That's right the week-end may be nice afterall. However today is more overcast than actual rain and so we will go ahead with the Sociable Affair plans. I will set up the base camp tonight and have the boats ready to haul in the morning. After that there is just the groceries and a few small details.

Patrick and I will round up wood tonight and set up the camp if all goes well. Tomorrow morning Reg and I can haul the boats out and get the paddle end of things going. Today or tomorrow for sure I need to get two new propane 20lb. bottles. The old ones have expired and they are cheaper to replace than test.

Patrick and I were busy and accomplished much this evening. The paddklers added 10 new pfds to their collection of paddling stuff. We bought some infant sized PFDs and found that most people that paddle with infants bring their own but just in case we now have some. We have badminton volley ball and croquet gear and a half a trailer load of firewood. One of the packages of pfds we bought was a pfd short and I will take care of that with a quick trip to Canadian tire sometime tomorrow.

The day use areas re not provided with firewood and so we haul our own. You can go through a lot of wood in a week end and with the cooler nights we have been having we will need to get more.

So the next step is to set up the camp and haul the boats out there. and that will happen very early tomorrow morning. Much will get done after five tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday are the really big days anyhow.

I was up checking thhe weather at 06:00 hrs and things were looking veyry good. I decided on a snooze and when I woke up it was overcast, windy and threatening to rain. I headed off along my daily walking route and managed to complete most of it before the rain started. More of a shower with big drops really than a down pour but enough to stop for a coffee at Harleys.

I am hoping that the weather forecast is correct and that this will blow over Thursday and we will have a sunny and warm week-end for the Sociable Affair. Plans for this are well in hand and looks as though tomorrow will be very busy for me. Lots of running around to do throwing things together.

I will set the tents up late Thursday evening or very early Friday Morning. Reg will help haul the boats to the river and Patrick and Naomi will arrive around 17:00 hrs. to help. The biggest thing left to do really is buy the groceries and cook.

Happy Canada Day everyone, please enjoy yours where ever your spending it.

For those of you that may be following the blog , you may recall Smokey my almost dog. This morning I woke to someone pounding on my door and when I yelled "Come in" , Bang there ws Smokey in my lap. Smokey is beautiful Huskey Spanial cross that is a very smoke grey colour and about the most charmin dog I have ever met(he knows it to.0 He belongs to todd a friend of mine that lived a few houses down the street and smokey decided that he wanted to hang around my house all last summer instead of Todds. Smokey spend so much time at my place and following around town he was almost my dog. I now have to start stocking dog biscuits again as Smokey knows where the Milkbones are. 

I disciovered that 12 beers in Yellowknifes bottle store cost $27.00 an so I am glad I quit when I did. I packed thenm home and then jumped on the old bicycle and rode to the flaot base which is very close to home. seems they found my wallet about two blocks from where I live. Probably bouced out as I was riding by as our roads here are at times pretty rough. They said they were only joking about the beer but I could tell they were happy I had done it. It was a very small price to pay to get all the identification back and saved me hours of running around. I have now stashed the ID in a more sensible place and will only carry the drivers lience unless I know I am going to need it.

Plans for the Sociable are well in hand and other than the actuall move and set up it is done. Reg has agreed to help set up and Ollie will lend me his truck so we are in business. Thisusually runs pretty smooth but until I am camped at the river with everything up and running my job is to worry about it.

I have been tracking my brains trying to find my wallet. These days losing one is no small matter. Here with the new security rules getting your drivers licence replaced requires lots of picture ID. Unfortunately all this stuff is in my wallet. I have been ripping the shack apart looking for this and finally decided to take a break. I went next door to visit Carol and Raymone. I returned an hour later determined to find it or cancel the credit cards. I have a chalk board on my door and there was a nice note. I split a postal box with the charming Cnythia and the note read "your wallets in the mailbox." Cynthia is a perfect person for splitting a box with. I head up to the post office and retrive the wallet and it is totally in tack. There is a note explaining that the wallet was found by an Air Tindi pilot and where he found it. It also explained his favoured beverage and where to drop a case of it off. This I will to tomorrow. They have saved me an immense amount of running around and the beer will be a pleasure to drop off.

I need the stuff in there to organize the Sociable as it is my credit cards etc; that cover the expenses until it is over and then the Paddlers re-imburse me. I also need the drivers licence so that I can move all this stuff out there. I haven't drank now for a lot of years and it should be interesting to see how much a case of beer is these days in Yellowknife.

