Jackie Gay

Ok, a quick update.
Allan and I didn’t make it to the Beijing Games, we missed selection in our class by one place. However we are still sailing together and will be competing in the Sail for Gold regatta in Weymouth this September and also the IFDS World Championships in Greece in October. After that, there will be forks in the road to choose…

In the meantime I have been getting back to basics and sailing as much as possible. 10,000 hours, so they say, to get really good at anything. So there’s a long way to go. But I have done a lot of sailing over the last year and have plans to do a lot more. I’ve been spending time in Victoria, BC and am still stunned by the environment, the light, the ocean – resulting in a small obsession with ‘half and half’ photographs (half sky half water – this started in the Baltic, actually, whilst sailing in the archipelagos of Stockholm and Oland).

This is out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca fishing.

You drop your head (to a book, a notebook) and then look up and it’s changed

See the Olympic mountains in the background and even the fishing line visible against the water. However we never catch anything while I’m out there – I don’t think the Buddha wants me too!

And again from a sailing boat – ringed by crystal mountains, the telltale fluttering from the shrouds.

Sometimes it’s so quiet out there you can hear nothing but the hiss of the water on the hull, and ropes running through the rigging as you gently tweak. And the sails are reflected on the water.