First Day of Training

We are staying in a health resort about 6km from the sailing venue. Most of the other teams are staying here too so it's a bit like a mini United Nations with lots of different languages around all the time. This place is supposed to be a resort area where many Polish people come to spend their summer holidays. It kind of reminds me of a 1950s holiday camp with organised activities for the guests. There's also a big presence of imposing security guards roaming throughout the place. Yesterday we shared a shuttle from Berlin to Poland with the team from Israel. They travel with their coach and their two huge security guards from the army. They are not allowed to wear their team uniform any where other than the venue as at no time can they be identified as being from Israel. It was a real eye opener for our team.
The bus doesn't leave to take us to the sailing club until 10 however our sailors were lucky to get on a hotel shuttle and leave earlier. The rest of us are now waiting for the shuttle to arrive.

Poland at last!

We have made our way to Poland at last! On Saturday we left NZ 3 members of our team short. The 3 of us left flew through to Hong Kong with Air New Zealand on a Boeing 777-200. I was told it would be a great flight as it was anawesome plane. Don't believe it!!! It was probably one of the worst planes I have ever been on. Even the two children were complaining of no leg room! We didn't get very much sleep at all and arrived in Hong Kong very tired. We had to uplift our bags and put them into storage which cost us $110 NZ. We then took the train into Hong Kong station. Wow Hong Kong had our eyes out on stalks - especially the children. It was hot, humid and raining. The two kids loved it. We took a bus trip around the city which had a running commentry. Our energy levels during the day flagged constantly so we had many stops to drink and eat to up energy levels. We decided to head back to the airport early due to our tiredness. It was there we had fun and games with the sail tube we were carrying. Lufthanser refused to carry it and I refused to leave Hong Kong without it. The compromise cost me $280NZ! We then flew through to Munich where we had issues with me reading the airport board wrong but more about that later! Onto Berlin - what an awesome city. If you haven't been here since the wall came down then you wouldn't recognize the place. The old East is where it's all happening and many places that once couldn't have been visited can be now. Zak and Ellie bought pieces of the Berlin Wall and had McDonalds at Checkpoint Charlie!!! I had my photo taken at the Brandenburg Gates - something I never thought would have happened when I was Zak's age.
Today we caught the shuttle through to Poland and have been so impressed with the generosity of the Polish people. We are also very impressed with how cheap everything is. I bought lunch for three people which cost me a total of $5 NZ. Tomorrow we get our boats and the kids get on the water for the first time - something they are looking forward to :-)

Oh No!!

Waiting now in Auckland Airport with Ellie and Zak but Ken has been unable to leave Wellington due to awful weather conditions. So here I am solo in charge :-) Two very lovely children to look after - how wonderful :-) Hopefully Ken and family can join us within a couple of days - fingers crossed.

Just a few hours left before Zak and I leave for Auckland to meet up with the rest of the team. Still so much to do - grrrr!! My oldest son, Liam, has been an awesome help. It certainly is a different pack to normal when I have to make all the sailing gear fit into the bags as well!
Lots of people have asked me over the past few weeks what we do with our boats and how we get those over there. The answer is we don't. We charter boats over there. We get to pick our boats up on the day we arrive and set them up. We take our sails over with us and anything else we want to have on the boat. Hopefully Zak knows how he wants his boat set us as this is an area I know nothing about!

Nearly Time To Go

It's all excitement in the last two days before my youngest son, Zak and I head to Poland. At Easter Zak qualified for the New Zealand optimist team to compete at the European Championships in Poland. At the time it seemed quite a way out into the future - but how fast time goes!! Zak has been counting down the days from about 35 days to go. Even then it didn't really register but now with two it's fast becoming a reality - eek! The next two days is going to be exceptionally busy with heaps left to do.

There are four members in the team, Zak, Jack, Ken and Ellie. The team has been practicing every weekend in Auckland since the beginning of May. It has been really impressive to watch how much effort these young people have put into their preparation. For me it's been hard work as I have had to drive two and a half hours each way on a Saturday for Zak to attend these sessions. I'm really starting to feel the effects of it having succumbed to a heavy cold in the last week. However it has been rewarding to watch just how much his sailing has improved and the effort has been well worth it.

On our trip over we go via Hong Kong, where we spend 17 hours before we fly to Munich and then onto Berlin. We are spending the night in Berlin before driving to Kamien Pomorski in Poland where the European champs are being held. The official website for the champs is http://www.europti2010.pl This will be the site to get official results. The team however has made their own Facebook page to update friends and family. On Facebook search for Euro opti New Zealand Team.