It’s been a week since we surfed last, and the ugly, black ominous bruise on the back of my arm is a mean reminder of the fall off my board when trying to avoid being hit by another surfer, twice. I don’t actually remember the injury, but I’ve got a nice reminder of it. We’ve moved onto bigger and different things this week, first the spay and neuter clinics, and then for the past two days, our initial attempts at sailling!

Neither of us have had much sailing experience, but after 5 hours and 2 days on the water on the J24, we’re feeling semi-comfortable, at least with our instructor on board. We’ve had the desire to learn to sail for about a year now, after reading about families, couples, and young individuals (winning guiness world records) who have circumnavigated the globe. What a way to travel! As you all know I’m a chicken when it comes to waves, and I’m not a fan of wind. I guess its one of those things I’ll have to get over to be a sailing success.

There have been many helpful lessons learned so far; watch out for the boom when it swings across; pay attention to your steering while hauling in the master sail; don’t jibe or tack too fast; always keep moving; and most importantly “don’t fight the wind, because you will always loose”. This, well said by our instructor, and after thinking about it for a while, I realized the saying applies to a lot of things in life, not just sailing. There are a lot of things you can’t control, so work with what you can and make the best of the situation to keep the odds in your favor. I’ll leave it at that. You can let your imagination determine your own comparison.

I’m feeling more relaxed and at ease this week, after having our schedules’ sorted out; volunteering, surfing, swimming and sailling are all underway; our cooking, shopping, cleaning and laundry have become routine, Nixon has his own routine, minus the ear-infection-induced-pool-free-zone; we’ve done the vet, the car wash and the markets; and overall it feels more like home than ever before. But, of all the goals I’ve personally expected of myself for this trip, the one that I’m feeling has been lacking in progress is, unfortunately, the Spanish! Between the two of us, it’s difficult to do so many things on this laptop, from spanish lessons, yoga podcasts, blogging, emails, shopping for homes, watching Olympics and hockey, checking news, weather, and skyping home to family, we almost need two.