While Simon was taking his Level 1 coaching class at Inverness Yacht Club, Kari hung out nearby for a few days on a little Point Reyes retreat. They got all kinds of weather including 30+ knot winds and unmistakable liberal legend Robert Reich was on the premises.
*** This page contains several slideshows but you can stay on this page to see them all... just keep scrolling down.
Our mission was to escort Henry and his teammate Ryan to Encarnacion, Paraguay for Optimist South American Championships, a prestigious sailing competition they qualified for in New Orleans last Thanksgiving. SFO > Atlanta > Buenos Aires (very last row of 10 hour flight) > switch airports in BA > fly to Posadas > bus w/ Team Chile across the border to Paraguay hotel. Seeya boys, we backtrack to Buenos Aires for 8 days of adult vacay while they race. We will return to see last day of racing and do it all again in reverse.
Kicking Off Eight Days in Buenos Aires
We stayed at the CasaSur Bellini Hotel in Palermo and it was perfect. Highly recommend. Killer location and surrounded by excellent cafes and pizza joints. Really enjoy the density here. Most building are 10 stories and each building is unique. Everywhere has a doorman. We speculated all the doormen share a social app and I got flagged when I photographed an interesting art deco door outside a Palermo synagogue. (He made me delete the pic.) I still wonder... are there more taxi drivers or doormen in Buenos Aires?
City of the Dead
We wound up at Cementerio de la Recoleta in the late morning (by accident) so the photo lighting is not optimal but what a place to see. Met some tourists from New Orleans and we all agreed Buenos Aires' City of the Dead makes NOLA look like they didn't even try. Really, this cemetery is spectacular. Evita is here and countless other famous Argentineans. The picture didn't turn out but our favorite mausoleum had a bar setup with a nice view (I imagine) from the inside.
Recoleta and Monserrat
After City of the Dead we enjoyed a touristy Sunday afternoon in Recoleta at the parks and an excellent free museum. Eventually we walked all the way to Soho (?!?!?!?) for memorable bread and wine tasting. The following day, we took the excellent "Belle Epoque" tour of Buenos Aires with a local architect. Utterly fantastic!
Meanwhile, back at the regatta in Paraguay....
This pics are from the main event: 2017 South American Opti Championships (or S. Americans for short.) Teams included host Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, ISV (Virgin Islands), Bermuda, and USA. These pictures are from an excellent pro photographer Matias Capizzano mixed with pics sent to us by other USA parents. Henry had a great regatta and was 31st going into gold fleet. Looks like all the kids were having a fantastic time. We finally made it there for the last day of racing.
The BIG Buenos Aires Gallery
Highlights including walking around Soho in the rain, the MALBA (a must-see in Palermo), taking inside/tower tour of Palacio Borolo, getting close-up to Vice President of Argentina along the Puerto Madero waterfront, and exploring the San Telmo barrio.
Looping back through Paraguay
Sadly, after 8 nights in Buenos Aires we had to go fetch the sailors. At this point, Henry was having an awesome regatta and was 31st heading into the split (he made gold fleet.) We flew from BA back up to Posadas and cab across the border to Encarnacion. The border crossing went nicely but it's a multi-step process including taking our luggage out of the cab through x-ray. We had to do this in reverse with all the sailors and their gear and cumbersome sail tubes. Our bus ride this time was with Team Bermuda who is hosting America's Cup this year. Some day I'm not going to miss those opti sail tubes.
Collection of regattas in the SF Bay Area and down to Southern California. Henry won the Summer BAYS trophy for the second year in a row and the first with SFYC rather than EYC. Simon raced opti's and 420's. He qualified for the Bemis finals in San Diego and got 15th down there. He was also "honorably discharged" from optimist sailing following WCC's down at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club.
We went back up to the Columbia River Gorge for the second summer in a row for the Optimist Northwest Championships. Simon wound up 3rd behind the Subbiah twins. Wind was mostly light but there were some twists in the conditions, but most notably a heat wave.
We used to live as newlyweds in Hood River, Oregon in the mid-90's. After 17 years, we return w/ our kids and a couple other families as we traveled to a clinic and sailing regatta in Cascade Locks. We rented a nice townhouse in Hood River for a week. Very fun seeing lots of old friends and jamming w/ Pete for 3 hours at Trillium. We sounded alright.
After spending last spring break in Vancouver, BC, we resumed our desert adventures and camped in Joshua Tree National Park for 5 days at the Blackrock campground near Yucca Valley. (For prior desert adventure, check out Death Valley - my personal favorite.)
Speaking of civilized, we recently visited Vancouver, British Columbia for a combo business/pleasure trip. We navigated the city for 5 full days mostly by foot, bicycle, and public transit (and the occasional taxi.) Compared to San Francisco, the weather sorta sucks (which says a lot if you know SF) but Vancouver makes San Francisco look ***archaic*** when it comes to transit. They really have it figured out.
