The Journey So Far
Log Dated 28/05/2023
A long long time ago (the early 2000’s for those of you who don’t know what a cassette tape looks like) I was on a family trip to Scotland to visit my Grandparents. It was a pretty standard trip for us. We would drive up or jump on the train, take some day trips to brown sign sites, eat cake, drink tea, take photos and go home for a haggis supper.
This time however, my parents decided to take us to the Falkirk Wheel - an incredible piece of engineering and the most fascinating canal lock I have ever seen. It just so happens that on this particular day, the RYA (Royal Yachting Association) was having a promotional event and giving kids a sailing taster session in little bathtub boats called Optimists. Being the tree climbing, hill rolling, river wading child I was, I was desperate to have a go - and thus began my addiction to water sports.
Please now picture a retro style camcorder montage: learning to sail, racing, windsurfing, climbing, archery, becoming a teenager, rowing, going through high school, becoming an instructor, finishing school to teach full time. I was outdoors all the time, covered in bruises, cuts and scrapes - and absolutely loving life.
Unfortunately, around the time I started teaching seasonally, an announcement came that Hillingdon Outdoor Activities Centre (the place where I had spent the majority of my childhood having all these adventures and now worked) was due to be knocked down in order to make way for HS2. Everything was on hold for us, including professional advancement, so I started looking for something different.
Enter Ski Instructing.
I had only been skiing a couple of times before. Once as a very young child with my parents and once as a teenager with school. I joined EA Ski + Snowboard, with the intention of going to Big White in Canada for my first season in December 2017. In preparation for this, I took a 3 week trip to BC to visit family and spend some time in Whistler, where I would (hopefully) remember how to do this crazy sport. It was a disaster. My boots were destroying my feet, my mums old goggles fell apart and to top it all off I got stuck halfway down The Saddle with my boyfriend at the time trying to help by simply shouting “just turn!”
What could have been the final nail in the coffin, came when my visa application for Canada was being cut very fine. My rep and I decided - just to be safe - that I would go to Japan in December instead. Two days after we switched, my Canadian visa came through… sods law hey?
I had no idea at this point if taking the ski instructor course was the right decision, but I had made the commitment, so I was going to follow through. At least I knew that my teaching ability was up to scratch…
Fast forward to that winter: 10 days of intensive training (shoutout to Jules and Trent, I owe you so much) followed by the Level 1 exam which I barely scraped, into one of the most incredible 5 months of my life with Hakuba Snow Sports School in Nagano, Japan.
That was almost 7 years ago. Since then I have lived on 3 different continents, travelled to a multitude of places I never thought I would, and met some of the worlds most wonderful people.
COVID of course happened in amongst that, which isn’t a story I’ll tell just now, and with the loss of my mid 20’s to a global pandemic, I decided to set a new goal. By the time I am 30, I will have my Yachtmaster Ocean certificate, return to my first love, explore this planet in a way I dreamed about as a child, and share those adventures with the rest of the world in any way possible.
And I assume that’s why you’re here!
Captains Log is my way of sharing my outdoor adventures with you, snow and sea both, and I look forward to updating you about the next leg of this voyage!