If I were a king, I would declare that every man should build something, preferably a boat at some point of his life. Just because.

It’s been a while since I’ve made a real boat. In fact the last one was finished about 20 yeasrs ago! It was a small cabin cruiser  that ended up on the cover of Australian Amateur Boatbuilder magazine. That made me feel almost like a king, at least for a while and only among amateur boatbuilders, but anyway.  Whoever was responsible for it at AABB – thank you.

This new creation is a simple 9ft dinghy. It’s uniqueness  is perfectly round transom, which, in a plywood dinghy, has never been done to my knowledge. Not the easiest thing to accomplish, but possible with the use of 4mm plywood and quite a lot of bending (to the point of cracking…). The construction is a simple and well known ‘stitch and glue’ method. Here are some pictures to illustrate the process.

First of all, a paper model (1:10) was made to see if the shapes are OK. This is simple, but knowing what is OK is the hard part. Next, the biggest and most exciting part, was getting the wood  from timber yard and hauling it on top of the car home. At 60km/hr the 9ft thin sheet of plywood behaves like a sail – good luck controlling it (and avoiding the stupid looks on people’s faces as they pass you).

The next day the transom (the rear bit) was cut out and the sides drawn as accurately as possible. The transom and sides were then temporarily attached using tie wire and spread with a scrap piece of wood. The width of the boat was accurately measured and adjusted. Following that, the boat got turned upside down and the wobbly bottom was somewhat stiffened with, again, scrap wood. Symmetry check and proper seats were cut out and roughly placed. She was looking good now, the shape was pleasing, from the bow and stern.

Btw, I bet most people wouldn’t know this, but the Lloyds of London (the biggest boat insurance firm in the world) few years ago decided that boats and ships would no longer be referred to as ‘she’, but rather – as ‘it’. In response to this, the Yachting World proclaimed, that they would continue to refer to boats as ‘she’ as long as they looked good, all others can be ‘it’. Political correctness…? Screw it.

The only issue with my little dinghy was  – the seat was too high… This was fixed by adding another stringer to make it look like it was supposed to be this way.

The next stage was quite boring and tedious and involved permanent joining of all the  panels with epoxy resin and fiberglass tape. The few stages after that up to the painting point were also quite mechanical.

And then  there was the launch. Nice Sunday afternoon with a short break from all the rain on our Gold Coast, the family gathered around and the boat was lowered down the ramp. Yipee. She sat on her lines gracefully and we had a go rowing. Gusty wind made it a bit tricky and I lost my hat, which was funny to the onlookers as I tried to rescue it with the 7′ oar trying not to end up in the water. Not even 5 min after the launch that could have been really hilarious… Fun times indeed. And now it’s time for a cold one.

I am talking about ‘Tejo’.

Apparently it doesn’t get any more Colombian than that. Nobody knows when the game started, wiki says it’s pre–hispanic, but probably without the gunpowder part, who knows.
Usually played by ‘considerably’ older folks it entails throwing a 0.6 kg steel ring into the clay box with the aim of hitting small charges of gunpowder folded in pink triangular pieces of paper. The sound of the explosion? Between caliber .22 and .45 gunshot, if you ever heard those.

The running track at the Parque Ciudad Montes follows the boundaries of the park and you will pass two places where tejo is played. I guess it’s all a matter of getting used to it, but still, the little explosion always spikes up your already unusually elevated heart rate.

There must be something fascinating about the gunpowder and a loud bang. Apparently the Chinese alchemists invented it looking for the elixir of immortality (!) in 9th century and Albert Nobel furthered the cause by discovering the dynamite some ten centuries later. If we were to believe the scientists it all started with a big bang and the way things are going it all may finish with one too, as this creation doesn’t seem so intelligent after all.

Just before you run next to the first tejo area you will pass a small memorial on the right where few years ago stood a police station. The station was blown up by a powerful explosion set by the ‘guerrillas’ as a revenge for their action against the ‘warriers’. The blast shattered the windows in all the houses around. Amazingly only one police officer got killed as he was sitting in a car under which the bomb was planted. Since then there’s an increased police presence in the park and surrounding streets.

