Some of the JA community in Vancouver showing their support!

Not going straight as I would prefer! Curse you Chicane!!!

Yup...another season is here!! In fact, with being only three and a half weeks in to November, it is well under way for the Americas' Cup circuit athletes what with 4 of 8 races already done.

Last month (May)I returned to Vancouver for my annual Spring sojourn to, first and foremost, get teaching hours with my school district lest they start querying themselves as to why exactly they keep renewing my contract. It is also a time for me to catch up with friends that I haven't seen in, usually, the past year and to just purely get back to the coast and the ocean.

With the exception of an ‘abbreviated’ season not really giving me much sliding time, the 2010/2011 season proved to be not terrible. Sadly I only competed in four races. This was, however, a difficult but calculated decision.

Well....update to the 'DSQ' saga.

First off, the next night of sliding I, not surprisingly, got good-natured ribbing from most that I passed. "Got your gloves?", "Don't forget your gloves"...etc, etc.

Never let it be said that one is ever too 'well seasoned' to make a rookie mistake. First race of the season this evening and as of 1.5 hours ago I was disqualified from my race.

Race week one. Park City, Utah. Cold-ish but not heaps of snow...though our first day of sliding the wind was blowing something fierce and the rather fluffy bits of 'snow globe' snow were whirling madly and making their way into all kinds of crevasses.

It is that time of the season. The first race week! This year the first America's Cup race, and indeed the very first FIBT race of the season out of all the circuits, is in Park City, Utah.

So last entry was that the ice had FINALLY gone on the track. After almost nine months of waiting the epic moment was here. But....I was on the sidelines.