Sailing In Xiamen

Well, isn't that the way it always works.

The month before I leave Xiamen I find a new western grocery store (with tons of yummy things like whole wheat bread, baking powder, and New Castle Brown Ale!), a rent-able practice room full of instruments for cheap, and a new marina with rent-able sail boats!

Sigh. This would have changed the way I live here! (In good and bad ways I think...)

Oh yeah, PS everyone. This is my last week in Xiamen! Can't believe its been a year! I guess I should do a blog on that later.

At least I made the best out of all of the new fun stuff in the last month of being here. I had a great day of sailing with a french friend of mine the other day. The sun was out, the pollution was at a minimum, and the wind was kicking!



The marina is located on the northern tip of the Island boarding the mainland. There really isn't a whole lot more there. It's actually one of the least developed areas I know of in Xiamen. It does however have a big bridge and a pretty spiffy looking Posiden looking statue that make the Marina look pretty neat.



I'm not sure exactly what kind of boat it was we rented. If any of you sailing people can figure it out form pictures/description let me know. It easily seated 6 and was probably 24 feet long. Should have checked it out more carefully... maybe I'll go one more time and check it out.

It was quite a challenge to scrape off a years worth of rust while only having two people in a tank of a boat, in really heavy wind, and being the only one of the two who knew how to sail.... but it was actually super fun. It pressed my abilities to a comfortable limit and we really got going at some points!

I risked taking my new Camera out on the boat, but it was worth it because Ashleen (my French friend) also got some great action shots out on the boat. Unfortunately I left it on a really low quality setting, so most of them only look half way decent with a fair amount of editing.

Here are a few:





Then I took over the camera while I let Ashleen give sailing a shot.



Unfortunately I will never see the funniest pictures of the day but I can at least tell the story.

On our way in, we noticed a MASSIVE yacht (Wow there is some crazy money in China. Holy income distribution discrepancy Batman!) with 5 or 6 young Chinese women in bikinis being photographed by some very professional looking photographers. We sailed in for a closer look and from the logos on the boat/cameras it was obviously some kind of magazine.

As soon as we got close enough to see, one of the girls jumped up and started smiling and waving at us. This of course got the attention of the photographers who then spun around to look at what she was so excited about.

Before we knew it the boat erupted in flash. My ridiculous pose instincts is now instinctively activated by Chinese camera flash. We struck some silly over the top James Bond-ish poses for them and sailed on.

Whats more exciting than 6 bikini clad 20 somethings on a yacht? In China, apparently its two Vanilla faces on a dinky sail boat.

I really hope I end up in some kind of yachting magazine striking a killer action pose! (To any of my Chinese friends, be on the look out in 中国游艇网 !)

Anyway, the marina was gorgeous. I hope to get out again before I leave since it will be cold back in RI! There were also some little colorful boats that we were hoping to see in the water, but never went in. To bad.

Here they are on land.



Well, that's it for sailing. I guess I'll be doing an entry about leaving here pretty soon.

Stay good.