About 50m to the left of the memorial you will find a large traditional house, now a museum, that used to be the home of Antonio Narino, Colombian freedom fighter and liberator of many provinces from the colonial Spanish rule in 19th century.

It is a lovely house with a big courtyard, solid brick wall around and clay roof tiles on interesting timber support structure. I guess Prince Charles (yes, the same one) would be happy to see it as the house follows all the principles laid by him in a book “The Vision of Britain’. It is of human scale, contains a courtyard, water feature, incorporates art, is built from local materials and exhibits simple architectural language i.e. you know where the entry door is and the windows without thinking about it too much. Pity it stands empty, not many seem to be interested in history.

What is crowded though, is the big sandpit. Kids just love it and specially on weekends it explodes with life. Here they build their castles in the sand. Btw, this funny looking huge upside down cork screw is supposed to be a fountain. Too bad they don’t turn it on very often.

The older kids play soccer everywhere… There’s not a piece of grass anywhere in the park on Sunday without someone kicking the ball in spite of the signs “No jugar futbol”. You also get hit by one 9 out of 10 times you are in the park. Ok, maybe not so much, but it seems like a lot.

I guess at some point the kids stop playing games and do something real, like build a house (hopefully a nice one…). Then they run, looking for their elixir of immortality, before retiring to play tejo.

 I’m running in the park this morning, as usual.
At one point I hear the sound of few ambulances getting closer. This reminded me of Chicago where you couldn’t be outside for more than 5 min without hearing the firetruck or an ambulance going somewhere. Probably like most people I’m kind of sensitive to this sound which indicates a tragedy of some sort unfolding somewhere.

Few minutes later two firetrucks, one ambulance and few police cars stop right in front of the park. Great. Nobody seems to be in a hurry, the sirens are on, police get out of their cars, so do the firemen. After a while two men with uniforms that say ‘Bomberos” on the back got a big and heavy object from one of the trucks and start carrying it into the park. The object is covered with a large bag, so naturally I can’t see what it is. All the people in the park stopped to observe the scene…

The uniformed men (with big “Bomberos” letters on the back) and their police escort slowly make their way to the kid’s playground. What the hell is going on and why they allow us to just watch it..? Are they planning to blow up the whole park??? With all the people in it?????
They stoped at the kids’ playground, put the big object on the ground and took the cover off it.

It was a big RED FIRE HYDRANT…

As we all watch what’s next, one of the officers takes out a big electronic device with an antenna from his pocket and turns it on… The hydrant starts moving… it has small wheels underneath and to the amusement of the kids -

it was a REMOTE CONTROL TOY!

After 15 min or so the whole entourage carries the TOY back to the truck, all police escort get back into their cars and with the sirens on they are off. I remain in the park for a while with a kind of dumb look on my face. Then I start running again, as usual.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

P.S. “Bomberos” means “Fire Department” in Spanish.

Do you remember Dustin Hoffman in ‘Marathon Man’ movie?

Probably not, it’s an old movie. Every time I go to the dentist (and I have an appointment on Monday) the images from that movie flash back. I can’t help it. This morning, just like Dustin Hoffman, I again dragged my sleepy butt downstairs, made some instant coffee and dressed for a run in the park (Parque Ciudad Montes). You could ask “why instant coffee, aren’t you in Colombia”? They indeed produce some of the best beans in the world, most of them organic, if you care, but roasting them and brewing coffee is another matter. What they drink commonly here is ‘tinto’, which is a beverage you end up with if you boil water with panela (rock sugar), cinamon stick and some ground coffee. You always drink it black. Having limited time in the morning, I prefer instant coffee.

So is it safe…? Not the coffee of course, but the city in general…?

When I first landed in this city, 5 min into the taxi ride from the airport, with my mind busy fighting the unfamiliar surroundings and the all pervading smell of diesel fuel, we were suddenly stopped by a uniformed group of men and asked to get out of the car, put our hands on the roof while two of them searched our bags.  The remaining ones, with their fingers on M-16 machine gun triggers, made sure we didn’d do anything stupid. They happened to be good guys, the police, making it difficult to transport guns or drugs in that part of the city. Mabe our car looked suspicious? Who knows.