This week I need to round up the attachments that go with a 3 day BBQ paddle affair, such as propane and games. I try and cook the main meals the day before but sometimes we do it during the day as part of the activities. We have the usual hotdog/burger stuff going on for anyone that is hungry and we serve a stew or chilli or something more formal around 18:00 hours. Thursday evening I will head out and set up the main tents and sun shelters and that way in the dawns early light I can start hauling the boats out and have everything ready to play by early afternoon. Being the last three days of home coming week we may see some folks earlier than usual.

The weeks weather is predicting rain and I hope it all falls before the week end. Rain pretty much cancels the affair for attendance by anyone but the padders as we will go anyway in case someone decides to join us. We have been fortunate in 5 years that we have only had one rained out day and by the time we ready to leave the sun returned and so we stayed till almost midnight to make up for lost sunshine. I look forward to the break and the river is a nice spot to spent 3 days paddling around and hosting lots of folks. Games and grub, tunes and boats, sun what more could you ask for. Cheers, Greg

I have managed to restore most of everything that was cleared out whenI re-installed windows. First step was to get the Anti-Virus stuff up and running and them carry one fixing whatever I could fix. The sun is out and that raises the spirit somewhat and I remember to go and buy groceies. You got stuck into fixing this stuff and time flies by. The hunt for my missing wallet is also still on and if I don't find it soon I will be very displeased. I am sure it is in the house and I just can't find it. I will no sooner cancell everything and it will pop up.

These disasters are cutting into my paddling time and I have a very hectic week ahead getting ready for the Sociable Affair our annual paddlefest. I have managed to secure a truck to move the stuff to the river which is great and makes things much easier. The set up is actually the hardest part since I will be alone

  Patrick usually helps but work is in the way this time as we are early. The effort is huge but the fun folks have seem to make it all worth while and shoukld we get a few signed donor cards we have accomplished the mission.

Sailing twice around the world in one winter has been fun and it will end when I land in St. Petersberg, Russia tonight, I will be glad to be abkle to do other things as I have alot to get done for the Sociable by next Thursday. I was busy today in between course corretions stapling up flyers for the Social. I got 75 up and handed a bunch out Tomorrow I will get the rest out there and that will be one less thing to worry about. I have posted the annoucement to some of Yellowknifes popular search sites and sent it to Coffee Break news hoping they publish it.

The actuall set up takes about half a day for a couple of folks with a truck and trailer. setting the camp up is about two hours including travel, but hauling the boats out takes a bit of effort.

I  started off great on the lst leg and then had a computer glitch that crashed my boat while I was out. I lost over 200,000 places and getting them back won't be easy. This will really wreck my overall standing good thing the real race is over. I had changed course and was progressing smoothly and came home an hour later to find my boat heading SE, not N where I had left it and I was aground and at the tail end of the fleet. I have won back 12,000 places and still have about 180, 000 to go. The distance ias really only about 15 miles but there are a lot of boats there. We are sailing east in the Gulf of Finland and it is a small piece of water for such a large fleet. This will be a very tactical leg with lots of little course changes trying to get the best out of the light winds.

Tonights CERT meet was attended by Patrick and myself. Naomi had been out in the sun to much and was at home on recovery. Anne-Marie, we think is on holiday . Patrick and I practiced a couple of different throw bag drills and I taught Patrick the 3 part crown knot.

 This is a double loop knot used for hanging things around a campsite and it is quick and easy to tie and could be useful for many things. One more knot up Patricks sleeve.  I practiced the Ashley bend,  to tie two ropes together. The Ashley bend is different as it allows the rope to take a load in four directions, this could come in handy at times. I also worked on the crown knot just for fun and I may try using it in a back splice. There are of course thousands of knots and for rescue work you really only need a small handfull of the tried and true. There are now rescue systems available that use carabiners and swivels in place of knots and with these the Figure 8 in a bight knot is all you would need to know. I personally believe in the basics and good knot work, works every time and you can't forget part of it at home or lose it over the edge if it is in your head where it belongs.

This week and next will be busy as we have the Paddlers for Parts annual "Sociable Affair" coming up the week-end of July 3,4,and 5. We have a lot to organize and grub to get ready. Patrick has to work that day and so it means I am going solo for the first part of the day. Setting up and hauling the boats out there is the biggest part of the job. I may have to find some gung-ho volunteers to give me a hand.

