Author: Jon

After the Snipe broke yesterday, Jess and I were without a plan for racing FBYC’s Open House Regatta on Saturday.  At 9pm Saturday night that plan came together and we would sail on Mad Hatter with the Flecks. This race is a progressive start distance race – meaning the slowest boast start first and the fastest boats start first and whoever finishes first wins.  This year featured a wide variety of boats including a 30′ trimaran and a Wasp. The weather was slightly overcast, warm with 12-14 knot winds.

We had a great start, hitting our time perfectly.  Only two of the legs were downwind for us, so that kept the spinnaker work for me up on the bow down to a minimum. We sailed the rhumb line and kept the boat going pretty well.  In the end the boat to beat was a 29er – who were able to fly a chute on the tight reaches much better than any of the other boats.  We finished 4th.

Following the race – we rafted up with a couple dozen other boats in Fishing Bay and got to hang out with everyone for a couple hours.  Later we took the boat back around to the dock and joined the dinner and listened to the band.

PICTURES | RESULTS

By Posted on Posted in Life, Sailboat Racing No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

We started the Memorial Day Weekend by hosting a Young Adult Member cookout at FBYC.  We had a great turnout of nearly 40 people and beautiful weather for a party that apparently went well into the night.

Jess and I spent Saturday morning putting the Snipe together for the first time since Labor Day of last year. We fixed a few things along the way including some trouble with the main halyard that kept jumping the sheave at the top of the mast.  Eventually we made it onto the water and sailing pretty good in the 10-14 knots of wind. About 20 minutes into our sail we heard a pop, saw the jib come down a little bit and realized that we blew out a block at the bottom of the mast for the jib halyard.  We sailed in and ended our hopes to sail  the boat again tomorrow.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Snipe Sailing No Comments Tagged with , , , , ,

Graduated last weekend with my Masters in Information Systems from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business.  It’s been a year and a half of studies and weekends in class and nice to have that behind me! It was a beautiful day to celebrate with my classmates and family.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life No Comments Tagged with ,

Our final day of the trip was set up to be a long one. We checked out of the hotel and headed to a donkey farm and went for rides.

Next we stopped in the town of Lefkara to admire the old architecture, a few old churches and to have lunch.

Our next stop was Fig Tree Bay for some time on the beach to relax.

Some folks swam while others chilled on the beach and some folks from our group went paragliding. The day continued with a stop at a sculpture garden.

We stopped for dinner and then hit a beach club in Larnaca to hang out before our flight that boarded around 3am.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

We started today in Cyprus with a visit to the University of Cyprus. We heard about the University’s founding as the first university in Cyprus in 1989 and it’s path to becoming an institution of over 6,000 students today. We got to hear leaders of the computer science department tell us about some interesting and innovative programs and their new innovation center was especially compelling. We also got to eat in a dining hall for what was my first time in over a decade – it was like any other dining hall food.

From there we went to the old town to meet with an Architect entrepreneur and to hear about his experience running a small business in Cyprus and the challenges and opportunities faced.

The rest of the evening was spent hanging around the hotel, working out, running and having dinner and then packing to leave in the morning.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

This was our travel day from Athens to Cyprus and it started out with a slightly delayed flight that was otherwise uneventful. After arriving in Cyprus we drove into the old town of Larnaca where we had lunch. It was 5 or 6 courses of small and very tasty family-style dishes that we spent a couple hours on.

Due to the late flight our tour of Larnaca was cut short due to some places that closed in the mid-afternoon so we went to a church and then to the beach and walked around a bit.

From there we took the 30 minute drive to Nocosia where we would be staying the next two nights.The town is the capital of Cyprus and sits right on the line where the island is divided between the southern republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. That evening some folks hung out at the hotel pool and bar while I went with Vengat and Chris down to the Pivo Microbrewery in the old town for some beer and food. We got to walk around and see the dividing line as well as the shops in the old town.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

Wednesday was our day to visit University of Piraeus Department of Digital Systems.  After sleeping in an extra hour we went to the University and saw one of their computer labs while having a discussion with the professor we had done a project with over the past couple months and was presented at one of the companies earlier in the week.

We had lunch at a sea-side restaurant that required the bus driver to navigate some extremely tight streets to get to.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and doing some souvenir shopping.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

Tuesday in Athens Greece was our second day of company visits. I again started the day with a run around the historic part of town and got to see a few more ruins that are a little father out of walking range.

The visits went well and we got to see a some more parts of town including a few big sports stadiums that we drove by.

In the evening we enjoyed the hotel’s rooftop pool and then we hiked to the top of a tall hill in town to see the views and have dinner.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,

Monday started with a run around the Acropolis. It was amazing how deserted the streets were early in the morning compared to the bustle they have in the evenings.

Our class went to visit a couple companies for some presentations. We had lunch along the coast and got to walk along the beach.

We ended the evening with drinks at the pool at dusk before going out for a nice dinner. We stopped and checked out the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Old Royal Palace.

PICTURES

By Posted on Posted in Life, Vacation No Comments Tagged with , , , ,