It was a car one or two sizes smaller than Hyundai Getz (or I-20 as you may know it), which means a really small hatchback. We would pack 3 adults and a kid on the back seat, myself in front with a stroller on my lap and a driver of course. On the way back it would be the same plus many bags of groceries filling the space behind the back seat and the hatch. We were lucky, this taxi wasn’t running on liquid gas which would mean a big gas bottle where the shopping bags were packed. But it had a big set of speakes there with a sub instead…

Latin music playing, we’re driving to the store.

I got used to the traffic here now, but initially I would brace myself in the seat as the car would go through stop signs without stopping, change lanes forcing others to move, not even slow down for pedestrians on crossings and skilfully avoid all the potholes on these streets, some of them filled with garbage (I wonder who would actually do this good samaritan act…?).

The store…

The taxi stops and you are greeted by a kind of homeless guy who behaves as if he owned the place and will direct you to the door, tell the taxi driver to go, intimidate others to allow him to carry their bags etc. All for a small fee of course. Get used to it, this kind of ‘service’ is common here. Once inside the store things are practically the same as in other similar stores around the world. And so are the prices. How these folks manage to afford all those things, god only knows… Car tires, groceries, flat screen TVs, motorcycles – you name it, they have it all there. And people are buying. So did we. My mother in-law had to make sure we wouldn’t go hungry or thirsty and so the trolley was filled with variety of things. God bless her. She is a saint indeed.

The rest of the day was spent watching TV, or rather female TV announcers with the longest legs and shortest mini skirts I have seen, trying to sit modestly on bar stools in front of the camera. We also went to the park again, this time with The Little One and later looked for a cat on the roof. When it got dark we went for a walk around the neighbourhood to see the Christmas lights and candles lit traditionally in front of most houses. There were some fireworks, accordion music playing and lots of people on the street. It was the first day of Christmas. It felt safe, but it looked kind of scary.

Saturday morning, 5:00 am, time to go for a usual run or ride.
Since I’m planning on a long ride tomorrow, the run looks like a winner, but actually I’m a bit bored with the weekend routine and chose to go for a paddle on my kayak in the mouth of the Tallebudgeera Creek instead. This had some potential fun built in, as you can battle the surf at the very entrance to the ocean. So off we went.

As I’m paddling towards the ocean I realise that the car keys I have with me will no doubt get wet and since they have an electronic chip in them these days, it would be better to leave them ashore. On the other side of the river I saw a blue plastic bag and decided to bury the keys (in a zip locked bag) next to it. The beach was totally empty, not a soul.

I’m back on the boat heading towards the ocean.

After battling the surf for a while the current was dragging the boat out too much and paddling in the river seemed like a better idea. As I paddled back to get the keys I saw a young couple laying a blanket down exactly where I thought I burried the keys! Naturally, as awkward as it was, I still needed the car keys so 5 min later we are all looking for the blue bag! It took half an hour at least of walking back and forth with no result and just when I was at the point of crying or praying, the girl announced she found a blue bag! She put her hand in it to get the keys only to discover that the bag had some old dog crap in it and nothing else… Obviousle she missed that part about the keys being burried NEXT to the bag, not IN it. Anyway, at that point I’m not looking so good in their eyes… On top of that she didn’t realise that by moving the bag, the location of the keys was now really lost. Shit!

Now 3 of us are digging through the sand on our knees. I can’t believe it. Another half an hour passes and finally a victory – the girl found the keys! Yipee. I bowed down, thanked them both and sat in the kayak again to quickly get the heck out of there and at least do some paddling up and down the creek. Having those keys in the bag felt really good now.

At the turning point up the creek I got a bit philosophical as I realised how different things look as you turn around. The wind feels different, the sun feels different, all the details look different. And you certainly may miss the blue bag that was so visible before.

Sobota, 5:00 rano, czas sie przebiec albo przejechac na rowerze. Jutro dluga jazda rowerowa sie zapowiada i dlatego wole sie przebiec, ale tak szczerze mowioac to ostatnio te biegi robia sie monotonne i dla odmiany wole sie przeplynac na kajaku.