Yellowknife is getting the streets cleaned for free today and the river levels will be rising. The rain is great for keeping the dust down and will certainly help break up the ice that remains on the Great Slave Lake.

Having a few small leaks in my roof keeps me home on bucket brigade. I did however complete 17,000 steps along the TCT and will skip the bike ride as the rain is much heavier than when I was walking. I normally use an umbrella in the rain but it is difficult with the walking poles.  Today I opped for my gortex cycling jacket and my trusty Souwester rain hat.

I talked with Mr. Luke Coady from The Territorial Parks and we have permission to host the "Paddlers for Parts" Annual Sociable Affair #6 at our preferred location the Yellowknife River bridge. This is our annual 3 day event where we give away canoe and kayak rides and free food as well. We try each year to host an assortment of paddling related activties and games to prevent boredom between paddles.

The type of activities that we get up to depends on who shows up and what they would like to try. We will have soccer balls and volley ball, horseshoes a slackline and hoping to set up a Greenlandic rope game system as well as my never tried before kayak rolling Hammock. We will have 3/4 sea kayaks, a couple of white water boats and 3/4 canoes of various types a zodiac and a Nautiraid 2 folding tandem for folks to try. Hoping to have at least one extra plastic tandem.

We have been hosting this event for 5 years and this will be year six.

Each year we get a little bigger and we hope better and have grown now to two sun shelters and a 15 foot diameter dome tent and some pup tents. This year we have the usual hot dogs and burgers and will be serving beef stew and bannock on Saturday around 18:00 hours and the usual assortment of soft drinks and fruits and snacks. Sundays dinner is still a surprise but we will come up with something good. we did chilly for a few years and time to change up however paddlers chillie is very good and we may make one anyway. We like to keep everyone well fed and happy. We used to provide a huge cake but the weather made it very difficult to keep it from melting. 

The even keeps us busy rounding up wood and getting set up and last year we were ready about ten minutes before the first would be paddlers arrived looking for their ride.

We do roll demos and water rescue and this year we will set up a knot practice table and teach folks how to rig a Z-drag or perhaps even a pig rig.

The event will be held on July 3,4, and 5th, we hope to be set up by noon Friday and start playing in the afternoon. This is a tiring event for the paddlers and by Sunday evening we are ready to head home and take a break. Should you be in Yellowknife during that time this event is open to any and all that wish to attend. Please drop by we have lots of room. Cheers, Greg Ps I think that we are getting all of our Annual 10 inches of precipitation all in one shot and I and beginning to feel like the Titanic.

I managed to get back from by check up in Edmonton in one piece. I caught the First Air flight back in the afternoon and walked in from the aeroport, just to  make up for the steps I missed while away.

I had a great walk and when I got home I relaxd for awhile and then at 23:00 hours went for a paddle around Latham Island. The night was calm and the paddling easy, I stopped and chatted with a small sailboat for a while and then the breeze picked up and we went sailing in seperate directions.

Yellowknife awoke to a perfect day hitting as high as +26 early in the afternoon. Sun everywhere and just a good breeze. I will be off and sailing here shortly but wanted to type this off first.

I would like to wish you all a very happy Summer Solstice and National Aboriginal day. Today was the 12th or 13th Annual show and shine at Harleys hardroock saloon and the bikes were out and looking very good. There is now a large number of Harley-Davidsons cruising the streets of Yellowknife. I remember years ago when we first had a dealership there were 52 Harleys in town but I think the number has gone down. There were probably 30 or more in attendance today but I never got an exact head count. Chris was busy cooking burgers for everyone and the Saloon was full.

I managed to squeeze in 16,500 steps on my virtual hike and am now half way to Smokey Lake, Alberta. I have about 1.25 million steps to go and I will have completed 25 % of the Trans Canada Trail virtual hike. I average about four miles aday that I count towards the hike and so crossing Canada is a large project. I walk everyday and I may as well count the steps on the trail as the program is fun to follow and beats a paper log book any day.

I will come back later this evening as I am wasting daylight and I only get 20 hours of it today. Cheers, Greg

I survived the paddle and it was great  the breeze had died but still the weather was great and I covered a few kilometers . I paddled almost to Mosher Island and them turned hoping top catch the breeze but light light winds do, they died. I them paddled towards the north end of Latham Island and when almost there turned and paddled under the causeway to Back Bay just for a quick look. From there I headed home and hauled the yak out. Today I will try the Windpaddle sail  and see how that goes. Adios for now, Greg