Yellowknife must be doing something right, two sunny and warm days in a row. I am heading off to tackle my daily walk as I don't want to miss the nice stuff happening out there at the moment. Winter could slip in again at any moment.

Walking the trail was warm work today and great fun. I did my usual 11,000 steps and almost made the shores of Lake Diefenbaker. Tomorrow I will be walking the virtual shoreline of a lake in Saskatchewan that until this walk I had never heard of. Not surprising as there are a lot of lakes in Canada that I have never heard of. Moosejaw is my next waypoint and it is a week or more of walking away. The trail would be much shorter were it to runin a straight line. There is a lot of north/south and back tracking involved. This I would imagine is an attempt to get to the most scenic areas and on the land that was avaiable for the trail. Much of the trail uses abandon railraod right of way.

Today was a wonderful day outside around -10 or so and even with the slight wind great. I have lived here long enough to know that we still have a lot of winter left regardless and will enjoy this while it last but know we will pay for it sooner or later.

I am now 8,349,602 steps into my Trans Canada trail virtual walk and am approaching Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan. Next waypoint is Moosejaw and then Regina.

I have finished the Buenos Aries/Dakar race sailing time of 12 days 10 hours and 3 minutes. This leaves me sailing in the Clipper around the world lag six bound for Qingdoa, China from Singapore. I have signed the boat up to race in the Challenge the Champion Race roughly 2,500 miles round trip in the Atlantic starting on February 14th. Should be interesting we go about 1200 miles round an island and race back. This is a monohull race with open 60s.

Both yesterday and today wer very slack and I only managed to cover about 3,000 steps along the old TCT. I am sailing up the coast of Vietnam in really light winds on alee shore amd the boat requires constant attention to avoid running aground and to get the best speed possible with the light headwinds. Less than 1800 miles to go to Qindao in one race and about 220 miles to Dakar in the other.

The other day I started to finally use my Pilates excersize ball for a computer chair. It is working so far and due to the fact that the shack  is a little out of level, it is a constant workout just staying in one place. This is good as my squirt boat requires abs of steel(I have a ways to go) and a good core can't hurt.

The day was brilliant clear, sunny skies with just a light wind. We managed too climb as high as -27C before the dip began. Back to 30 below tonight or worse. wonder what the morrow will bring, spring fat chance, winter I bet.

My Trans-Canada  trail virtual walk is now well past the 8.3 million step mark and I added 11,500 steps so far today

It would seem that our furry friend has predicted another six weeks of winter unfortunately in Yellowknife that means a little longer.

March 21st. would be the first day of spring and that can still be well below zero in Yellowknife. Based on our past history open water and warm weather will get here when it gets here and thats about it. I will be here ready to take full advantage of it as soon as possible.

Must have been the -32 that kept me computer locked and house bound for a good part of the day. I was up most of the night sailing the boat and reading and got to bed around dawn. This gives me a noon start and I managed to squeeze in half my daily stroll but just lost interest and returned home. No sense trudging the miles if the spring has gone from the step.

It was -35 when I went to bed this morning but it is now up to -27C which is actually a lot warmer and you can really notice the difference. I don't think that I will get much done today outdoors but I have a lot to do inside and time flies when your having fun. I have some chores to do the usually stuff, water to haul  and kitchen to clean. I really need to invent a way to cook and eat well without using any cooking stuff. That would be a very useful system, great meals and no mess. 

I just realized that the Americas Cup races will begin on February 8th and much will be televised. However without a satelite dish or a cable package I am out of luck and will catch what I can on my computer.

I live to far from an ocean I think as my favourite activites are ocean based and I live where things are frozen for at least half a year.

Managed to put another 12,000 steps into the trial today and it was a good day for walking. A little more sun would have been nice but I can't have every thing.

The sailing is going well and even if Max is almost 60 miles ahead of me. We still have an entire ocean to cross and the winds will be better once we cross the equator. In will slip by him in the night if all goes well.

Yellowknife hovered round -26 C today and was bright and sunny nary a breath of wind. Managed to knock off 12,000 steps along the TCT and that put me almost into Outlook. Tomorrow will put me past Outlook headed for Moosejaw, Saskatchewan.

The sailing race is going as well as can be expected considering that we are basically heading into the wind if we head for the goal. I go north for awhile and then swing east for awhile. Shifting winds are at the moment allowing me to head NNE which is pretty much where I need to head. Tonight I should cross the Tropic of Capricorn and that will bring me closer to leaving the doldrums and hopefully stronger winds in a better direction.

I haven't ventured out yet, but shortly. The skies are clear and the sun is out the day looks beautiful. This means it is probably pretty cool outside but it is winter and we should expect no less.

The virtual sailing race at the moment is going good and I am reluctant to leave it as things change fast when your not around to change sails or course as the case may be.

Life still needs to be lived however and I have things to do. I hate to miss the daily walk when the day is as nice as this one looks. The day was full of surprizes as Larry returned from the Big Smoke and brought me a great little stove to add to my collection. This is a very neat gadget and I just tested it and it works like a charm. The stove burns any natural combustable material and I did the test run with paper. The stove has a battery operated blower built into the fire base and it has a low and high speed. There is also a adjustable sliding airflow control which lets you control the air intake a damper so to speak. The fire chamber is roughly a 3.5 inches cube and you pile your fire stuff into this and light it and then hit the blower to increase the heat output. The stove is rated to put out 20,000 BTUs or 6,0000 watts. Thats some serious heat from a small 1.5 pound package. You must run the blower all the time that the fire is burning otherwise the base will over heat. Care should be taken as the whole stove gets pretty hot during operation. Tomorrow I will take it outside and put it through the paces but so far I am totally impressed. Great gift Larry. Thanks.

I have also fired up my food dehydrator that I bought a few years ago at a garage sale and am trying it out on a couple of pounds of frozen peas and carrots. I hope to be able to dry alot of stuff for summer trips and it also throws alot of heat helping to take the chill off the house. I may even bake yet tonight, probably bannock as bread is a little intensive for starting now.

The bannoch was and excelllent choice and came out really well. I prefer baked bannock to that made on top of a stove. In this one I used canola oil instaed of lard as i was out of lard and also used some milk when mixing and it seemed to rise right up , came out very nice and I ate half of it well still hot.

I also ordered a subscription to the UK publication technical rescue as it was on special so I thought what the hey and got a year long script. This is only four issues but should be nicer than reading the stuff on line. Looking forward to the first issue to arrive.