No to plyniemy. Tak sobie wiosluje w strone oceanu i pomyslalem ze te klucze do samochodu ktore mam w kieszeni na pewno beda mokre w tej slonej wodzie i trzeba by je schowac na plazy zanim mnie fale uderza. Zobaczylem jakas niebieska plastikowa torbe i zakopalem klucze obok nej.

Po paru minutach wojowania z falami zdecydowalem wrocic do rzeki bo prad mnie za bardzo znosil i zaczalem wypatrywac tej torby… Zauwazylem tez, ze jakas mloda para polozyla kocyk dokladnie gdzie te klucze powinny byc. Oczywiscie sytuacja zrobila sie bardzo niezreczna, ale klucze trzeba znalesc… Po 5 minutach ja z mloda para szukam tych cholernych kluczy. Minelo jakies pol godziny i dziewczyna znalazla torbe! Swietnie! Niestety po wlozeniu reki do niej (bo myslala ze tam sa klucze) okazalo sie ze w torbie bylo jakies stare psie gowno. W tym momencie, co bylo do przewidzenia, stracilem w ich oczach sporo punktow. Na dodatek jak wziela ta torbe to teraz tych kluczy naprawde nie znajdziemy, bo byly obok torby!!!

Przez nastepne pol godziny wszyscy jestesmy znowu na kolanach i kopiemy ten piach… Wreszcie dziewczyna znalazla klucze! Bogu dzieki, bo juz bylem bliski placzu albo modlitwy.

Wsiadlem na ten kajak i poplynalem w gore rzeki, gdzie po zawroceniu spostrzeglem ze wszystko wyglada inaczj jak zawrocimy. Brzeg, fale, wiatr, slonce. A na pewno mozna przegapic jakac niebieska torbe…

*****

In 7 days I will be tying my bike to the top of the car and heading down South to Port Macquarie to do the Ironman Australia (insane distance consisting of  4k swim, 180k bike and 42k run – one after another, in less than 17hrs).

I don’t remember exactly how this relationship with triathlon started and how I got the idea of doing this really long and demanding endurance event. Long time ago, and we’re talking more than 20 years ago (yes), I got a letter from my brother (internet was not in popular use then), who was living in Chicago, about what he was doing and there was a mention of Chicago Triathlon that he just finished among other things. He was on top of his game in real estate, the market was good and his enthusiasm transpired through the pages.

Was that the beginning? Sibling rivalry?

I remember once visualising myself in the future and concluding that it would be good to be always in such a shape to run a marathon once a year, do a triathlon once in a while and continue with ocean kayaking. At that time my ability to swim, bike and run however was “limited” (it still is, but somehow I can cover longer distances) even though I could do those things.

Having this vague vision I started going to the pool and running regularly. I was also riding about 30kms on some weekends so I didn’t see the need to improve things there (!). Running was tough. My legs were not up to it and 5 kms was pretty much all I could do for a long while. I enjoyed it though. It felt good to consider myself a runner being surrounded by sedentary people who were afraid to get their butt out the door and enjoy any sort of phisical activity and would only be reminiscing on their young days when they could do such things.

In those days I had no idea that one day I would move to Chicago, do few Chicago Triathlons, Chicago Marathon and many other shorter races. My focus was on running the Gold Coast Marathon one day while for few years being just happy participacing in 10 km race that was a part of the Gold Coast Marathon event. I would have been happy if someone somehow then could have fast forwarded the time to reveal what was in store for me.

Many other things happened in the meantime as well, which would be another story, but now, after covering 6000 kms on the bike last year, over 1800 kms running (swimming volume is not worth mentioning, but I did swim 4km distance few times…) and having few days only to jumping in the water and doing Ironman Australia – it’s time to evaluate. Regardless of the outcome of that event, will I continue with triathlons? And why?

My thoughts are: why not leave the races to those who are actually good at it… For me entering an event like Ironman could be compared to Evel Knievel’s jumping over the Grand Canyon on the motocycle. A ridiculous dare. And once you do it, there’s no point doing it again. Sure there’s the benefit of motivation for the rest of the year, but the price is also high. Sleeping in when I feel like it, family time, work and fun things you want to do on weekends are some of the things you do without when you’re obsessed with long distance triathlons.

