and costs much less. The boat had basically been abandoned, but is in nearly perfect condition. It’s a 1972 Catalina with a blue hull and a small cabin. I was gone all summer, which prevented me from spending the five hours it took to clean the boat and get the inboard diesel engine running. The main problem was a bit of a catch 22. The boat was moored in Tacoma, about 50 miles from where I live at the north end of Seattle, which is way too far to drive to work on a boat, but I couldn’t move the boat to Seattle until I had worked on it a bit. Had it been in Seattle I would have been sailing months ago, but as is it took me until yesterday to take the boat on its maiden voyage.

I went out with my dad, who helped me get the diesel running, and we figured out the basics of how to operate the boat. The winds were light, so we were able to figure out what we were doing without any stress.

Today I went out with my friend Peter. Peter’s three years of sailing experience with Seattle Yacht Club adds to my two years of summer sailing camp experience to give us a combined five years of experience on boats under 14 feet long. Obviously we’re qualified to take a boat twice as big out on our own (or maybe people like me are the reason Washington will be instituting a new law requiring boat pilots to have a license.).

We sailed out and back and a to and forth, and now I feel confident enough with the boat that next week after Nationals I’m going to make a voyage from Tacoma to Seattle. The tides for Sunday the 21st are such that the current will be heading north starting just before noon, so I figure if I leave Tacoma around 11:30 I can make the trip in 5 or 6 hours. I want to see if I can make it entirely on wind power, but if it’s a light breeze and the sails aren’t full, I won’t hesitate to give it a diesel boost.

Once in Seattle I am going to rename the boat and have a naming ceremony (any excuse for a party). The current name is Isis, which has no meaning to me. I’m taking suggestions, but what I’d really like is something with three layers of meaning. So an obvious double meaning (for instance if I were visually impaired, like Aaron Scheidies – who went a 1:58:30 at the Malibu Olympic Distance Triathlon, a minute faster than our World Record performance in Dallas last October – I could name it See Worthy), but then I want a third meaning that is more of an inside joke where you’d have to know me to get it (bc dot org knowledge is enough).

The past week in Seattle has been amazing weather. Temperate, sunny, clear skies, clean air… There’s no better place to be than summer in Seattle. Something is different this year, however, when I look out across Lake Washington. It’s quiet. There aren’t a lot of waves. There are twice as many kayakers and sailboats and a third as many wake boarders, jet skis, and cigar boats that scream “I have low self esteem and a small reproductive organ, so I make up for it with a 12 cylinder engine and 30 feet of un-muffled, water and air polluting speed”. The sea-planes are still flying. I have no idea who flies around in sea planes.

There’s extra tax to buy gas on the water, so while pump prices for the car are  around $4/gallon, to fill your boat at the local marina is more like $6/gallon. Figure that a morning of wakeboarding for three people uses about 8 gallons of fuel, and you’re looking at a pricey morning ritual. Taking the bus and packing a lunch can’t even save that much money.

Needless to say, the last time I was on my wakeboard I was being towed by a kite. There are a lot fewer days with enough wind to kiteboard, but it only takes about 20 for the savings in gas alone to pay for a top-of-the-line kite.

That’s a tangent. What I really want to celebrate is that the lake really seems to be less busy, quieter, safer for swimmers, and cleaner. A year ago if I were swimming on a nice day I would be able to taste gasoline in the water from the hundreds of boats zipping back and forth. It’s a miracle that I wasn’t killed by a drunk or inattentive driver. I’ve done three open water swims this week, and seen a total of 3 boats go by while I’ve been in the water. Victor had a boat go between him and the shore – which would have scared the crap out of me (and maybe caused me to go on a witch hunt to get the guys registration info so I could report him to the police) – but that’s as close as either of us came to any trouble.

I think if high gas prices can clean up the lake, and get people to demand more efficient vehicles, then let’s just tax gas extra and use the money to build more safe bike paths, and public transportation infrastructure. I would love to see $8/gallon gas. Would I see you on the bus if that happened? They have wireless internet on some of the routes in Seattle. Rather than watching brake lights, wouldn’t you rather use your laptop? I want to see gas prices so high that when I walk outside my house at 8am during rush hour I’m not suffocated by the smell of exhaust from all the cars just sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the highway (state route 522 is about a block and a half from my house and it WREAKS in the mornings).

Maybe more tolls would help – though I’m against anything that takes cars off the highway and puts them on side streets because it makes it more dangerous for cyclists. I like Mayor Bloomberg’s idea to just make everyone pay a toll when they come into midtown or lower of manhattan. There is plenty of public transportation to the center of the city, so anyone driving in there is lazy.

When we all start looking at people sitting in traffic the way they look at smokers, then we’ll be getting someplace.