Sailing, Takes me away...

I know it's been a while since I last posted. I'm sorry! Really I am.
Lora and I have been working on insect traps and other important tasks trying to get her ready for the field. Basically, we've just been waiting around for the permits to come through. In the mean time I've been accepted into graduate school here at the University of Tasmania and will be working on a Reasearch degree in Science and math Ed. Lora leaves for northern Oz tomorrow to officially begin here data collection. It's bitter sweet though since we've really been enjoying hanging out together.

I've been trying to keep myself busy and out of the house by mtn biking, sailing and kayaking. The sailing began with me deciding that I should learn to sail a little bit more. We happen to live near many sailing clubs and one day I just walked into one and volunteered myself for a race crew. Within a few days I was onboard a brand new beautiful boat "crewing".


This was an evening race so it lasted about three beers...I mean two hours. I had such a blast that I decided to move up to the all day Saturday race. I was invited onto another boat that needed crew.
The race lasted about seven hours and it was HELL! The skipper yelled and called me all kinds of names. He totally knew what little sailing I had done prior to us leaving the docks and he said it was fine. There were only four of us on his boat and he usually needs seven crew to man his boat. Two of us had done very little racing and he took his anxiety out on us. I will not go into it anymore than by saying I will not be sailing on his boat again. He did have the nerve to invite me back though!



In other news I just recently went kayaing on a beautiful little gem of a river called the Broad river here close to Hobart. It was a class 4/5 river with clear water. It reminded me of Big Creek in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. Four of us took 1 hour to hike down to the river and about 5 hours to run it. I can't wait until I run it again. All it takes is a little rain and this river runs. I'm stoked!


Well, I guess that's it from down under for now. It may be a little while before either of us are able to post a blog entry because Lora will be in the field with the computer. I will try to post a text only entry or two from the Internet Cafe before Christmas. Who knows where we'll be or what we'll be up to next. Stay tuned!

Tim