I could be quite happy going back to my old vision, running a marathon once a year, biking for fun in the mountains and kayaking. But in a way I feel a little sad. It has been few good years.

*****

P.S. Ironman Australia done!

As you reach Szklarska Poreba or Karpacz you are already in a different dimension. Things are not flat anymore to start, but there is also a feeling similar to that, you would have in a temple. These places are clean, people behave differently and you are inspired to go further. You are at the door of nature’s awesome monuments.

Whether you climb on foot, take a chairlift of ride the bike, at the end you end up on top and here there’s no single person who wouldn’t become somewhat reflective, if only for a moment. The cool wind, shrubs above the tree line, shimmering creeks, breathtaking view and cozy shelters are something that becomes a part of you forever.

I feel really fortunate that I did experience it at a young age, although I sure didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now. Those few recent trips left me richer and more focused. Some things that seemed important before really lost their weight. And some other ones started to grow.

Wroclaw, Poland.

3am – got up and couldn’t sleep any more. The flight from Australia 2 days ago that took more than 32hrs and time change made me tired, but unable to sleep properly. My brother Les was up and reading something. We talked for a while and at 4am he went back to sleep.

5am – the weather didn’t look so good. The weather report on the radio said the flood warning was in place(!). Very heavy rain was already flooding Austria and Czech Republic and was moving our way. So instead of doing the usual trail run I decided to run into the city to the cathedral. At least this way there was no mud under my recently cleaned shoes.

Moving the whole family to a new location is never easy. It involves a lot of stress from organizing accomodation, car, shipping the household goods you don’t want to part with and parting with a lot of things you can’t take with you. It also involves a lot of money (which increases the stress part), but that’s a different story.

We moved from Chicago to the Gold Coast Australia. Another country, another continent. Few friends have since asked me WHY THERE? And this is my attempt to answer that question.

Back in 1989 when I first came to Australia with my Australian wife, we arrived in Melbourne, stayed with her mother for a month or so there, then went to meet her father who lived on a farm few hours inland. Melbourne made a good impression on me, it is a huge city, a bit European in many ways with many nationalities cultivating their culture, but after Hawaii it was simply too cold. And so was the farm, being also exactly the opposite of everything we were used to so far. We bought a used, rusty Ford Falcon station wagon, loaded it and headed North.

Sydney. Much nicer weather, beautiful harbour and endless suburban sprawls with segregated nationalities that didn’t seem very welcoming, sorry. Not far from Sydney we stayed in Newcastle to meet another part of the family. I could almost see myself there, the town was the ‘right’ size, weather was fine, beaches close, but the heart just wasn’t there.

We drove further North, another 800 kms or so till we hit the Gold Coast… Well, here it was like the love of first sight! A stretch of modern beach towns for over 30 kms with just about everything you could ask for, except snow perhaps. For me crossing the Southport bridge, seeing the beautiful marina on the right (and I always had a thing for boats), canals everywhere, mountains on the left – did the trick.

I guess not many people have the luxury to choose a place to live like that and I feel very fortunate in this respect, although we were then very poor. Piss poor, as they used to say here. Our rusty Falcon just barely made the trip and for the first few months (yes…) we slept in a tent in a caravan park in Kirra. I am even a bit hesitant to write about it, because some things still hurt after all these years. One thing was sure then: there was no plan B.
I guess the emotions you go through tie you to a place, well… we sure got tied up alright.

Anyway. In choosing the place to live we were not looking for employment opportunities, but rather the living environment ‘in toto’.
At the risk of sounding arrogant: do you know how much do the elephants eat every day to maintain their huge bodies? A lot. An arrangement is made for them to find sufficient food which seems very difficult from our point of view. I’m not saying we shouldn’t worry about our jobs, but simply making an observation that an arrangement is made for us to have sufficient food and shelter, always.

On the Gold Coast jobs exist because many people from around the world want to come here either on holidays or permanently. Before we left for US 5 years ago, 1000 people were relocating here a week! Sure, not all stayed, but the numbers are huge.

So there, in a nutshell. And this time around we simply went back to our old stomping ground, good as gold, mate, good as gold.