fleet in sleet

I came to Bellingham yesterday to visit my daughter and watch the Regatta, http://wwusailing.com/regattas/, Western Washington and five other college teams, in the light snow and sometimes sleet.

The main comment I heard about the sleet was “Oh, good, some wind.”

Taken from shore, Nikon Coolpix P510, 42x zoom.

gratitude!

I took this in the early morning at the Northwest Maritime Center.

For the Daily Prompt: gratitude.

I am full of gratitude this morning, for friends, for love, for living near the water and the boats. My daughter was home for college this summer teaching sailing at the NW Maritime Center to children who were here visiting and to children who live here. She says that some of them had hardly been in a boat before. If one child got scared in the pair out in sailboats, they might get others scared and crying. Still, she felt that they had enough staff and good training and were very safety conscious in this cold water.

One week half the kids said that their favorite thing the whole week was when one of the instructors went overboard. Honestly, he was pretty cold after that but learned to bring extra clothing.

My daughter took the Level One Sailing Instructor Course in Seattle before she started teaching. The instructors here at the Maritime Center got to know each other and work as a team.

The small land pirate ship is on the water side of the Northwest Maritime Center and is popular all summer, during the Wooden Boat Festival and for the younger Messing Around in Boats program in the summer. Small pirates ho! Gratitude for imagination and cameras and play and the sunrise and sunset.

 

zoned

Blogging from A to Z, the letter Z.

Virtues and views and changes in the definition of feelings over time.

Yesterday we hiked from North Beach towards Cape George and walked 2/3 of the way. My phone welcomed me to Canada! We were not in Canada, but I think the Vancouver Island cell towers took over.

We were paralleled by a sailboat race. The very low tide was at 1:00 pm, so there were other hikers, picking up the beach glass. I found my first marble! There was a marble factory and you can still find the marbles, some perfect, on glass beach. I gave mine to my friend and then he found a cat’s eye and gave it to me.

The sailboats were going with the tide with the wind behind them and spinnakers up! Not in my photograph, at that point they were dipping south of Protection Island. We started back a little before 1:00 and watched the tide turn. The sailboats returned as well.

What does zoned mean to you? The sailboats were in the zone, with the wind behind and the tide helping. A long race and beautiful…..and this is my last letter for the A to Z.